China's fascination with the development of Singapore

Singapore has achieved rapid economic growth and has also managed to maintain a stable social order, characteristics that make it attractive to China as a model for future development, according to Professor John Wong, Research Director of the East Asian Institute (EAI), National University of Singapore. The Singapore government has played a vital role in fostering economic development, and while it has eschewed mandatory economic planning in favor of support for free enterprise and open competition, it has nevertheless been very active in providing macro economic guidance for the economy, and in managing a number of economic and business activities. The success of the government's participation in economic development has been made possible by a strong political leadership dedicated to the pursuit of economic growth, an efficient and incorruptible public administration, and an effective legal system. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the International Symposium on the Government's Role in the Market Economy, held at the China Institute for Reform and Development (CIRD), Haikou, Hainan, China, in January 1997.     

新加坡加强发展对华经济的动因分析

近年来,由于世界经济形势发生了新变化,美、日、欧等主要发达国家的经济增速放缓,使得新加坡的经济 发展面临着严峻的挑战。而中国经济在全球经济普遍不景气的情况下,继续保持良好的增长势头。为了赶搭中国经济发展 的顺风车,新加坡政府推出“中国战略”,希望通过进一步加强同中国的经贸关系,来重振国内经济。     

Culture,state and economic development in Singapore

Within 35 years after independence, Singapore is transformed into a developed city-state. To a substantial extent, this transformation may be explained in terms of the role of the Singapore state, which in part may be attributed to the regulation of certain cultural values — those reconstructed by the Singapore government under the influence of both Western and Oriental cultures. This empirical case poses a challenge to the validity of Weber's interpretation of the cultural causes of capitalistic economic development, especially his critique of Oriental cultures including Confucianism. It equally questions the adequacy of the contesting argument that highlights only the positive role of Confucianism in accounting for Asian economic change. This article proposes an alternative cultural model to transcend their limitations in explaining the economic transformation in Singapore. The inherent problems of the values of the Singapore government are also analyzed.     

Multinational corporations in Asia the labor-intensive factory

Abstract

In a segment of his recent television series on economics, “The Age of Uncertainty,” John Kenneth Galbraith makes a number of critical remarks about multinational corporations. However, towards the end of the program, the screen is suddenly filled with pictures of bustling Singapore, and Galbraith comments that, whatever else can be said of them, the MNCs have played a major role in bringing economic development and employment to this and many other parts of the world. The implication is that the employment and economic growth fostered by the large corporations in Asian countries like Singapore are—by definition—changes for the better.     

Singapore General Election 2015 and the Role of Citizenship Education

Abstract

This article explores the role of education, in particular citizenship education, in shaping the Singapore electorate. An understanding of the history of citizenship education helps to shed light on the contemporary political culture in Singapore. The extent to which democratic citizenship education has been taught in schools since 1958 is explored. Singapore’s citizenship education has consistently stressed the duties and responsibilities of citizenship, patriotism, national identity and moral values—with the goal of nation-building and legitimising the People’s Action Party state. This reflective historical piece on Singapore’s educational history adds a relatively unexplored facet to the discussions on the general election 2015 results as well as Singapore’s subsequent political development. The results of the 2015 general election in Singapore, seen in this light, are not so surprising, as they reflect the success of the state’s citizenship education in shaping the current political culture.     

广东“东盟战略”及其与新马的经贸合作

广东在中国与东盟的贸易中占有1/3左右的份额,而对这一领域的最新研究还较少,所以有必要从广东"东盟战略"的角度研究其与东盟的两大贸易合作伙伴新加坡和马来西亚的经贸合作.本文首先分析了近年广东与东盟的经贸关系,并在此基础上探讨了如何解读和践行广东的"东盟战略".接着重点分析了广东与新马经贸合作的表现与原因,探讨这种合作对广东与新马合作的意义.最后,在结论部分提出若干促进广东"东盟战略"和推进其与新马经贸合作的建议.     

Accountability and Authoritarianism: Human Rights in Malaysia and Singapore

The concept of accountability enjoys wide and growing appeal, its advocates submitting both normative and functional arguments for institutions limiting discretionary powers of political and economic elites. This development is seen as facilitative of democratisation, especially in post-authoritarian societies. Yet it has gone almost unnoticed that not all authoritarian regimes have dismissed accountability reform and some are adopting reforms in its name. This article contrasts the patterns in Malaysia and Singapore on a specific accountability institution – human rights commissions – offering explanations for why the former has established one and the latter not. It is argued that intra-state conflicts associated with Malaysian capitalism have created pressures and opportunities for accountability reform not matched in Singapore where there is a more cohesive ruling elite. Moreover, the PAP's acute ideological emphasis on meritocracy concedes no space for horizontal political accountability.     

