Singapore and Asia - Celebrating Globalisation and an Emerging Post-Modern Asian Civilisation

By Thiow Kong Ti and Edwards SW Ti

Singapore and Asia- Celebrating Globalisation and an Emerging Post-modern Asian Civilisation TK Ti and Edward SE Ti

This book examines the history of the global economy and how cultural values have empowered the rapid emergence of Singapore and East Asia.

A review of the major world civilizations recounts Western hegemony since the 16th century. With legacies from Classical Mediterranean, Islamic Abbasid and Christian scholasticism, Western civilization created the modern world, pushing the borders of techno-science, rule of law, democracy and human rights.

Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, the greatest impact of global modernization has been in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong Singapore and China. These East Asian countries all share a Confucian heritage of hard work ethics, thrift, love of learning and respect for benign authority. Although democracy has had a lukewarm reception, there has been whole-hearted embrace of techno-science and the globalized economy.

Singapore, a miniscule island state fighting for survival following its expulsion from Malaysia in 1965, showcases how uninterrupted innovative governance and modernization has created an efficient, livable and global port-city, top financial center and host to the worlds largest conglomerate of Multinational Corporations. There is expectation that current research investment would transform Singapore into a mature knowledge economy.

In addition to Singapores openness and welcome of global talents and workers, committed governance has achieved rule of law, control of crime and corruption, meritocracy in political and public appointments, trade union support, and racial and religious harmony. Social support, which continues to be enhanced, is not by way of hand-outs but as subsidies in education, healthcare, and home ownership.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Asian values was proposed to be driving the emergence of Japan and the Asian tigers. With the current awesome rise of China challenging the world order, it seems prudent to resume the conversation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing Singapore
• Release date: Apr 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781482890013

Thiow Kong Ti

TK TI, a surgeon, academic and educator and his son Edward, a lawyer are descendents of poor Chinese immigrants, who in the early 1900s, ventured to British Malaya and became pioneers in the then newly created rubber and tin economy. Straddling across civilizations and in search of identity, the authors have finally found it crystallized in the process of writing this book. As Singapore citizens, they are a part of an emerging post-modern Asian civilization. Having benefitted from globalization and a fusion of the world’s major civilizations, the present authors wish to share their experience and world view with readers everywhere.

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Copyright © 2014 by TK TI AND EDWARD SW TI.

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Contents

Preface

Introduction

PART ONE

Globalisation Today

1 Global Singapore

2 The Changing Global Economy

3 Financial Management Makes or Breaks Economies

4 The Threat of Climate Change

PART TWO

Globalisation and Changing World Civilisations

1 The Quantum Leap of Western Civilisation

2 Imperialism Kick-starts Globalisation

3 Impact of Globalisation on Asian Civilisations

PART THREE

Singapore Celebrates Globalisation and an Emerging Postmodern Asian Civilisation

Prelude—Singapore as Part of British Malaya

PART FOUR

Building a Nation in a Globalised World

1 The Magic Wand of the People’s Action Party

2 International Relations and National Security

PART FIVE

Wealth Creation through Globalisation

1 Climbing the Global Economic Ladder

2 Towards a Knowledge-based Economy

3 Money Matters

PART SIX

Building Human and Social Capital

1 Singapore Workforce and Welfare

2 The Relentless Pursuit of Education

3 Keeping Singapore Healthy and More

4 A Decent Home for Everyone

PART SEVEN

Enhancing Liveability

1 Architecture and Urban Design

2 Awakening of the Arts

3 Night Life and Gaming

4 A Sports Hub

5 The Tropical Outdoors

Summing Up—Singapore and East Asia—Celebrating Globalisation and Emergence of a Postmodern Asian Civilisation

To

Linda, Ei, Yan & Daphne

Preface

The present authors are descendents of poor Chinese immigrants, who in the early 1900s, ventured into British Malaya and became pioneers in the then newly established rubber and tin economy. Straddling across civilisations and in search of identity, the authors, who are now Singapore citizens, have finally found it crystallised in the process of writing this book. They are a new breed of global citizens benefitting from globalisation and a fusion of the world’s major civilisations. Singapore together with Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China is on tract in the evolution of a vibrant and stable postmodern Asian civilisation.

