Lee Kuan Yew Through the Eyes of Chinese Scholars

Chen-Ning Yang, Ying-Shih Yu, Gungwu Wang

• Publisher: WSPC
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9789813202337
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Asian Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

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Lee Kuan Yew through the Eyes of Chinese Scholars is a compilation of essays by highly-respected Chinese scholars in which they evaluate the life, work and philosophy of Lee Kuan Yew, founding Prime Minister of Singapore. Presenting a range of views from a uniquely Chinese/Asian perspective, this book provides valuable insights for those who wish to gain a fuller and deeper understanding of Lee Kuan Yew — the man, as well as Singapore — his nation.

Marking the momentous event of his death as well as the 50th anniversary of Singapore's independence in 2015, this compilation reflects both the high regard in which Lee Kuan Yew is held across the Chinese-speaking world as well as the reservations of a few. The contributors are all ethnic Chinese from different academic disciplines ranging from a Nobel laureate in physics, Chen-Ning Yang, to historians, economists and political scientists. They include Singaporeans such as Wang Gungwu and Chew Cheng Hai, as well as scholars from China, the US and Hong Kong such as Yongnian Zheng, Ying-Shih Yu, Lawrence Lau and Hang-Chi Lam among others.

Originally published in Chinese, this English translation makes the material accessible to a wider English-reading audience.

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Contents:

• Contributors
• Preface to the English Edition
• Chen-Ning Yang on Lee Kuan Yew
• Singapore: What We Have Overlooked and Misinterpreted (Cai Dingjian)
• A Hardworking, Unflagging Student — Remembering Our Founding Father, Lee Kuan Yew (Chua Chee Lay)
• Lee Kuan Yew and Singapore (Chen Kang)
• A Review of the Singapore Story (Du Ping)
• Amartya Sen Deconstructs Lee Kuan Yew's "Asian Values" (He Aiguo)
• Lee Kuan Yew and His Singapore (Lam Hang Chi)
• Lee Kuan Yew's Thoughts on Talent and Singapore's Development Strategy (Liu Hong and Zhang Huimei)
• Lee Kuan Yew, a Man of the Century (Lawrence J Lau)
• Lee Kuan Yew's Passing Marks the Real Beginning of the Post-Lee Kuan Yew Era (Lü Yuanli)
• Lee Kuan Yew: History, Heritage and the Idea of Singapore (Wang Gungwu)
• A Final Gift (Su Guaning)
• Lee Kuan Yew's Political Theories (Yu Ying-Shih)
• Lee Kuan Yew's Pragmatism (Zhang Jun)
• Lee Kuan Yew and the Politics of the Post-Colonial World (Zheng Yongnian)
• Lee Kuan Yew and the Teaching of Chinese (Chew Cheng Hai)

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Readership: English readers interested in how Chinese scholars view Lee Kuan Yew.
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Chapter 1

Chen-Ning Yang on Lee Kuan Yew

As a perceptive strategist, an intelligent tactician, and a shrewd politician, Lee Kuan Yew has few peers among all the heads of states in the long history of mankind.

Chapter 2

Singapore: What We Have
Overlooked and Misinterpreted

By Cai Dingjian¹

In November 1978, Deng Xiaoping visited Singapore. After the formal meeting with the Singapore government, he had a private meeting with Lee Kuan Yew which lasted for three hours. After the visit, Deng continuously praised Singapore and told Chinese leaders many times that China should learn from Singapore. As a result, many high-ranking leaders from China have visited Singapore, and many middle and lower-ranking leaders and officials have also been sent to learn from Singapore.

From July to October 2005, constitutional scholar Cai Dingjian was invited by the East Asian Institute of the National University of Singapore to be a visiting scholar and to study the Singapore system. He discovered that mainland Chinese officials’ praise of Singapore was imbalanced and based on misinterpretations, causing many to misunderstand Singapore.

In this article, Cai Dingjian presents his understanding of Singapore and what he believes China should learn from Singapore.

Cai Dingjian served in the Research Office of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, rising to vice bureau chief of the Secretariat. After his retirement, he returned to his alma mater, the China University of Political Science and Law, to become a professor and the head of the Centre for the Study of Constitutionalism. On 22 November 2010, he passed away in Beijing at the age of 54.

