by Ian Buruma
Still, after hacking one’s way through these knotty thickets, the least one can say is that Fallows is right about one thing: laissez-faire economics is not favored by most East Asian governments. But this still doesn’t mean that an Asian System exists, except in the minds of Southeast Asian demagogues and Western commentators who think that they are on to something. However, even if we assume, for the sake of argument, that Fallows is right, that there is such a thing as a specifically Asian System combining mercantilism with authoritarian politics, does this disprove the main case for classical economics? Ricardo and Smith said that nations benefit from keeping their markets open, even if others keep their markets closed. Consumers benefit from cheaper products, and competition keeps producers efficient and quality-conscious. Fallows does not believe this. He thinks it is a dogma that blinds the Anglo-Saxon world to the reality of the East. This is why he thinks the U.S. should devise an industrial strategy, if it is not to follow Britain’s giggling slide into the sea.
Britain is held up by Fallows as an example of neoclassical economic folly. In his reasoning, Britain benefited from mercantilism during its rise to preeminent power. But once it reached its place on top of the world, it began to preach the gospel of St. Adam, even as other nations, such as Germany and the U.S., broke St. Adam’s rules to get ahead. It may be that some powers rose by breaking the rules of free trade: America yesterday, Japan today. But does sticking to those rules also explain the decline of others? I think not. Britain’s decline was the result of many things. After the war, the statist, decidedly un-Adam Smithian Labour-government policy of choking the demand for automobiles at home in order to sell as many as possible abroad did not help. Here was an example of tightening people’s belts for the nation, and it went wrong. Eventually, complacent management, bad labor relations and lack of quality and innovation almost killed the automobile industry in Britain. Only Japanese investment and expertise, invited by Mrs. Thatcher’s dogmatically free-trading government, injected some flickers of life into the dying patient.
What, then, are Fallows’s proposals to keep America alive and strong? He does not think the Asian System can be successfully emulated in the U.S., for, as he has pointed out, East and West do not share the same cultural principles. And besides, as Nakatani Iwao, a Japanese economics professor, told Fallows, “If the entire world were to adopt the Japanese system, the world’s markets would be closed and Japan’s economic expansion would be stopped right there.” This, clearly, is not a price worth paying for the gratification of seeing the Japanese stopped in their tracks.
But what, then? According to Fallows, “the adaptability of Western societies will depend on whether they can bring themselves, as did the nineteenth-century Japanese, to learn everything they can about powerful new systems and change their own practices where necessary.” Yes, but how? Well, by being “strong,” by being “less dependent on Japan,” by having an education system that helps to define “a national interest that is worth some sacrifice of immediate personal comfort or gain,” by devising an industrial policy of “protection with conditions.” This is perfectly feasible, he says, for in fact, throughout the 1980s, “the United States repeatedly ‘broke’ the rules of free trade by unilaterally imposing tariffs, under the dreaded Section 301 of its trade law, against nations whose markets it considered closed.” So, if the answer is not to emulate his idea of an Asian System, the system Fallows proposes bears a striking resemblance to it. It is, if you like, an Anglo-Saxon version.
There is a more liberal alternative to this. Instead of the U.S. becoming less dependent on Japan, Japan should become less dependent, for its security, on America. For, to quote Fallows once more, this Japanese dependence is “the fundamental source of the endless ‘trade frictions.’ ” As far as trade and industry are concerned, mutual dependence should be fostered, instead of being discouraged in the name of national strength. Imposing special tariffs, import quotas and other forms of bullying on Japan will only perpetuate the bureaucratic management of the Japanese economy, which harms consumers and hinders the efforts of Japanese politicians to liberalize their system. The way to deal with Japan, and other countries in East Asia, is to encourage open, liberal politics and free-market economies, not by confrontation and “protection with conditions,” but by demonstrating that America’s economy can still be the richest and most successful in the world, precisely by keeping its markets open.