The present authors have lived in Singapore through this exciting period of change in the birth and growth of a new nation. Edward, a lawyer by training, in many ways represents the new generation of Singaporeans with a global outlook. Born and raised in an era of relative prosperity, and spared of the traumatic uncertainties of early years of independent Singapore, Edward is of the opinion that many under thirties view Singapore as perhaps the default and not necessarily the only home. Singapore’s excellent education system may well be a double-edged sword from the state’s perspective; it gives the brightest amongst her the mobility not only to move up within Singapore’s social strata but also to play, work, and live in anywhere around the world.

Proponents of Singapore as ‘home always’ point towards our low crime rate, peace and security, race-blind meritocracy, good living standards, and an excellent city to raise a family. Detractors on the other hand may highlight Singapore’s pressure-cooker environment where persons who do not fit her cookie cutter mould are often left in the dust. From the cradle, in the chase for paper qualifications, to the grave, in working life and planning to retire, pragmatic Singapore’s policies seem to suggest that it has no choice but to look at what each citizen or worker can give to the whole, rather than the more socialist view of many advanced countries—what the whole can give to the individual.

Exorbitant costs of living particularly in housing and cars may also be yet another reason why some young Singaporeans look for their greener pastures. National service, whilst certainly defensible at the state level, may also be another consideration why the younger generation feels that they ought not to be circumscribed by something as mutable as citizenship. Concurrently, the government mindset appears to be evolving as its leaders come to the realisation that the city-state and its people that they preside over is not what it used to be. Whilst fundamental issues of housing and vehicle prices may be constrained by our physical limitations, the promotion of the arts and Singapore’s night life may go some way towards buffering brain-drain and perhaps attracting new foreign talent.

At the end of the day, however, as Singapore becomes a truly global city, it like all other global cities must stay competitive to keep the best and brightest. While J F Kennedy’s oft quoted words of ‘Think not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country’ is no doubt a beautiful social ideal, it seems that more and more young Singaporeans realise that as much as they need the state, the state needs them, perhaps even more so.

TK, Edward’s father, has lived half his life in Singapore. Born a grandson of Chinese immigrants just before the Japanese occupation of Malaya, there remain memories of the family moving into a log house in a rubber estate to eke a living away from the Japanese invaders. The joy of British ‘liberation’ was temporary, as this was soon followed by the armed struggle of communist ‘bandits’. A particularly traumatic experience was witnessing the uncontrollable anguish of a young mother with a brood of seven children at the funeral of the father, who had been shot dead in an ambush as he visited his rubber smallholding. The dead Chinese man had been a ‘running dog’ in not collaborating with the ‘freedom struggle’.

It was just as chilling the day the British High Commissioner was shot dead in an ambush fifteen miles away from TK’s home. The colonial response was to institute military rule and incarcerate the rural population in fenced-up, countrywide, ‘new villages’. In depriving food supply to the communist insurgents, the back of the communist uprising was broken.

Though colonial rule had a downside, its modernising influence was a winner. This included some good English-medium schools, where in addition to cricket, rugby, and Shakespeare, the science laboratory was a harbinger of modernity. During his formative years at the Victoria Institution in Kuala Lumpur, T.K. was deeply inspired by the inquiring approach and analytical thinking in chemistry as taught by S. Gurnell, a British teacher in the Malayan Education Service.

The importance of having a science-based education was instilled in TK by his father, Ti Cheng Toh (C T Cheng), who together with his wife (Wong Ko Mee) had studied Arts at the Chi Nan University in Shanghai in the 1930s when China was a victim of European and Japanese imperialism. That experience could well have changed his world view on Chinese civilisation and the absolute need for modernisation. He was thus well ahead of his time in making a strong case to his seven children—Chor, Kok, TK, Kiap, Hee, Yik and Kim—and to many more nephews and nieces on the importance of university education, especially in the sciences. As a result Chor, Kok and three cousins were enrolled in a boarding school in Australia, with recommendations from a family friend, an Australian accountant at the Raub Australian Gold Mine.

CT Cheng was also ahead of his time in identifying himself as a Malayan with a cosmopolitan, ‘colour-blind’ outlook. Some of his best friends were Indians and Malays. We lived in an English-style bungalow, conversing in English as he sipped Scottish whiskey and water and ate South Indian curry. Father and Mother were secular, retaining only the practice of Confucian filial piety and thrift.

