Open letter to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong

 
 Published on Thursday 25 March 2010. Updated on Friday 26 March 2010.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong
Prime Minister’s Office
Orchard Road
Istana
Singapore 238823

Paris, 25 March 2010

Dear Prime Minister,

A foreign news organisation has yet again been forced to apologise to you and your father and pay you a large sum of money for publishing an article you did not like. This time it is the New York Times Co. that is a victim of this double punishment because of a compliant judicial system that always rules in favour of you and your family in all the lawsuits you bring against foreign news media.

Before the New York Times Co., you succeeded in punishing the Far Eastern Economic Review (FEER), FinanceAsia.com, The Economist, International Herald Tribune and Asian Wall Street Journal for their coverage of the political and economic situation in your country.

Threatened by a trial, the New York Times Co. apologised to you and your father, Lee Kuan Yew, for the article “All in the Family,” written by Philip Bowring and published in the 15 February issue of the International Herald Tribune. As well as an apology, this US media company had to pay 114,000 US dollars in damages.

Your lawyer, Davinder Singh, said Bowring’s article violated an “agreement” between your family and the International Herald Tribune, which was sentenced in 1994 to pay a large sum in damages for an article entitled “The claims about Asian values don’t usually bear scrutiny.”

The now defunct Far Eastern Economic Review agreed last November, after a long legal wrangle, to pay you and your father 290,000 US dollars in damages. Despite a lack of evidence, Singaporean judges ruled in favour of your family both in the original trial and on appeal without a thought for media freedom.

Reporters Without Borders condemns the judicial harassment which you and your father have practiced for years in order to prevent foreign news media from taking too close an interest in how you run your country. It does serious and lasting harm to press freedom in Singapore.

Your government has repeatedly displayed a disturbing inability to tolerate foreign journalists. Last October, for example, Ben Bland, a British freelancer who strings for The Economist and The Daily Telegraph, was denied a visa and permission to cover an APEC summit in Singapore. “I was forced to leave Singapore after the government refused to renew my work visa without any explanation,” Bland told Reporters Without Borders.

But the censorship has above all affected local media and local artistic production. In October 2009, for example, the ministry of information, communication and arts upheld a ban on a documentary by Singaporean filmmaker Martyn See about government opponent Said Zahari. Watch the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOI2...

In response to the publication of the Reporters Without Borders 2009 press freedom index, in which Singapore was ranked 133rd out of 175 countries, your law minister, K. Shanmugam, described it as “absurd” and “disconnected from reality.”

Unfortunately, the facts show that we are right.

In the six years since you became prime minister and said you favoured an “open” society, we have seen very few improvements in the situation of free speech.

We therefore think your government should take the following measures as a matter of urgency:

1. Put a stop to the libel actions which you and your relatives have been bringing against Singaporean and foreign media that cover Singaporean developments in an independent manner. As the UN special rapporteur for freedom of expression recently said, the prime minister, his minister and high officials must refrain from suing journalists over their articles and comments.
2. Amend the criminal code so as to abolish prison sentences for press offences.
3. Amend the press law, especially the articles concerning the granting of publication licences. The current restrictions are preventing the emergence of independent media. The film law should also be relaxed.
4. Reform the national security law so as to abolish administrative detention, which allows the authorities to imprison people because of what they think.
5. Reform the Media Development Authority so that it is no longer able to censor and can solely make recommendations about TV programmes and films.
6. Allow government opponents and civil society representatives unrestricted access to the public media.
7. Guarantee the editorial independence of all the media owned by Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) and Media Corporation of Singapore (Mediacorp).
8. Transfer the money that your family has obtained in damages from foreign and Singaporean news media to a support fund for imprisoned journalists that Reporters Without Borders proposes to set up.

We regret that you, the members of your government and your father keep citing the need to guarantee Singapore’s stability as grounds for controlling the media and maintaining its draconian laws. Countries that show the most respect for press freedom, such as Finland and Norway, are peaceful and prosperous democracies. Freedom of expression is not a source of political unrest. Quite the contrary.

You have perpetuated your father’s legacy by continuing to harass and intimidate news media. As a result, aside from a few websites specialising in Singapore, no news outlet can publish independent news and information about issues affecting the political situation in your country.

We would be very honoured to be able to meet with you in order to talk about our observations and our proposals for guaranteeing press freedom in Singapore in person.

