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Singapore Under Lee Kuan Yew
The Lee Kuan Yew government announced two days after
separation
that Singapore would be a republic, with Malay as its
national
language and Malay, Chinese, English, and Tamil retained
as
official languages. The Legislative Assembly was renamed
the
Parliament, and the prominent Malay leader, Yusof bin
Ishak, was
made president of the republic. The new nation,
immediately
recognized by Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and the
United
States, was admitted to the UN in September and the
Commonwealth
the following month. In the early months following
separation,
Singapore's leaders continued to talk of eventual reunion
with
Malaysia. Wrangling between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur
over
conflicting economic, defense, and foreign policies,
however, soon
put an end to this discussion, and Singapore's leaders
turned their
attention to building an independent nation.
The government sought to build a multiracial and
multilingual
society that would be unified by a sense of a unique
"Singaporean
identity." The government established a Constitutional
Commission
on Minority Rights in late 1965, and official policy
encouraged
ethnic and cultural diversity. Foreign Minister Rajaratnam
told the
UN General Assembly that year, "If we of the present
generation can
steadfastly stick to this policy for the next thirty
years, then we
would have succeeded in creating a Singaporean of a unique
kind. He
would be a man rooted in the cultures of four great
civilizations
but not belonging exclusively to any of them." Integrated
schools
and public housing were the principle means used by the
government
to ensure a mixing of the various ethnic groups. The
government
constructed modern highrise housing estates and new towns,
in which
the residents of the city's crowded Chinatown slums and
the rural
Malay kampongs (villages in Malay were thoroughly
intermingled. An
English-language education continued to be the preferred
preparation for careers in business, industry, and
government;
English-language pupils outnumbered Chinese-language
pupils 300,000
to 130,000 by 1968. Malay-language primary school
enrollment
declined from 5,000 in 1966 to about 2,000 in 1969. All
students,
however, were required to study their mother tongue at
least as a
second language. Many of the country's British-educated
leaders,
including Lee Kuan Yew, sent their children to
Chinese-language
schools because they believed that they provided better
character
training. The government stressed discipline and the
necessity of
building a "rugged society" in order to face the
challenges of
nationhood. A government anticorruption campaign was
highly
effective in combating that problem at all levels of
administration.
At the same time, the government addressed the problem
of
establishing a national identity, it also tackled the
serious
economic problems facing the new nation. The hopes pinned
on
establishing a common market with Malaysia were dead, and
it was
clear that Singapore would not only have to go it alone
but also
would face rising tariffs and other barriers to trade with
Malaysia. Under Goh Keng Swee and other able finance
ministers, the
government worked hard to woo local and foreign capital.
New
financial inducements were provided to attract export
industries,
promote trade, and end the country's dependence on Britain
as the
major source of investment capital. The generally
prosperous world
economic situation in the mid-1960s favored Singapore's
growth and
development. Confrontation with Indonesia had ended by
1966 after
Soeharto came to power, and trade between the two
countries
resumed. Trade with Japan and the United States increased
substantially, especially with the latter as Singapore
became a
supply center for the United States in its increasing
involvement
in Indochina.
A serious problem the government had to deal with in
order to
attract large-scale investment was Singapore's reputation
for labor
disputes and strikes. "The excesses of irresponsible trade
unions...are luxuries which we can no longer afford,"
stated
President Yusof bin Ishak in December 1965, speaking for
the
government. Two events in 1968 enabled the government to
pass
stricter labor legislation. In January Britain announced
its
intention to withdraw from its bases in Singapore within
three
years. Aside from the defense implications, the news was
sobering
because British spending in Singapore accounted for about
25
percent of Singapore's gross national product
(
GNP--see Glossary)
for a total of about S$450 million a year, and the bases
employed
some 21,000 Singapore citizens. The government called an
election
for April in order to gain a new mandate for facing the
crisis.
Unopposed in all but seven constituencies, the PAP made a
clean
sweep, winning all fifty-eight parliamentary seats. With
the new
mandate, the government passed in August new labor laws
that were
tough on workers and employers alike. The new legislation
permitted
longer working hours, reduced holidays, and gave employers
more
power over hiring, firing, and promoting workers. Workers
could
appeal actions they considered unjust to the Ministry of
Labour,
and employers were obligated to increase their
contributions to the
Central Provident Fund (CPF). Workers also were given for
the first
time sick leave and unemployment compensation. As a result
of the
new legislation, productivity increased, and there were no
strikes
in 1969.