But if one believes, with the neo-Orientalists, that authoritarianism and aggressive nationalism are natural and permanent features of East Asian societies, and if one believes that these are “Eastern values,” and that to assume otherwise is to indulge in imperialist arrogance, well, then, I’m afraid the liberal alternative is not even an option.
1994
THE NANNY STATE OF ASIA
I’m no more a Chinese than President Kennedy was an Irishman.
Lee Kuan Yew in America, 1967
It could have ended like any number of squalid murder cases in Southeast Asia—with an execution and no fuss. In 1991 a Filipina maid called Mrs. Maga was found dead in Singapore with her ward, the small son of a Singaporean-Chinese family. Another Filipina maid was accused of the murders. She was arrested. She confessed. And in March 1995, she was hanged. So ended the life of Flor Contemplacion, one of 100,000 women and girls imported to Singapore from poor countries around the region. Some are sent by local contractors, others are attracted by ads like this, in the Straits Times of Singapore: “Filipino. Hardworking. No day off.”
But the case turned out to be more complicated. Two weeks before Mrs. Contemplacion’s execution, Filipinos protested against the verdict. There were rumors that she had been tortured by the police, that she might be innocent. Demonstrations were held in Manila. The Singaporean flag was burnt. The Philippine government asked for a stay of execution, so that possible new evidence could be examined. The request was dismissed, and the execution went ahead on schedule. Protest escalated in the Philippines. President Ramos, who was running for election, had lost face, so he recalled his ambassador, and relations between the two countries went sour.
A Philippine commission was appointed to review the evidence. Mrs. Maga, it was alleged, had sustained injuries that a person of Mrs. Contemplacion’s size could not have inflicted. The victim’s body was dug up from its grave, and the commission concluded that she had been severely maltreated; bones appeared to be broken. Singaporean doctors, however, claimed that those injuries had been suffered long before the victim was strangled. Relations grew worse still. The Singapore Democratic Party, one of two tiny opposition parties, sent a letter to President Ramos, asking him to consider mediation. The other opposition party, the Workers’ Party, stated that the commission’s findings put the Singapore judicial system on trial.
In May I attended a session of the Singapore parliament. I had been told that questions would be asked about the handling of the Contemplacion case. Walking up the stairs to the main chamber, I noticed a piece of masonry (a rose) from the palace of Westminster hanging on the wall. It had been donated by the Queen. Like the fine old Singapore Cricket Club, the neoclassical law courts, and the statue of Singapore’s British founder, Sir Stamford Raffles, all within five minutes’ walk, the parliament showed a solid sense of tradition. The opposition, including members nominated by professional associations, sat on one side of the House, and members of the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) on the other. The language was in the best parliamentary tradition: “Mr. Speaker, a supplementary question, if you please, Sir …”
What followed, however, was not so much a debate as a piece of parliamentary theater. Two nominated MPs asked the government to explain its refusal to delay Mrs. Contemplacion’s execution. The Foreign Affairs and Law Minister S. Jayakumar, who had been chatting with another minister all through the question, answered by giving a long speech about the excellence of Singapore’s judiciary and the soundness of the government’s decision. It was all done with the utmost decoru
m. If anything, there was a stale air of boredom in the House. There was not even a whisper of “hear, hear,” let alone a throaty roar of dissent.
The next day, a Friday, things took a nastier turn. The members of the SDP and WP were taken to task by the Home Affairs Minister, Wong Kan Seng, for aiding “an attempt by outsiders to undermine the Singapore judiciary.” A former secretary general of the SDP, ousted by the present leader, Dr. Chee Soon Juan, expressed his disaffection with his old party by stating: “All Singaporeans, whether they are supporters of the ruling party or the opposition party, have to be loyal to Singapore.… And when there is a dispute with a foreign country, they must close ranks with the ruling party and all Singaporeans and stand united. This is the message that all Singaporeans must give to all the people of other countries.”
