by Peter Church
The Japanese occupation of South‐East Asia greatly reduced European prestige. Indeed, while historians differ as to the long‐term impact of the occupation in individual societies, there is general agreement that it ushered in the beginning of the end of European colonialism in the region. Japanese policies and actions clearly had an impact on individuals in Singapore. Apart from the Chinese, Indians, and Malays who died in prisons, in labour camps, or as a result of indiscriminate Japanese brutality, almost all who lived there suffered severe day‐to‐day hardships during the three‐and‐a‐half years of Japanese occupation. The deeper, long‐term impact is harder to assess. A legacy of distrust of Japan in Singapore and throughout South‐East Asia may well be the most significant consequence.
TOWARD INDEPENDENCE
Britain reoccupied Singapore in between August and September 1945. It was controlled by the British Military Administration until mid‐1946 and then handed back to the Colonial Office. Postwar British policy toward Singapore differed from that toward Malaya. It envisaged Malaya moving toward independence but was determined that political reform in Singapore should be carefully controlled, with a restricted goal of limited self‐government. There were three main reasons for this policy difference. First, continued direct control of Singapore was seen as vital to British commercial interests in South‐East Asia. Second, Singapore was a strategic naval base in the region. Third, Singapore's ethnic Chinese majority raised fears for British interests, not just in Singapore but also in Malaya. The outbreak of the Cold War in 1947 and Mao's defeat of the Chiang Kai‐Shek government in China in 1949 strengthened Britain's view of Singapore as potentially a communist fifth column in South‐East Asia. It was believed that an independent Singapore would quickly come under communist control and that Singapore would then be used as a springboard to subvert Western interests in Malaya, Indonesia, and elsewhere in South‐East Asia.
The success of the Malayan Communist Party (MCP) among Singapore workers in the immediate postwar years confirmed the British view of Singapore as inevitably a hotbed of Chinese communism unless strong colonial rule was maintained. The pro‐British Chinese and Indian elites were equally alarmed: communism threatened their interests as much as it did the interests of the British. The MCP launched its insurrection in Singapore and Malaya in 1948, resulting in a declaration of a State of Emergency, which was to last until 1960. The strength of communist‐controlled labour unions in the late 1940s and early 1950s and the MCP's insurrection were viewed in the context of growing pride amongst overseas Chinese in the achievements of the communist government in China. The victorious communists and the vanquished nationalists, who had withdrawn to Taiwan, competed vigorously in the 1950s for moral support from the overseas Chinese. Singapore was again a vital hub in the South‐East Asia campaign.
Limited self‐government was introduced into Singapore in 1955. In 1959, the People's Action Party (PAP) gained a majority of seats in the Legislative Assembly, beginning a dominance of Singapore politics continuing to the present day. Led by Lee Kuan Yew, a young Cambridge‐educated lawyer, the PAP was a party of a new English‐educated elite emerging in Singapore in the 1950s. Strongly influenced by European social‐democratic ideas, the PAP produced a blueprint for Singapore's development based on a strong state and state intervention in the economy to create a new industrialised Singapore. Lee and his fellow PAP leaders knew that their strongest opponents were the communists, who were operating through various legal and illegal structures and, in the early 1960s, most prominently through the Barisan Socialis party. The organisational structure of the PAP mirrored that of communist parties. Its democratic centralism placed effective control in the hands of a self‐selecting elite.
By the early 1960s, Britain was searching for a way to end its direct rule of Singapore while still safeguarding its strategic and commercial interests, which were seen as inextricably connected with preventing Singapore from going communist. The pressure for Singapore's independence was strong. In addition, Britain was faced with the problem of the Borneo states of Sabah and Sarawak. In an era of decolonisation, Britain had to find a solution to its colonial problems in Singapore and Borneo.
