Malaysia's Chinese dailies are fighting a bitter battle for readership. The big boys - Nanyang Siang Pau, China Press and Sin Chew Jit Poh - have warned news-vendors against selling the Oriental Daily News. They're also attacking the new paper in their editorials. A battle is being waged at Malaysian newsstands and in the editorial pages of Malaysia's Chinese newspapers. When Oriental Daily News rolled off the presses for the first time on New Year's Day, it unleashed a fierce fight for the lucrative but shrinking Chinese newspaper market. Its more established rivals have gone so far as to stop the daily from even reaching newsstands, from threatening Chinese news-vendors to attacking the fledgling newspaper in their editorials, claimed officials from the new daily. Oriental Daily News has even been forced to engage Indian news-vendors, who traditionally distribute English and Malay dailies, to sell the newspaper to Chinese readers, who are clamouring for an alternative to the perceived one-sided establishment stand of existing dailies. 'We have no choice,' a senior journalist at the new paper told The Straits Times. 'Chinese news-vendors traditionally sell Chinese dailies. But the vendors are being threatened against selling our paper. 'What the big boys are doing is taking away the freedom of choice for Malaysian Chinese readers.' He said rival newspapers had threatened and pressured Chinese news-vendors from distributing or even displaying the new daily. On their part, the big boys - Nanyang Siang Pau, China Press and Sin Chew Jit Poh, owned or controlled by companies linked to the Malaysian Chinese Association - have hit back in editorials against Oriental Daily News. They did not deny asking affiliated Chinese vendors not to distribute the paper. And they criticised it for allegedly putting on the front of being a weak and small competitor, in an attempt to court public sympathy and support in the continuing media war. Oriental Daily News is owned by the KTS group, a giant timber concern controlled by Sarawak tycoon Lau Hui Kang. Datuk Seri Lau also publishes two other newspapers in the East Malaysian state - the Chinese language See Hua Daily News and the English and Malay language mix Borneo Post. Government critics here see the emergence of the new daily as an alternative choice for the Chinese community. But a glance through the new daily reveals little difference from other Chinese dailies, with a general obsession for tawdry, lurid and sensational stories, the daily diet of the Chinese reader. One senior executive from Nanyang Siang Pau wrote in an article last week: 'Nanyang and our sister publication China Press have been severely hit after a good number of our journalists were pinched by the new daily.' In a separate editorial, the newspaper said: 'We have a very small market with intense competition. 'Previously there were nine Chinese dailies. Now only five remain.' An additional newspaper would make it that much harder for everyone to survive, the newspaper argued, pointing out that 'it is no longer a matter of profit but a matter of survival'. Sin Chew is the top selling Chinese newspaper with a daily circulation of close to 400,000, followed closely by China Press and Nanyang Siang Pau. While the advertising dollar remains lucrative because of the relatively strong buying power of the Chinese, circulation is dropping as an increasing number of its readers, especially those educated overseas, are choosing English dailies.