With labor relations under control, the government set
up the
Jurong Town Corporation to develop Jurong and the other
industrial
estates
(see Land Management and Development
, ch. 3). By
late 1970,
271 factories in Jurong employed 32,000 workers, and there
were
more than 100 factories under construction. Foreign
investors were
attracted by the improved labor situation and by such
incentives as
tax relief for up to five years and unrestricted
repatriation of
profits and capital in certain government-favored
industries.
United States firms flocked to invest in Singapore,
accounting for
46 percent of new foreign capital invested in 1972.
Companies from
Western Europe, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia, and
Australia
also invested capital, and by 1972 one quarter of
Singapore's
manufacturing firms were either foreign-owned or
joint-venture
companies. Another attraction of Singapore for foreign
capital was
the region's petroleum resources. Singapore was the
natural base
for dozens of exploration, engineering, diving, and other
support
companies for the petroleum industry in nearby Indonesia,
as well
as being the oil storage center for the region. By the
mid-1970s,
Singapore was the third largest oil-refining center in the
world.
The government turned to advantage the British pullout
by
converting some of the military facilities to commercial
and
industrial purposes and retraining laid-off workers for
new jobs.
The former King George VI Graving Dock was converted to
the
Sembawang Shipyard, employing 3,000 former naval base
workers in
ship building and ship repair. Singapore also moved into
shipping
in 1968 with its own Neptune Orient Line. A container
complex built
in 1972 made the country the container transshipment
center of
Southeast Asia. By 1975 Singapore was the world's third
busiest
port behind Rotterdam and New York.
By the early 1970s, Singapore not only had nearly full
employment but also faced labor shortages in some areas.
As a
result, immigration laws and work permit requirements were
relaxed
somewhat, and by 1972 immigrant workers made up 12 percent
of the
labor force
(see Manpower and Labor
, ch. 3). In order to
develop a
more highly skilled work force that could command higher
wages, the
government successfully courted high-technology
industries, which
provided training in the advanced skills required.
Concerned that
the country's economic success not be diluted by
overpopulation,
the government launched a family planning program in 1966
(see Population
, ch. 2).
The country's economic success and domestic
tranquility, which
contrasted so starkly with the impoverished strife-torn
Singapore
of the late 1940s, was not purchased without cost,
however.
Although not a one-party state, the government was
virtually under
the total control of the PAP, and the Lee Kuan Yew
administration
did not hesitate to block the rise of an effective
opposition.
Holding a monopoly on power and opportunity in a small
state, the
party could easily co-opt the willing and suppress
dissenters. The
traditional bases--student and labor organizations--used
by
opposition groups in the past were tightly circumscribed.
Control
of the broadcast media was in the hands of the government,
and
economic pressures were applied to any newspapers that
became too
critical. The government leadership had adopted a
paternalistic
viewpoint that only those who had brought the nation
through the
perilous years could be trusted to make the decisions that
would
keep Singapore on the narrow path of stability and
prosperity. The
majority of Singaporeans scarcely dissented from this view
and left
the planning and decision making to the political
leadership.
Although five opposition parties contested the 1972
elections and
won nearly one-third of the popular vote, the PAP again
won all of
the seats.
Although admired for its success, Lee's government
increasingly
attracted criticism from the international press for its
less than
democratic style. Singapore's neighbors also resented the
survival-
oriented nature of the country's foreign and economic
policies. The
aggressive defense policy recommended by Singapore's
Israeli
military advisers irritated and alarmed Muslim Indonesia
and
Malaysia,
(see Historical Development
, ch.
5). Resentful of the profits made by Singapore in handling
their
commodities, Malaysia and Indonesia began setting up their
own
rubber-milling and petroleum-servicing industries. In the
early
1970s, Malaysia and Singapore separated their joint
currency, stock
exchange, and airlines.
A regional political grouping, the Association of
Southeast
Asian Nations
(
ASEAN--see Glossary),
founded in 1967 by
Singapore,
Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines, had
little
impact by the early 1970s on the foreign and economic
policies of
the member nations. However, regional and world
developments in the
1970s, including the fall of Indochina to communism and
the
Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, steered Singapore and its
neighbors toward a new spirit of cooperation.
Data as of December 1989
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