1.What Can We Learn from Singapore?

When Chinese officials and scholars share about their experiences of Singapore, there are several aspects which receive high praise: firstly, the authoritarian regime, where Singapore’s rapid development is attributed to single-party rule; secondly, the policy of high salaries to ensure honesty, where Singapore’s low level of corruption is attributed to the payment of high salaries; and thirdly, strict management, where Singapore’s effective and good governance is attributed to its draconian laws.

From July to October 2005, I was invited by the East Asian Institute (EAI) of the National University of Singapore (NUS) to be a visiting scholar, giving me an opportunity to study the Singapore system more closely. I discovered that the praise from Chinese officials were imbalanced and based on misinterpretations, causing some misunderstanding of Singapore. Here, I wish to discuss my experiences of Singapore and what I think we should learn.

2.Authoritarian Governance Under Democratic Institutions

Singapore is a successful example of a developed economy ruled by an authoritarian, single-party government. This has been used to support the argument that authoritarian rule promotes economic development, and economic development is not compatible with democracy.

It is true that Singapore has been ruled by a single party, the People’s Action Party (PAP), in the 40 years since independence. Lee Kuan Yew has long warned that Singapore, with its small size and lack of natural resources, cannot support multi-party politics. Singapore, under the PAP, has achieved great success. This is an undeniable fact. However, I believe that Singapore’s success was not due to the authoritarian government but was the result of a sense of urgency and energetic spirit which, coupled with the PAP’s democratic framework, caused them to work wholeheartedly for the people and gain their support.

To understand the Singapore experience, it is necessary to understand the PAP and its system of government. What is this system? Is it a democratic or an authoritarian government? Singapore has a British-style parliamentary system but a Leninist party structure; it inherited the British legal tradition and civil service, along with a fusion of Confucian and legalist philosophy; the official language is English (and so officials accept western culture and thought), but 76% of the population is ethnic Chinese (with deep-rooted Chinese characteristics).

The PAP has much in common with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Their main purpose is to serve the people, and there is a strict party organisation which works with related organisations such as a National Trades Unions Congress, a Youth Wing, a Women’s Wing and grass-roots organisations. It has a strict system of member development and strong mobilising capabilities.

However, there are areas of fundamental difference between the PAP and the CCP. The PAP is not based on workers, but elites. Early members who were ordinary workers were later invited to leave the party. It is a party which opposes communism and grew out of conflict with communists. It is a parliamentary party, not a revolutionary party. It was elected through competition between several parties, and must be re-elected every five years in order to remain in government. Each minister must go through a process similar to western parliamentarians.

Of course, general elections are not totally fair: the PAP, the ruling party, makes use of its powers to set election rules, is able to draw on financial and government resources, manipulates the electoral process (such as drawing electoral boundaries, screening candidates etc.), controls media coverage, and does not hesitate to use judicial means to suppress the opposition. However, the process is still multi-party in form and each party has to fight to be elected, with the party gaining the highest number of votes becoming the ruling party. The party may not force the electorate to vote for them but must rely on the people’s favour and trust. This is what gives Singapore’s PAP legitimacy in the eyes of the people and international society.

The opposition parties are small and weak, and are unlikely to be able to defeat the PAP in the near future. The ruling party is able to use administrative and judicial means as well as the media to apply pressure on the opposition parties. However, opposition parties have also been able to place sufficient pressure on the PAP to make them fight earnestly at each election, just as western parties in multi-party elections.

Since the PAP was the first party to come to power through parliamentary democracy, even though it has been the single-party in power for a long period and is able to make use of democratic means to protect its position, it cannot get rid of this form of democracy. Although it has a Leninist form of party structure, it has maintained democracy within the party and permits differing opinions and viewpoints.

Another important point is that the ruling party rules through Parliament and the government, and does not exercise its power directly. Members of Parliament (MPs) are elected, and form the connection between the electorate and the government. This is no different from other democracies.

Singapore’s success is not due to its authoritarian government but because the government truly serves the people. To focus on the PAP’s authoritarian powers and not its service to the people by which it has gained support and votes, or only on its draconian laws and not its highly capable public officials and the adept application of the rule of law, would be a great misinterpretation of the Singapore experience.