Respectfully,

Jean-François Julliard
Secretary-General 

Reporters Without Borders

Exposing The 6 Major Flaws In The PAP’s Immigration Policy

Posted by temasektimes on April 29, 2012

The twin issues of immigration and foreign workers have perpetually hogged the headlines since last year, an indication of how it has become a“national obsession” of Singaporeans. Despite the ruling party’s fervent attempts to assuage rising resentment, frustration and anger on the ground, Singaporeans remain unconvinced by their reasoning that foreigners are “essential” to Singapore.
To be fair to the PAP, there is nothing fundamentally wrong in Singapore recruiting more foreigners to boost its declining birth rate – the root cause of the problem lies in the way the policies are implemented which takes into little consideration the possible long‐term impact on the rest of the populace. Three questions come to mind immediately:
1. Why do we need immigrants?
2. How many immigrants do we need?
3. Who are we targeting exactly?
The first question has been addressed many times by the PAP leaders and academics – being a small nation without any natural resources, human resource is our greatest asset. Singapore’s birth rates has been declining to below the level needed to replace the population and if no measures are taken to rectify the situation, we will end up like Japan – an aging society with manifold repercussions for the nation.
Hence, we need immigrants to keep our population growing and to economy competitive. Unfortunately, the PAP appeared to have implemented the policies too hastily under their ambitious plan to increase Singapore’s population to 6.5 million people while neglecting the other intangible consequences of immigration.
Six major flaws of the PAP’s immigration policies:

1. Too many, too soon:
Singapore has been accepting immigrants since the 1980s and 1990s from Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong and Taiwan without causing much discomfort to the local population.
This is because the immigrants have come in smaller numbers and are similar to Singaporeans in terms of culture, language and beliefs and have few problems assimilating into Singapore society.
The pace of immigration picked up when Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong assumed office in 2003 and all of sudden the floodgates are opened to accept foreigners from all over the world especially China and India where the majority of the newcomers hail from. In the span of less than 5 years, foreigners now make up 36 per cent of Singapore’s population, up from 14 per cent in 1990. Of the remaining 64 per cent who are citizens, a significant proportion are new immigrants born overseas.
Does Singapore really need to let so many foreigners into the country within such a short period of time? In 2008 alone, there were over 90,000 PRs and 20,000 new citizens which is obviously stretching the nation’s infrastructure, such as public housing to accommodate all of them.
PM Lee now promised Singaporeans that the rate of immigration will be continued in a
“measured and calibrated” manner. Is this a tacit admission that the uncontrolled influx of immigrants between the years 2003 – 2008 had been a mistake?

2. Inadequate infrastructure such as public housing to accommodate newcomers:
It doesn’t take a genius to realize that with so many foreigners flocking to study, work and live in Singapore, one needs to increase the number of public amenities and upgrade the infrastructure to accommodate them such as public housing.
According to HDB financial report 2008/2009, only slightly more than 11,000 new flats were built between the years 2006 – 2008 when there were over 90,000 PRs and 20,000 new citizens alone in 2008.
The lack of foresight on the part of HDB to plan beforehand to build more new flats to house the immigrants is appalling and its failure to do so has led to sky‐rocketing HDB flat prices today. Due to the lack of new flats, especially those in the prime districts, Singaporeans have to compete with PRs in the resale flats which resulted naturally in the rise of the prices of resale flats. Public transport such as buses and MRTs are also poorly prepared for the increase in population as evidenced by the packed buses and trains every morning.

3. Targeting the wrong people:
Singapore should be targeting foreigners who can add value to Singapore and not open its doors indiscriminately to every Tom, Dick or Harry. Mainland China is one important source of immigrants for Singapore, but we are not getting their cream of the crop. According to a Gallup poll done in July 2009 among Chinese college students, their top emigration destination is the United States, followed by France and South Korea. Singapore isn’t even featured among the top five.
Why isn’t Singapore attracting the best Chinese talents? Instead of examining the cause we settle for their “lesser talents”, many of whom are uncouth peasants from the poorer inland provinces.
What Singapore is getting are not first class talents but economic migrants who cannot survive in their own countries and they are now competing with Singaporeans for limited jobs because they cost much less.
China is vast country with 23 provinces and more than 1 billion people of various races and religions. The ethnic Chinese in Singapore come mostly from the southern provinces of Guangdong and Fujian.
Singapore should be focusing on luring prospective migrants from these two provinces instead of allowing Chinese from all across the mainland to come here.
As they share the same dialect and culture as local Chinese, they will have fewer problems integrating into Singapore society as compared to Chinese from far‐flung inland provinces who come from a completely alien world altogether.