Conference report

The apologetic literature on capitalist development has been quite unrelenting in its advocacy of free markets to produce “the right conditions” for economic growth. Invariably, however, the only freedom preserved under so-called free-market policies is the economic freedom of international capital to sell, invest, and repatriate profit. Furthermore, “a favourable investment climate” is created only with the systematic repression of unruly students, trade unionists, the free press, and other democratic processes. Dubbed as a necessary precondition for industrialisation, and vindicated by outsiders in the West, many states in the Third World readily accede to the stern government that is necessary to implement these market-oriented policies. It is this issue that provides the focus of debate in this paper, and special attention is devoted to the experience of Singapore under Lee Kuan Yew.     

东盟5国产业结构的演变及其国际比较

战后,伴随着东盟5国(印尼、马来西亚、菲律宾、新加坡、泰国)的经济增长,各国的产业结构发生了一系列变化。东盟5国产业结构演变的趋势,是与世界各国工业化中产业结构变化的规律相适应的。但是,由于各国经济发展存在着历史性、结构性和制度性的差异,东盟5国产业结构的变化与国际相比仍有许多特点。     

Becoming a “Good Nixon Doctrine Country”: Political Relations between the United States and Singapore during the Nixon Presidency

The Nixon Doctrine, which devolved US troops from direct involvement in Asian conflicts but gave priority to military sales and economic assistance, was considered by some commentators to be an inefficacious foreign policy approach that did little to serve US interests in Asia during the Cold War. Using Singapore as a case study, this article demonstrates that Richard Nixon's foreign policy approach improved US‐Singapore relations significantly from 1970 onwards. After a period of flirtation with the Soviet Union during 1968–72, Singapore came to be labelled a “good Nixon Doctrine country” by the US government in 1973. Through the sale of US military equipment and economic assistance, Singapore and the US cultivated bilateral ties that endured after the withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam in 1973 and the fall of Saigon two years later.     

Singapore’s Phantom Workers

In 2009, the Singapore state prosecuted a string of businesses for listing fictitious local workers on their books in order to stretch their foreign worker entitlement. These “phantom” worker scams, prevalent since the 1980s, appear out of place in Singapore – a country with a strong international reputation for its government’s efficiency and strict legal enforcement. This paper examines the state’s prosecutions of the phantom worker scams in the context of the exceptional economic and political stresses in 2009, when Singapore was most severely affected by the global economic crisis, in order to address the employment regime in Singapore. It argues that the belated efforts to tackle the phantom worker scams reflected the pro-business state’s reluctance to tackle illegalities crucial to facilitating employers’ otherwise unlawful access to wealth and resources in Singapore.     

Singapore's cultural policy and its consequences

Abstract

This article explores the effects of Singapore's Global City for the Arts project on the local theater industry. It begins by describing the character of the Singapore state and its ability to meet the challenges of globalization. It then shows that while historically global in orientation, the city-state's early cultural policies were resolutely local and insular prior to the economic recession in 1985. From that year on, local arts and culture was driven by an economic rationale — eventually culminating in the birth of a globally oriented national cultural policy: the Global City for the Arts project. The author contends that the Global City for the Arts project has pressured the Singapore state into shedding some of its authoritarian practices in order to conform to international norms. However, the author also illustrates how certain theater companies with the requisite cultural capital for the Global City for the Arts project have benefited from the country's cultural policies while others that do not possess such cultural capital are marginalized. The article concludes by arguing that the Singapore state, in going global, exacerbates the economic disparity by accentuating preexisting inequalities and divisions in the local.     

2011年新加坡:政治、经济与外交

2011年,新加坡顺利举行国会大选和总统大选,完成新老领导班子交接,但是大选结果也凸显了民众对政府的不满,赢回民心是新一届政府的首要任务。在经济方面,新加坡经济增长步伐整体放缓,政府逐步出台系列措施进行经济重整,给长期依赖外来劳动力的行业带来阵痛。在外交上,新加坡继续加强与周边国家的良好关系,加深与中美的双边经贸、安全防务等领域的合作,积极推动中美在亚洲地区良性合作的关系。最后,本文对2011年境内外出版的关于新加坡的中文学术研究成果进行简要回顾与介绍。     

Japan-Asia economic relations: Trade, investment, and the economic crisis

Japan has been and will continue to be an important economic player in the Asian region through its internationalization policy involving trade, foreign investments, aid, technical and other forms of economic cooperation. More recently, despite its own domestic problems, Japan has extended financial and other forms of assistance and support to the Asian economies which have been hit by the economic crisis. As it is in its interests that the Asian region survives and recover, Japan will indeed continue to lend a helping hand to Asia, either through unilateral or multilateral forms of assistance or both. Due to growing interdependence, Asia needs Japan and Japan needs Asia. This article analyzes Japan's economic relations with Asia. In particular, it hopes to present an overview of Japan’s involvement in Asia through trade and investments prior to the Asian economic crisis which began in July 1997. Moreover, this article provides an assessment of the crisis and identifies Japan’s responses and involvement towards the economic recovery of the crisis-hit economies in the region. The article draws from earlier versions of various papers presented at conferences and seminars in Washington, D.C. (1997), Japan and Mexico (1998), and Singapore and Thailand (1999).     