As a medical student in Singapore, TK has vivid memories of the election campaigns at Hong Lim field, where the huge crowds were mesmerised by the rhetoric in English, Malay, Mandarin, and Hokkien made by Lee Kuan Yew, Ong Eng Guan, Rajaratnam, and other ‘men in white’. Electoral support for the PAP grew rapidly, evident in the increasing size of the crowd, the thunderous applause, and the enthusiasm of the ‘Merdeka (freedom) salute’. Singapore peoples were clearly excited at their new dawn.

Yet there were hiccups. An early dent in self-confidence came when Prime Minister Lee was captured on television, choking with disappointment as he announced the separation of Singapore from Malaysia. The much touted slogan of ‘a Malaysian Malaysia’ had not gone down well across the causeway. Would the tiny island state of two million survive?

A professorial appointment at the National University of Singapore brought TK back to Singapore in 1979 to work as a consultant surgeon at the Singapore General Hospital (SGH). It was initially a cultural shock of disappointment as time appeared to have stood still since he was a medical student at SGH in 1960-1963. If anything, the overcrowding of patients had worsened, with extra beds for emergency admissions sardine packing the ward aisle and spreading into the corridors. Ward instruments were worn out with age, syringes and needles recycled. Waiting list for surgery was weeks and for a radiological examination such as a Barium meal, months.

What a change it has been since then, with continual creation of new hospitals with state-of-the-art facilities and research centres. Health has become an expanding service industry whilst research and manufacture of biomedical goods is becoming a pillar of Singapore’s growing knowledge economy.

Just as remarkable have been changes brought on by globalisation in neighbouring countries in East, South, and Southeast Asia. It has perhaps not been coincidental that most rapid progress has been made in Singapore and other East Asian countries where there has been modernisation of people with a Confucian legacy. Grossly expanded by the entry of 1.32 billion Chinese during the past three decades, the East Asian economy is beginning to threaten the supremacy of the West. Globalisation, in promoting the fusion of civilisations, is facilitating the emergence of a postmodern Asian civilisation.

In the writing of this book, the present authors’ life experience in Singapore and Malaya, travels in Asia together with study and research stints in Europe and the USA have been fortified by references in the English language in the literature, books, and the media. In the current very rapidly changing world, the media has been an invaluable source of updated information and opinions.

Amongst the references made, the authors have found the analytical approach in J. M. Robert’s global review of History of the World¹ particularly apt. Much of the details and some perspectives on world history have been gleaned from Robert’s acclaimed book. Memoir of Lee Kuan Yew From the Third World to First, The Singapore Story: 1965-2000,² a frank account of the shaping of Singapore into a global city, has been inspirational and an important source of material. Amongst the books on globalisation, Friedman’s The World Is Flat³ triggered the challenge of writing the present book from an Asian and Singapore perspective.

Our book is ambitious in attempting to present a bird’s eye view of the history of world civilisations and how it has been shaped by the integrating global economy. As a small island state completely dependent and rapidly changed for the better by globalisation, cosmopolitan Singapore is a veritable living social laboratory, yielding clues in ‘best practice’ for successful globalisation and modernity.

The views expressed in this book, a perspective of two apolitical citizens in Singapore, are entirely personal.

Singapore and East Asia—Celebrating Globalisation and an Emerging Postmodern Asian Civilisation

Introduction

In response to pronouncements of a twenty-first Asian century, Clinton recently asserted that the twenty-first century would be ‘America’s Pacific Century’ just as the twentieth was America’s Atlantic century.⁴ Unquestionably, America had been a worthy successor to the European nineteenth century, but has the super power floundered somewhat since?

As to Asian expectations, performance in the global economy during the past several decades has renewed Asian confidence. Until the eighteenth century, China and India had been the world’s two largest economies.

Parts One and Two chronicle the history and development of the major world civilisations. Western civilisation sprinted ahead during the past five centuries. The Enlightenment, the age of Reason, and the control of nature through the mastery of science paved the way towards the modern industrial world and a global economy.

In stagnating for centuries, Asians paid dearly at the feet of Western hegemony. Nevertheless, through the embrace of techno-science whilst retaining traditional values, Asians are now fast catching up. East Asians, in particular, have happily discovered that practicing their cultural heritage of Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism has been to their advantage not only in the global economy but also in social stability. This thesis has been reinforced by Communist China’s phenomenal success in the global economy during the past three decades.

