Singapore

THE REPUBLIC OF SINGAPORE is a small city-state of 4.7 million people (2003) attracting outsized attention by its path of development and mode of government, which is reputed to be a most powerful challenge to the Western liberal model.

One of the earliest references to Singapore as Temasek, or Sea Town, was found in Javanese and Vietnamese sources of 1360s. Intermittently a pirate camp, it was a fortified city well connected to trade networks with China and other Asian countries. By the end of the 14th century, the Sanskrit name, Singapura (Lion City), became commonly used. Owing to its communicative and strategic importance, the city was traditionally a place of rivalry between Siamese and Javanese forces. Europeans came in the 15th century. Portuguese, Dutch, and French have been edged out by the English, whose Javanese governor Thomas Raffles, by tangling intrigues, gained for Britain the sole right to build a factory in Singapore in 1818. The status of the city as a British possession was formalized six years later.

In 1826, Singapore was joined to Penang and Malacca to become a distinct Straits Settlements protectorate in 1867. A decade later, the rubber planting began. Just at the same time that pneumatic tires were invented, a rubber trade boom began, contributing much to region's prosperity. During World War II, the region was occupied by Japan. After a short-lived postwar merger with Malaya, Singapore became an independent state on August 9, 1965, under the leadership of People's Action Party (PAP), which won 43 seats (of 51) in the Legislative Assembly. Since that time, and to date in 2004, PAP holds unalterable power, using it for creating an ever watchful political system, regimenting almost every aspect of Singaporean life and snuffing out sparks of political dissent, making Singapore the poster child for “soft” authoritarianism.

Meanwhile, the region experienced an economic boom. Singapore still benefited as the main seaport in Asia and as the world's premier rubber market. Singapore's gross national product (GNP) doubled every seven years on average up to and including the 1990s. Through a successful industrialization program, the city gradually became an industrial and financial center of Asia. The stable government led from 1959 to 1990 by Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and developed industry attracted ever more investments, changing the visage of the city-state, which has become not a less prosperous Asian country than Japan.

According to A.T. Kearney in Foreign Policy magazine's Globalization Index, Singapore is ranked as one of the most globalized nations owing to its trade-intensive economy, wide cross-border personal contacts, huge number of internet users and servers, and deep political engagement in international organizations. Singapore enjoys a successful free-market economy and one of the highest per capita gross domestic products in the world ($24,000 in 1997). Singaporean ethnic Chinese (77 percent), Malay (14 percent), Indian (7.6 percent), and others (1.4 percent) live together amicably using the English, Chinese, Malay, and Tamil languages interchangeably and proving the conventional wisdom that national wealth can successfully solve social and national problems.

Economically, Singapore is a relatively free, competitive market system, prospering greatly from global trade; however, politically and socially Singapore is a quasi-authoritarian state, an illiberal society with significant governmental controls over political, social, and cultural life. Being a Confucian society, it lacks a tradition of rights against the state. “To the extent that individual rights did exist, they were created by the state,” S. Huntington explains in Democracy's Third Wave. Although friendly to business, Singapore's government represses dissent and is far from transparent in its management of public funds. State authorities exert an almost legendary degree of social control. One will get into trouble with Singapore's police if he or she walks naked, has oral sex, or fails to flush a public toilet. Even chewing-gum is illegal to import or sell. There is a strict control on media and political expression. It is illegal to own a private satellite dish without obtaining a license. Offenders will lose their satellite dish and face a maximum fine of S$40,000 or a jail term of no more than three years. One must apply for a license to form a nongovernmental organization or to speak publicly. All groups or societies with at least 10 persons must be registered. An application may be rejected if the society is deemed prejudicial to public peace, welfare, or good order in Singapore. The government introduced a [Page 394]speakers' corner in 2000 to appease freedom-of-speech lobbyists. Speakers must register their names with the police.

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