These words were quoted with approval in the Straits Times. The banner headline in Saturday’s paper read: JUDICIARY HERE CAN STAND UP TO SCRUTINY. Monday’s headline said: MAID ISSUE: GOV’T THANKS S’POREANS. The acting Community Development Minister, Abdullah Tarmugi, expressed his gratitude for the public’s support, and added that the “maid case” had made the nation “more cohesive.”
Now, I do not know whether Mrs. Contemplacion was guilty or not. The reaction from the Philippines may simply have been an emotional outburst against the humiliation of being the main provider of cut-price maids for richer countries in the region. But there was something disturbing about these proceedings. Here was a British-style parliament, a democratic institution, being used to conflate patriotism with loyalty to a party which has never been out of power since independence in 1965. The merest hint of criticism was being treated as a kind of treason. The forms of Westminster, based on political contention, were made to serve the aim of authoritarian rule, to impose absolute unity. But what was most Singaporean of all was the sensitivity to any suggestion that the institutions left behind by the British Empire may now be in less than perfect order.
And such suggestions are being made, by Singaporean dissidents and, recently, by the Association of the Bar of the City of New York. Its report on international human rights concluded that “law no longer restrains [Singapore] government actions or protects individual rights.” It went on to say that this “campaign against the rule of law is part of a broader effort by the current Singapore government to secure its hold on power. It parallels a similarly motivated effort to strangle the independent institutions of civil society and thus prevent the emergence of an effective and organized opposition.”
Since the early 1990s Singaporean officials, especially the former prime minister, now Special Minister (SM), Lee Kuan Yew, have been promoting their brand of authoritarian politics as “the Asian Way.” So-called Asian values, such as—to quote a 1991 Singapore government White Paper—“nation before community and society above self,” and “consensus above contention,” enforced by firm paternalistic government, have resulted in a vaunted combination of economic progress and social discipline. With its glittering high rise skyline, spotless streets, multinational high-tech industrial parks, rocketing GDP and obedient population, Singapore looks like the living proof that authoritarianism works, the dream of every strongman in Asia and beyond.
One might wonder why spokesmen from tiny Singapore, with its peculiar colonial history, have become the exponents of Asian values. Economic success is not the only explanation. Both the tinyness and the colonial background have much to do with it. It is in new, insecure, racially mixed states, such as Malaysia and Singapore, that you most often hear people talk about Asia, or Asian values, or the Asian Way. Indeed, the phrase “Asian values” only really makes sense in English. In Chinese, Malay or Hindi, it would sound odd. Chinese think of themselves as Chinese, and Indians as Indians (or Tamils, or Punjabis). Asia, as a cultural concept, is an official invention to bridge vastly different ethnic populations living in former British colonies. The “Asian” is a kind of sales gimmick, used for political and commercial public relations. The Japanese promoted a Pan-Asian identity during World War II in their effort to develop a broad front against the British, the Americans and the Dutch.
Promoters of the Asian Way blend culture and politics in a way that is most convenient for political propaganda. George Yeo, Singapore’s Information Minister, explained why Singaporeans cannot be allowed to have satellite dishes, which would enable them to choose foreign cable television channels: “We must preserve our own sense of place, self and community.” What did he mean, exactly? Was he worried that decadent Western values would corrupt an Asian sense of self, or that more choice of information would make it harder to impose political censorship? Of course, if he believes that Singapore’s sense of self, place and community is embodied by the PAP government, the question becomes redundant, for then political and cultural identity are the same. This is the “core value,” to use another favorite Singaporean government phrase, of every totalitarian system: you obey your leaders without question, because you are Chinese, or German, or Asian.
Last April a conference was held in Kuala Lumpur. The editors of English-language newspapers in East and Southeast Asia spoke about their common concerns. One of the speakers, Florian Coulmas, who teaches linguistics at Chuo University in Tokyo, pointed out that the desire for a common Asian perspective was “most popular among newspaper men from countries where the press is most firmly under government control.” Coulmas also pointed out why: “Instead of allowing the issue of free speech to disturb the spirit of Asian community, the real or alleged differences between Western and Asian views of Asia are highlighted. Rather than decrying censorship, the dependence on the three big Western news agencies, AP, Reuters, and AFP, is portrayed as the greatest evil.”