The creation of Malaysia seemed to solve all problems. Singapore, Sabah, and Sarawak would be amalgamated with Malaya to form a new state of Malaysia. The Chinese majority in Singapore would be balanced by Malay and other indigenous majorities in Malaya and the Borneo states. It was a neat political solution. It was also seen by both the British and the Singapore elite as a consummation of the strong economic interdependence that had developed between Malaya and Singapore over more than a century. Singapore would retain control over a number of crucial areas, including education and communications, in return for a lower proportion of seats in the new federal parliament of Malaysia than it was entitled to by weight of population. Malay sensibilities about dominance by ethnic Chinese appeared to be assuaged and at the same time the PAP ensured a status for Singapore far greater than that of a mere state government.
Malaysia was formed on September 16, 1963. Singapore separated from Malaysia in August 1965, becoming the independent Republic of Singapore. Formally, this parting of the ways was a mutual decision between the Malaysian federal government and the Singapore state government. In reality, Singapore was forced to leave. The two‐year marriage was an unhappy one. Malays increasingly feared that Singapore wanted to dominate Malaysia, and that the PAP was trying to join forces with the major ethnic‐Chinese opposition party in peninsular Malaya in order to gain a majority of the seats in the federal parliament. They feared changes to the constitution, which entrenched major privileges for the Malays. It was a highly emotional period, with interethnic typecasting abounding and with Malays fearing that “their” country was about to be taken over by “foreigners.”
Lee Kuan Yew was shattered by this parting. The accepted wisdom in Singapore was that its economy was so closely linked to that of peninsular Malaya that economic prosperity depended on these links to continue. Singapore feared that its economy was too small and too vulnerable to anti‐Chinese feelings among neighbouring Indonesians and Malays to stand alone. Today, Singapore is a major economic success story. Between independence in 1965 and the Asian economic crisis of 1997, its economy grew at an average of 9 percent per annum. Although growth rates have since slowed, and turned negative as a result of the global financial crisis in 2008–2009, the country's high reliance on global trade and sound economic management is the reason for the generally high standing of the PAP government among Singaporeans, despite complaints about its style and frequent disregard for Western‐style civil liberties.
Even before independence, Lee Kuan Yew's government determined that the economy had to undergo massive structural change very quickly if Singapore was to prosper. In under five decades, Singapore has moved from an essentially entrepot economy to a predominantly industrial and services‐based economy. The next decade will see Singapore consolidate its move into a post‐industrial phase, with most of its wealth generated by service industries, ranging from providing regional financial and high‐technology services to other South‐East Asian nations to manufacturing high‐technology products for a world market, utilising world's best practice. Hence, in 2001 Lee Kuan Yew, in his capacity as senior minister, urged Singapore to “remake itself” over the next two decades, to embrace further such industries as tourism, education, and health care.
The remarkable and sustained economic growth in post‐independence Singapore is partially explained by Singapore's strategic location at the crossroads of the ASEAN region. Until the Asian economic crisis of 1997, ASEAN countries had also experienced sustained high growth rates, to Singapore's advantage. As labour‐intensive industries have moved from Singapore to other ASEAN countries, they have been replaced by a regional reliance on Singapore for more technologically sophisticated products and services. There are other important factors behind Singapore's success. First, the PAP has brought strong, stable, and cor
ruption‐free government to Singapore. Above all, Singapore has been a model of planned development in every sphere. Second, through policies such as the creation of a Central Provident Fund, with Singaporean employers and employees compelled jointly to contribute a high percentage (compared with similar schemes in Western countries) of salaries to a pension fund, it has created a very high rate of national savings. Third, it has adopted social policies which have ensured that all Singaporeans have benefited from the economic growth. For example, when the PAP came to power in 1959 most Singaporeans lived in squalid housing. By the turn of the century Singapore had the highest homeownership rate in the world, thanks to the activities of the Housing Trust and the ability of people to fund mortgages by borrowing from their contributions to the Central Provident Fund. Fourth, it has developed an excellent comprehensive education system which has produced the skilled workers needed to sustain high rates of economic growth, and which places emphasis on vocational and applied skills without the bias toward rote learning evident in some other Asian countries with advanced economies.