Understanding Chinese Economy Accurately—John Wong and His China Research

How and to what extent can China be more accurately understood? Is China best understood as it is or through theories that appear to reveal its nature? John Wong is an example of the former approach, a pursuer of economic realism in the discipline of economic analysis. This paper first describes John Wong’s conceptual model of Chinese economic development, which consists of three major components: Singapore as the reference point; economic scale as the first adjusted variable; and economic development phase as the second variable. The paper further explores sources of his choice of methodology through the positionality of his research. He cannot be neatly categorized in any existing school of economic analysis of the Western academic tradition but pursues his accurate understanding of China through pragmatism; his institutionalized research position constitutes the methodological foundation for his research strategy and conceptual framework.     

The Asian scholar and the American crisis

Abstract

National development strategies in many Third-World countries in recent years have tended to emphasize a number of Japanese-pioneered patterns, among them management methods and export-oriented industrialization. Both have been seen as crucial to Japan's rise as an industrial power; and, during the past decade, export-oriented industrialization has been behind the rise of the Asian “Gang of Four”—South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore.     

COMMENTARY: MAURITTUS--QUO VADIS?

Mauritius—although situated in the Indian Ocean—hasoften been accounted one of Africa's economic success storiesover the last 15 years. Certainly by comparison with many Africancountries, as well as with other island-states such as thoseof the Caribbean and South Pacific, Mauritius has witnessedimpressive economic growth over that period. Its performanceis less remarkable, however, if it is compared with that ofother island city-states like Hong Kong or Singapore. Thereare many indications that the conditions which sustained Mauritius'seconomic success between 1982 and 1998 are no longer so favourable.This article considers this state of affairs and makes a numberof suggestions as to ways in which Mauritians may consider reactingto the international environment with a view to ensuring a futurebased on further economic growth.     

International capital,Singapore's state companies,and security

Since the Asian economic crisis in 1997-98, the Singapore government has embraced neoliberal globalization to a degree not matched elsewhere in East or Southeast Asia. Yet the consolidation and expansion of Singapore's state companies are also integral to this strategy. These companies are increasingly the objects of critical attention from elements of international capital that are seeking to make inroads into various sectors of the Singapore economy. This includes pressures to reform governance systems from which state companies derive competitive advantages. This article examines the nature and political strength of these challenges, the responses to them by the Singapore government, and the implications of this for the future of the authoritarian regime. The article also analyzes the changing geopolitical context within which such disputes are being played out. Security concerns by the U.S. government in particular, it is argued, are mediating conflict over state companies and presenting new opportunities for the authoritarian regime to consolidate.     

新教伦理与新加坡文明

新加坡希冀通过倡导儒家思想复兴的行动去消除新教伦理的弊端 ,促进社会的和谐发展 ,经过十几年的努力 ,现今已取得初步成效。本文通过论述新加坡的独特文明 ,在肯定新加坡实行理性资本主义管理方式而经济实现繁荣的同时 ,对儒家思想为特征的东方文化与新教伦理在新加坡的相互影响提出了移植、兼容和趋同等观点 ,并对儒家复兴是否能引导新加坡社会走上和谐发展的道路阐述了个人的看法。     

A critical note on UNDP's gender inequality indices

This article explains the diverse responses among the Chinese bourgeoisie in Hong Kong and Singapore to Chinese nationalist movements in the 1930s. In Singapore, the slogan of “Chinese buy Chinese goods” boosted the Chinese bourgeoisie in their business competition with Japan. The same slogan was used by the Chinese bourgeoisie in Hong Kong to emphasize increased sales of Chinese goods while Japanese imports were used by Chinese manufacturers in Hong Kong. I also interpret Chinese bourgeois nationalism in Hong Kong and Singapore as a move toward transnational economic citizenship. Emphasising their Chinese ethnicity, the bourgeoisie in Hong Kong and Singapore asked the Chinese government for favourable import tariffs. At the same time, the bourgeoisie requested the British for favourable tariffs, when they wished to export goods to markets in Britain and its colonies.