3.“Serving the People” Is Not Just a Slogan but a Reality

The PAP serves the people and gains their support through practising a British system of representative democracy. Besides the PAP, there are several opposition parties. The PAP’s lowest majority in recent elections was 61%, and the highest, 84%. In the last election (2001), it achieved a majority of 75%. Due to the voting system employed, the opposition parties only won two seats in Parliament.

How did the PAP win these majorities in open elections? There are several reasons.

Firstly, it values public opinion and serves the people. Secondly, it makes use of government funds to carry out public works to win votes, such as making promises during the election campaigns which the government will carry out. Thirdly, the ruling party has the power to make the rules which govern the election game and adjust the election procedures in its own favour, such as changing electoral boundaries to ensure that the support for opposition parties is divided and using group representation constituencies (GRC) which are also more difficult for opposition parties to win. Fourthly, it makes use of various means to suppress opposition parties, including drawing up candidate registration procedures to exclude opposition candidates and using the judicial system against opposition parties. One foreign critic said, “In Singapore, using the judicial process to bankrupt critics and cause them to withdraw from the political stage, or using libel suits to topple political opponents, are methods much used by senior politicians.”

However, the most important of all these reasons is still a genuine desire to serve the people. Without this, the PAP would have fallen from power long ago. In my interactions with scholars and ordinary people, their greatest dissatisfaction with the PAP comes from their other actions. Yet, because the PAP does earnestly seek to serve the people and succeeds so well, the people are willing to tolerate the rest. Nonetheless, these are critical points for the PAP.

The PAP’s ruling principle is that they must be people-oriented, to care for the people and the grassroots. How does it do this? In concrete terms, MPs work with leaders of electoral constituencies at the grassroots level to serve the people. They serve the electorate through a variety of means, listen to their opinions, understand their lives and concerns, and help them solve their problems. These slogans sound very familiar to us, but to the PAP, they are not just slogans but are translated into real actions. They serve the people in the minutiae of their lives and through that earn the right to rule.

4.A Member of Parliament Meets at Most 50,000 Electors a Year

I visited Lee Hsien Loong’s GRC (a constituency comprising a few candidates from the same party). The other members of the GRC told me that Lee Hsien Loong, when he was deputy prime minister, used to visit the GRC every week to meet his constituents. Now that he was prime minister, he was much busier and was not able to come as often, but would ask the others to visit in his stead. This GRC had five members and was divided into five wards, with each member representing one ward.

The questions brought up at these meet-the-people sessions were not serious ones such as we see in China (such as miscarriages of justice, reports of corruption, land seizures, demolition of homes etc.), instead, they were fairly minor and personal issues. Common requests included asking for assistance to get a public housing flat more quickly (Singapore’s government provides subsidised housing to all but the richest people), for their child to go to a better school, or for a foreign spouse to get permanent residency status. Some wanted help in finding work, or suspension of loan repayments, or deferment of utilities payments. Some elderly people asked for help to claim support from their children. Others sought help about conflicts between neighbours over noise, etc.

The MPs were not able to solve all the problems and, in many cases, were only able to provide the supplicant with information and advice as to how to pursue a solution. They might give an opinion, or suggest passing the question on to the relevant government department or judicial organisation. Some MPs request that staff from government departments also attend these sessions to help resolve issues on the spot. For some of the people desperately in need of financial assistance, MPs may issue a small cheque to meet their urgent needs. Government departments give weight to letters from MPs and will try their best to solve the problems. Some big and difficult questions which the government department is unable to solve may be raised with the minister of that ministry by the MP over a meal. Whether the problem can be solved or not, the relevant department will give the supplicant an answer or explanation.

Besides meeting the electors, MPs must also walk around their wards to meet other constituents. This is hard work. Some cast the net wide and devote half a day to walking around a few areas in the ward, others visit individual households every week to get to know the residents. MPs are expected to visit every household in their ward at least twice before the next election. These visits enable them to understand the ordinary person’s life and needs, and gain their support.

5.The PAP Headquarters Has Only 11 Employees

The basis of the PAP’s rule is their support from the grassroots level. They make use of various organisations at grassroots level to provide services to the people, primarily through the PAP Community Foundation (PCF) and the People’s Association (PA).