Government in Singapore is far more intrusive than that experienced in Western societies. The PAP has controlled the political system to make it extremely difficult for an opposition party to challenge its power. It has used the Internal Security Act to arrest and imprison not only those who might be a threat to the state but many others who have challenged the power of the government. It had brought punitive defamation actions against dissenting opposition parliamentarians, which bankrupted them in the process, thus, according to the law, excluding them from the political process. It is a paternalistic and at times authoritarian government but, despite this, it does have popular legitimacy because of its delivery of clean government and its impressive social and economic achievements over five decades. Its continued popular mandate is evident in the fact that the PAP won a resounding victory in the most recent general election in 2015 in spite of the presence of more opposition parties. The death of Singapore's founding prime minster, Lee Kuan Yew, and the celebration of 50 years of independence in that same year also contributed in giving PAP a strong mandate.
Since independence, Singapore's government has been concerned to develop a Singaporean identity. In the first instance, this meant weaning Singaporeans away from too close an attachment to communist China. Language policy was a key part of this search for identity. In the 1960s, the emphasis was on the need for people to learn Malay and English, with government‐sponsored campaigns to learn a new Malay word each day. As Singapore's prosperity grew, as the economy became more internationalised and less dependent on Malaysia, and as China became not a threat but a source of pride due to its impressive economic development and growing influence on global security issues, policy shifted toward the promotion of Mandarin instead of regional dialects (although in 2008 the government admitted the promotion of Mandarin has not been the success it had hoped for). More recently the emphasis has moved back to ensuring the survival of regional dialects alongside Mandarin and English. If Singapore's elite was uncertain about its identity in the 1960s and 1970s—were they simply Chinese overseas or a genuine part of the region—by the 1980s they were far more confident about Singapore's future in the ASEAN region and, by the turn of the century, were supremely confident of their ability to continue to prosper in an increasingly global economy and within the strongly developing South‐East Asia region. Some commentators have talked of a “re‐sinofication,” not just of the Singaporeans but of ethnic Chinese communities throughout South‐East Asia, as they network with each other and continue to have a dominant role in national and regional economies.
In the new millennium, Singapore is by far the most prosperous nation in South‐East Asia (aside from the aberration of the tiny oil‐rich state of Brunei). It is a society full of contradictions. In many ways it is a modern Confucian state—always intrusive, mostly paternalistic, sometimes authoritarian, with a strong ideology of the people's duties toward the state. It is ruled by a close‐knit, meritocratic elite focused on the PAP. The state claims the right to be involved in all aspects of its people's lives: asserting the right to define family size and the nature of personal relationships, as well as to determine the structure of the economy. Thus, worried by a decline in the fertility rate of the most educated, mainly Chinese elite (brought about by the reluctance of ambitious young women to interrupt their careers), the government offers generous tax breaks and other incentives for women to have children. The state directly owns or controls large sections of the economy and, through its investment board, has shares in other Singaporean companies as well as overseas. Yet it is also the champion of free enterprise, welcoming foreign multinationals and nurturing its own multinational corporations in a competitive environment almost totally free of the corruption which bedevils other countries in the region. Currently, bilateral free‐trade agreements had been signed with the United States, Japan, China, India, Middle‐East countries, European Free Trade Association, Australia, and New Zealand. Singapore has an enviable record in providing low‐cost housing, high‐quality education, and extensive health care for all Singaporeans. Yet its social security net is highly conditional, insisting that individuals must work hard and stand on their own feet. It is a state which encourages aggressive economic activity, and rewards individual ability and achievement. Yet it is a puritan state, with a state‐controlled local media, censorship of foreign media, and a very public concern about moral pollution of the young from Western cultural influences. In matters of national security, restrictions have been further tightened since 2001 when a plot to launch suicide attacks by militants belonging to the regional Islamist terrorist organisation Jemaah Islamiah (JI) against a number of Singapore's critical infrastructure installations and embassies of foreign countries was uncovered. The government was highly embarrassed by the escape from custody in February 2008 of the leader of the JI network in Singapore, Mas Selamat Kastari. Kastari, an Indonesian‐born Singapore national, had been deported from Indonesia in 2003 and his escape slightly tarnished Singapore's reputation as being at the forefront of regional efforts to combat the threat from terrorism. With the cooperation of Malaysian police, Mas Selamat was recaptured in 2009.
