By Liew Chin Fu A lot has been said about what the first generation leaders apart from LKY -Toh Chin Chye,Goh Keng Swee and S Rajaratnam have done and achieved for Singapore. Yes,these men and may I include Ong Teng Cheong,had indeed contributed and sacrificed a lot for Singapore and her people.And thus they deserved to be respected by Singaporeans,including me. But what is less mentioned is the global and international environment that Singapore was in during the 1960s,70s and 80s.That was the Cold War era.When the Soviet Union or USSR still existed.When China was under Mao Zedong and was isolated and closed from the rest of the world.In Maos time,Chinas diplomatic ties was only with Albania.When there were the disasters of the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution,costing millions and millions of Chinese lives.China under Deng Xiaoping only opened its doors to the world in 1978,two years after the death of Mao. That was also the era when the Iron Curtain and Berlin Wall stood in Europe.Eastern Europe,with the possible exception of the former Yugoslavia,was cut off from the free world and the global economic system. In South East Asia,Vietnam was suffering from the turmoil of first,the Independence war against the French and second,the Vietnam War and the Communist takeover of the country in 1975.Laos and Cambodia also went under Communist control.Cambodia suffered heavily under the rule of the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot and had to endure a long civil war before a peace treaty was signed in 1992 and UN sponsored elections held in 1993. Domestically,before the British colonial authorities complete withdrawal in 1971,they had already put in place a very efficient working administrative system for LKY and the PAP to take over.Their job of governing Singapore was made even easier by the fact Suharto had just eased out Sukarno from power in Indonesia and ended the Confrontation with Singapore and Malaysia.The PAP,despite differences with some UMNO leaders,also had more or less cordial relations with the Barisan Nasional regime in Malaysia over the decades. Today,the international environment is vastly different from what it was in the period 1960-91.Nowadays we see the emerging BRIC economies-Brazil,China,India and Russia,challenging the global economic,financial and trading system long dominated by the West.We also see an enlarged European Union(EU) comprising of emerging Eastern European economies such as Poland,Hungary and the Czech Republic.Ukraine,a former Soviet republic,is now the next target in the EUs integration list. The world also saw South Africa,the continents strongest economy,returning to the international community after the dismantling of the Apartheid system in the early 90s. And closer to home,Vietnam and Laos began opening their doors to the global economy since the late 80s.With the civil war already over,Cambodia is also trying to regain peace and stability and get into the global economic,financial and trading system to develop its own economy. Suddenly in over 20 years,Singapore is beginning to face increasing global economic and trade competitors.The problem is how Singapore and the PAP had handled the pressure of increased international competition.Instead of trying to emphasize more on technical innovation,creativity and the spirit of entrepreneurship as in other first-world economies,the PAP Regime has resorted to a rather lazy,quick and easy way out-importing massive foreign labour,mostly from neighbouring Asian countries,in order to boost the GDP. The PAP has also resorted to importing several billionaires from the around the world in order to maintain Singapores artificially high per capita income/GDP.In many senses,Singapore doesnt seem to be an genuine first-world civilised democratic society and advanced economy like Luxembourg,Denmark,Norway,Switzerland,Lietchenstein,San Marino and Andorra. Isnt it any wonder then why Singapore is known as the country which has a third world standard of living and at the same time,having a Swiss cost of living?These days,its only the President,the Prime Minister and his Ministers and MPs,their families,friends and business cronies enjoying a first world standard of living while staying in their own ivory towers. Reminds me of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan-the two former Soviet republics. Singapore is obviously a pesudo-first world nation adopting a third world economic model and political system.With an ever widening gap between the rich and poor,Singapore seems headed to become the next Mexico or Colombia.
Posted on: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 07:47:25 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015