These community service organisations are controlled by the PAP grassroots advisor, who is also the MP. The MP is the chairman of the constituency branch of the PAP, chairman of the PCF branch, and is also the consultant of the PA. In other words, all the services to the people are provided through the PAP MP. Without the PAP, there would be no services.

Many Chinese leaders, officials and scholars who have visited the PAP headquarters have expressed surprise that the building is so small. This party which has exercised power and achieved successes over 40 years has its headquarters in a remote location near the airport, though accessible by public transport. It is a small, ordinary-looking, two-storey building situated among public housing blocks. Its office and meetings rooms are simply furnished and staffed by 11 employees. Many have suggested that the PAP build itself a bigger building along busy Orchard Road in the city centre, but the PAP has repeatedly rejected these ideas. It feels that to have a large building in the city will give the impression that the PAP is very arrogant. So the PAP moved from the city to a residential area away from the city centre.

The small number of staff in the PAP headquarters makes it clear that it does not have the power to carry out any government functions. It also shows that the party’s core is not at the top. It indicates that the PAP is not external to or above the government, but is within the government and the electorate. The PAP does not display its power, and constantly reminds the people that it needs the people’s support. This is the fundamental reason why the PAP has remained in power in a democratic system.

Singapore is a democracy but lacks full political freedom (it has social freedom). It has strict laws, but does not completely protect modern human rights. It has a mature market economy, but government controls are all-pervasive.

What can China learn from Singapore? Should it just learn from the outcomes of what is described above, and not how it build a popular power base within a democratic system? That would be to misread the Singapore experience and be misled. The PAP is built on a democratic system and popular support, which has allowed it to exercise authoritarian rule and remain undefeated. However, the general election every five years is the Sword of Damocles hanging over the head of the PAP. The risk of losing power causes them to live with a sense of crisis, reminding them not to forget the people. This is the permanent internal motivation for serving the people.

6.A Clean Government Without High Salaries

In the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index 2005, Singapore was ranked the fifth least-corrupt country in the world and also Asia’s least-corrupt country. The Singapore government’s low level corruption is world-famous. Surrounded by neighbouring countries with higher levels of corruption, how has Singapore managed to stay clean?

Many visitors to Singapore have concluded that the high salaries in Singapore prevent corruption. Many visiting scholars and officials praise this policy and are eager to implement it. If not for the large number of government officials and insufficient funds, China might have implemented this long ago.

How does Singapore maintain its lack of corruption, and is it the result of high salaries? This is a question I wished to research while in Singapore.

To understand this issue, I spoke to NUS professors, PAP officials, MPs and other government officials. They presented a view contrary to what is commonly believed. They said that the high salaries paid to Singapore’s government officials is not for preventing corruption, but to attract talent. Jon S.T. Quah, professor of political science in NUS, who has done research into corruption, told me that the high salaries were only introduced in the mid-1980s. Before this, Singapore had already solved the problem of corruption.

Under the colonial government, there had been more corruption in Singapore. At the time, the salary of government officials was not very low. In 1965, when Singapore became independent from Malaysia, the newly-independent country with f...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Contributors
• Preface
• Chapter 1 Chen-Ning Yang on Lee Kuan Yew
• Chapter 2 Singapore: What We Have Overlooked and Misinterpreted
• Chapter 3 A Hardworking, Unflagging Student — Remembering Our Founding Father, Lee Kuan Yew
• Chapter 4 Lee Kuan Yew and Singapore
• Chapter 5 A Review of the Singapore Story
• Chapter 6 Amartya Sen Deconstructs Lee Kuan Yew’s “Asian Values”
• Chapter 7 Lee Kuan Yew and His Singapore
• Chapter 8 Lee Kuan Yew’s Thoughts on Talent and Singapore’s Development Strategy
• Chapter 9 Lee Kuan Yew, a Man of the Century
• Chapter 10 Lee Kuan Yew’s Passing Marks the Real Beginning of the Post-Lee Kuan Yew Era
• Chapter 11 Lee Kuan Yew: History, Heritage and the Idea of Singapore
• Chapter 12 A Final Gift
• Chapter 13 Lee Kuan Yew’s Political Theories
• Chapter 14 Lee Kuan Yew’s Pragmatism
• Chapter 15 Lee Kuan Yew and the Politics of the Post-Colonial World
• Chapter 16 Lee Kuan Yew and the Teaching of Chinese