At the same time, East Asia has found cultural consonance with the philosophy of constructive postmodernism. This has been a movement in the West, which questions the precepts of modernism, its materialism and lack of spirituality, its failure to achieve harmony in society and amongst nations, and its excessive exploitation of Mother Nature. Constructive postmodernism movement has endorsed the European Union and placed its biggest hope in the harmonious rise of Marxist China.

Whilst Parts One and Two discuss the inter-relationship between civilisation characteristics and success at the global economy, Parts Three to Seven of the book present a detailed case study on global champion Singapore. Initially thought too small to exist as a nation, Singapore has surprised in reaching the ranks of a global city well within a lifespan.

Singapore’s success has been due to its ability to adopt an unusually successful mix of Western and Asian qualities and values. Western ideas are constantly sought after but are only implemented after vetting or with modifications to suit local needs.

Importantly, Asian respect for benign authority explains Singapore’s support for the People’s Action Party (PAP) government since its independence. For pragmatic Singaporeans, it has been the quality of governance and the political will to succeed that really matters. Indeed, there would not have been a global Singapore had there been no PAP.

In its experimentation of politics, governance, social and sustainable city development, arguably Singapore has shown a postmodernist spirit. Lessons from Singapore could help the shaping of a postmodern civilisation in East Asia.

Part One

Globalisation Today

A few million cosmopolitan Asians now live well in the ‘little red dot’⁵ of a newly created nation not easily located on a world map. Apart from its natural deep sea harbour and its strategic location at the Straits of Malacca, Singapore is devoid of resources. This happy fate would have been unthinkable as Lee Kuan Yew wept when Singapore was literally expelled from Malaysia in 1963. Yet the impossible dream has materialised. It had required an unusually effective mix of political will, a compliant multi-ethnic Asian population with a British colonial past, and just as importantly an American-led capitalist economy hungry for expansion into Asia. Within decades, Singapore has been able to build up human and social capital and maximise its strategic port to become the seventh amongst the global cities.

Unlike pre-war globalisation, which was largely a tale of European expansion and colonial exploitation, American-led post-war globalisation on a flatter playing field is no longer a zero-sum game but has brought hundreds of millions of non-European people out of poverty, especially in China and India. After several decades, as Asians work up the technological ladder, globalisation has perhaps even tilted in their favour.

Western detractors of the global economy argue that though investments abroad increase profits and cheaper imported goods, it has also led to job loss at home. Significantly, Asian success has been earned through old-fashioned hard work ethics and thrift—qualities which seem to be in abeyance in the rich West in recent years. These differences have manifested as massive public debts (with Asians as creditors), quantitative easing, sluggish growth, and high rates of unemployment.

It has been pointed out that the European and USA economic models need to be tilted away from consumption towards production, from entitlement spending towards investment in infrastructure, skills, and technology as well as mitigating force that concentrates on wealth and nurturing instead of a broad-based opportunity society.⁶

The integrated global economy and financial system has made West and East inter-dependent. Thus, the USA housing bubble and bank failures in 2007-2009 caused serious setbacks on the global economy worldwide, and the world has not got out of it at press time.

Furthermore, in all countries involved in the capitalistic global economy, an increasingly widening income between rich and poor has been a potential source of social unrest.

Apart from solving problems affecting the performance of individual states, the world as a whole faces the serious challenge of deleterious environmental effects of the rapidly expanding global economy. Success lies with the yet unrealised but vital collaboration of determined governments in reducing reliance on fossil fuels. Hopefully too, innovative scientists and technologists would soon make advances in energy efficiency and lower costs of renewable energy. In the wake of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear plant disaster, there is serious questioning on the safety and role of nuclear energy as a cheap source of renewable energy.

Started by the West and particularly promising to the developing world in the post-war era, the sustainability of globalisation is being tested.

1

Global Singapore

The ‘little red dot’⁷ of a budding nation is not easily located on a world map. All of 710 sq km (131 sq km reclaimed from the sea) is home and hope for a cosmopolitan population in 2009 of 4,987600, of which 3,733900 are citizens and permanent residents.⁸ Three in ten of the workforces are temporary migrant workers.