Singapore's prosperity gives it a higher per‐capita income than many Western countries and although its geographic location may be less important in the global economy with the advent of the technological revolution, in regional terms it is still as important as ever. Singapore's enthusiastic participation in a growth triangle with Malaysia and Indonesia reflects its view of itself as the economic engine of the region.
The global financial crisis of 2008–09 and the subsequent decline in world growth rates caused serious problems for Singapore's long‐term development, due mainly to sound underlying economic fundamentals and a willingness by the government to address economic problems as they emerge rather than ignore or conceal them. Even so, the economy slipped into recession in 2008 as a result of the island's dependence upon international trade movements, in particular a sharp decline in exports to the United States and Europe. Although painful structural and fiscal adjustments have been necessary, Singapore's economic planners and the foreign investment community are not overly concerned by slowing growth rates compared with decades past as the island has achieved a level of economic maturity comparable to the West and thus it would be unrealistic to expect that the heady growth rates could be maintained in perpetuity. Goh Chok Tong was appointed leader in 1990 following Lee's decision to stand aside to effect a smooth leadership transition. This, Lee said, would reassure the business community and international investors, and ensure that long‐term political stability would lead to continued economic prosperity. But no one doubted that during the first few years of this transition the real power still lay with Lee, who became a senior minister without portfolio. In 1992, Goh was elevated to general secretary of the PAP, and by the late 1990s he was perceived as a confident, dedicated leader with a slightly more liberal outlook
than his predecessor.
In 2001, Goh nominated his deputy, Lee Hsien Loong, as his successor. Lee, the son of Lee Kuan Yew, became prime minister in August 2004, with Goh taking up Lee Kuan Yew's position as senior minister. Lee Kuan Yew himself became “Minister Mentor” and was believed to retain significant influence till his retirement in 2011. In 2015, Singaporeans were swept in a tumult of emotions when Lee Kuan Yew passed away. Braving heavy rains, thousands lined the streets along the funeral procession to bid him goodbye. Having improved their electoral vote to almost 70 percent in the 2015 election, Lee Hsien Loong has taken steps to ensure that PAP stays in power for many years to come. Leadership succession is also a priority in his agenda as he seeks able political leaders to fill key positions, and a new prime minister is expected to take over the reins in the next election due by 2021.
Not only will Singapore have a new prime minister in the near future, but there are also likely changes to the way Singapore elects its president with the next presidential election due by August 2017. In September 2016, a constitutional commission review has recommended some important possible changes to take into account the growth of the economy and the national reserves. It has recommended candidates from the private sector, now required to be chairman or CEO of a company with at least S$100 million in paid‐up capital, be changed to a senior executive of a company with at least S$500 million in shareholders' equity, to be eligible to contest. This will apparently significantly increase the number of potential candidates. More importantly, the commission has recommended that if no president has been elected from the three racial groups—Chinese, Malay, or Indian and others—for five terms, then the next election will be reserved for a person from that racial group. At the same time, it has recommended that the size and structure of the Council of Presidential Advisers be strengthened, and be consulted on all fiscal matters concerning the reserves, among other changes. Whether some or all of these proposed changes will be accepted by the government remains to be seen and, if so, whether the changes will be in place for the 2017 presidential election.