The first thing that strikes a visitor to Singapore is how Western it looks in comparison to most other cities in Asia. At the beginning of my stay, I had dinner with the son of a former Singapore government official. He was of Indian ancestry. His first language was English. And he was highly educated, partly in America. To save him from more trouble—he has already lost his job as a journalist for writing something mildly critical of the government; old friends no longer speak to him; he is a marked man—I shall not name him. We had Chinese noodles at an open-air restaurant. We gazed at the glass and chrome city across the bay, which could have been a picture on one of those visionary billboards you see in developing countries, showing the glorious future. “There is nothing Asian about Singapore,” he sighed. “It is the most westernized country in Asia … but also the least free.”
As is the case in all newly rich societies, culture in Singapore is less a matter of art than of lifestyle. The Singapore lifestyle is marked by Western and Japanese brand names: Swiss watches, Hollywood soap operas, American fast food, European fashions, Japanese cars, international Muzak. The ideal Singapore lifestyle can be discerned from newspaper advertisements for expensive real estate: “Gentle Villas: A Lifetime of Luxury … every inch a measure of the success you have earned.” The bungalows in Gentle Villas are grand versions of European colonial architecture, with shades of southern California: “Finely proportioned windows and an exquisite Corinthian front door grace the elegant exterior.… The eternal beauty of marble in the master and guest bathrooms. Bedrooms and staircases furnished with parquet flooring. And kitchens which are tiled with top-quality Italian ceramics.… And a wireless remote control autogate guards your residence.”
Singaporeans listen to Michael Jackson songs and read Sidney Sheldon novels or books on how to succeed in business. All this seems tame enough. Yet the government is worried. For Singaporeans, being highly computer literate, are also plugged into the Internet. Some have used this as an opportunity to express critical opinions. Some have even made abusive remarks about the SM. There is a group on the Internet known as “soc.culture.singapore,” which provides a forum for uncensored information about Singapore. The Information Minister has voiced his alarm. The Singapore Broadcasting Authority (SBA) will be used to police the electro
nic airwaves, he promised. But he added that the “SBA cannot police on its own without the support and cooperation of members of the Singapore cyberspace community.” He has told Singaporeans to alert “each other and the SBA” if they should come across “pornographic or incendiary broadcasts.”
Self-censorship is part of the Singapore lifestyle. The National Arts Council is in charge of making sure that theater plays do not “erode the core moral values of society (that is, promote permissive lifestyles like homosexuality)” or “subvert national security and stability.” Liew Chin Choy, the director of NAC, said that theater groups know “the onus is on them to exercise self-censorship responsibly.” However, some theater groups have said they feel more comfortable leaving things to government censors. As the representative of one group called Sriwana put it: “If we go through them, they will take care of things. Then we can be on the safe side.”
In 1987 a twenty-eight-year-old amateur dramatist called Wong Souk Yee found herself on the unsafe side. She had written satirical skits about the Singapore lifestyle, including the treatment of Filipina maids, for a theater group called Third Stage. She was jailed, together with a number of young lawyers and professionals, for being part of a “communist front” and trying “to reach out to and radicalize the public.”
This summer Singapore CableVision (SCV) concluded a deal with CNN and the Turner Network Television & Cartoon Network. Henceforth Singaporeans will be able to watch CNN news, old Hollywood movies and Disney cartoons, as the SCV chairman put it, “in the comfort of their homes.” I attended a party celebrating this event. It was held at the Hyatt Regency. CNN executives wearing Mickey Mouse ties paid tribute to their “Singaporean friends.” Waitresses offered up glasses of Coca-Cola and 7UP on silver trays. I left early, but not before seeing the CNN representative and the SCV chairman waving at us in the company of two grown men dressed up as Tom and Jerry.