Singapore’s dependence on trade is shown by its 2008 trade-to-GDP ratio of 360 per cent, which is the highest in the world. At end of 2008, the stock of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), mainly as capital for MNCs, was $470 billion, led by UK and USA at 52 billion each and the Netherlands and Japan each at 49 billion. Singapore’s stock of Direct Investment Abroad (DIA) amounted to $298 billion, in order to China, British Virgin Islands, United Kingdom, and Malaysia.⁹

In 2008, the GDP was $257 billion; per Capita GNI $51,739; per capita indigenous GNI $49,996; and gross national saving 47 per cent of GNI. Unemployment rate was 2.3 per cent.¹⁰ Singapore’s per capita GDP which places it seventh in ranking in the world has indeed been a remarkable achievement for a third world country several decades after independence.

Ranking as a Global Country

The Globalisation Index by Foreign Policy magazine and Stockbrokers AT Kierney ranked Singapore as the most globalised country for three consecutive years (2005-2007). The index is based on twelve variables grouped in four categories: economic integration, personal contact, technological connectivity, and political engagement. Economic integration is quantified by combining data on trade and foreign direct investment. Personal contact is derived from figures on international travel and tourism, international telephone traffic, and cross-border transfers, including remittances. Technological connectivity is assessed by the number of Internet users, Internet hosts, and secure servers. Political engagement counts involvement in international organisations and treaties as well as financial and personnel contributions to UN peace-keeping missions and levels of governmental transfer.¹¹

In the 2007 ranking, Singapore was ranked first, closely followed by Hong Kong, and in order, Netherlands, Switzerland, Ireland, Denmark, United States, Canada, Jordan and Estonia. What has Singapore in common with the winners’ circle? Seven of the top ten countries in the index have populations fewer than eight million. Small countries with small domestic markets and limited natural resources have found success through international trade. Singapore is by far the smallest of these countries.

Hong Kong like Singapore had a similar history of British colonisation for over a century, but it was only in 1997 when British rule ended that Hong Kong became a Special Administration Region (SAR) in China. Hong Kong’s population is more homogeneously Chinese, and Hong Kong intimately shares the rapid growth of China.

The Netherlands is also a small country with a long history of very successful global trading history since the seventeenth century when it displaced the Iberians as leaders in Malacca and the Indian Ocean.

Ireland, which was on the brink of economic collapse in the 1960s, focused on attracting investments from US high-tech companies after building up a quality infrastructure, a flexible educated workforce, and reducing corporate taxes. Since then Ireland has reformed retail in education and research, by doubling PhD graduates in science and technology as well as actively recruiting research scientists, especially from China. Science Foundation Ireland has established more than 160 new research groups. As a result, the Celtic tiger per capita GDP grew to be second only to Luxembourg in Europe.¹² Unfortunately, this brisk growth has been badly hit by the 2008 global recession. A housing bubble, bank failures, and huge national debts have again put Ireland’s economy, along that with Greece, in a very tight spot.

The retreat of globalisation during the current economic meltdown has also been felt by the highly globalised economies of the Asian tigers. Singapore, with export almost twice the GDP, suffered a drop in annualised rate of 17 per cent in the last quarter of 2008. Recovery has been faster than expected, the 2009 contraction in GDP being 2.1 per cent. However, Singapore has always been prepared for the proverbial rainy day, which has finally arrived. The nation of savers has not been particularly ruffled, as a twenty-six-billion-dollar stimulation package has been unrolled, giving support to workers, upgrading skills training, and building infrastructure.

As a result of this very effective stimulus, Singapore showed a 13 per cent growth in the first quarter of 2010. This together with the loss of competitiveness of the USA has pushed Singapore ahead of long-standing champion USA and rival Hong Kong towards being ranked by Swiss business school IMD as the world’s most competitive economy.¹³

Ranking as a Global City

Commerce and civilisation started with urbanisation, and currently more than half the world’s population live in cities. Cities are the centres of civilisation, and values and ideas of cities shape the countryside. Global cities have a special position in having the power, wealth, sophistication, and influence to shape the interconnected world.

Singapore has consistently since 1995 been ranked high in international surveys on business competitiveness amongst cities. Thus, in the 2008 MasterCard Worldwide Centers of Commerce Index, Singapore was rated fourth ahead of Hong Kong, but behind London, New York, and Tokyo, as the most influential commercial centre in the world. Although Singapore’s perceived relative lack of personal freedom placed her fortieth out of the seventy-five cities surveyed, Singapore came up first in ease-to-do business, economic