4. Ease of getting PR and citizenship:
Unlike countries, getting a PR and citizenship in Singapore is incredibly easy without any major restrictions. Most developed countries like Australia, Canada and U.K set an English proficiency test for immigrants and only those who pass the test are able to work and live there. In Australia, one has to live there three out of a period of five years before they are eligible to become PRs.
However in Singapore, the newcomers are “fast‐tracked” to become PRs and citizens without first familiarizing themselves with the country first and spending adequate time to make the decision.
A Chinese national and Singapore PR Zhang Yuanyuan who worked as a teacher in a private  institution in Singapore revealed to the media that she became a PR within 2 months of application. Even construction workers, cleaners, masseurs and prostitutes are able to lay their lands on a Singapore PR, the stepping stone for citizenship.
According to the Home Affairs Ministry, two out of every three PR applicants are successful, an astonishingly high success rate for a first world country. Because citizenships are given out too soon to foreigners, there is insufficient time for both
parties to assess if they are really “compatible” with each other.

5. Lack of a comprehensive plan to integrate the newcomers:
Due to the large number of unsuitable migrants who are given citizenships too soon, we now end up with the problem of having to integrate them.
Again, the ruling party did not come up with a comprehensive plan to integrate the newcomers when they embarked on their ambitious plan to increase Singapore’s population via immigration way back in 2003.
It is now very difficult to integrate those who are already in Singapore because they have come in such big numbers that they tend to congregate within their own communities than to reach out to the rest of Singapore.
We are already seeing ethnic “enclaves” emerging in different parts of Singapore such as the Chinese in Geylang, Indians in Punggol and Filipinos in Tampines.
Furthermore, as they share few similarities with the Chinese, Malays and Indians though they may be of the same race, it is near impossible to expect them to assimilate into our society any time soon.
As usual, the ruling party comes up with a grandiose $10 million Community Integration Fund to throw money at the problem.
How does organizing tea parties, community events and free language courses help to
“integrate” the immigrants into Singapore is anybody’s guess when they should have done their homework first before opening the floodgates to immigration.
They will simply turn up for the free food and goodies before return to their own cliques as before – do you call this “integration”?

6. Neglect of native Singaporeans:
The key reason why many Singaporeans are so vehemently against the ruling party’s
immigration policies is because they feel they are not getting a fair deal as citizens from the elected government of the day. Dr Vivian Balakrishnan said the government cannot “shield” Singaporeans from competition, but they are the ones who forced Singaporeans to compete with foreigners on unequal terms.
Firstly, the Singapore male is already disadvantaged by having to spend 4 weeks away from work annually due to reservist obligations.
Secondly, there is no way Singaporeans can compete with foreigners in terms of cost because they do not have a family here and they can easily support them back home with their meager pay earned in Singapore.
While in the past only extremely qualified professionals and blue collar workers in sectors shunned by Singaporeans are allowed into Singapore, we are now seeing an increasing number of semi‐skilled foreigners on S‐passes and these are the group of foreigners who are competing with locals for jobs and depressing their wages in the process. To exacerbate the situation, there is a dearth of social welfare benefits for Singapore citizens who have to depend entirely on their CPF and medisave for retirement and medical expenses.
CPF is proving to be grossly inadequate to support Singaporeans through their twilight years and many have to continue working just to feed themselves and their families.
With so many grouses bottled up inside, it is only natural to expect Singaporeans to blame foreigners for their woes, whether rightly or wrongly.
Had the ruling party taken the necessary measures to ensure that Singaporeans are well taken care of first before they let the foreigners in, there will not be so much anger against them now.

Conclusion:
Instead of focusing solely on the benefits of immigration, which is namely to sustain the population and economy, the government should look at the entire problem from a holistic perspective.
Immigration has its pros and cons. We must evaluate the potential problems bring about by uncontrolled immigration first before deciding on the number of immigrants to accept each year.

Note: This article was first published in the old Temasek Review in March 2010

How Uncontrolled Immigration Can Destroy A Nation

A comparative case study of the Korean kingdoms of Balhae (渤海) and Silla (新羅)

Posted by temasektimes on May 1, 2012

Immigration is a double-edged sword – it can build a great and powerful nation like the United States, but can also plant the seeds of its eventual downfall too as in the case of the Western Roman empire.
Great civilizations like Tang China might have enjoyed a relative period of prosperity brought about by its open-door policy to immigrants, yet it soon declined and descended into chaos following a massive rebellion led by a barbarian general An Lushan.
Using history as a mirror, Singapore should reflect carefully on its present immigration policy which has resulted in dissatisfaction and discontentment among native Singaporeans.
While Singapore must remain open to the world, we must be extremely selective on the immigrants we accept. Unfortunately, the seemingly uncontrolled immigration in the last few years has led to many foreigners being given Singapore citizenship without truly understand what it means to be a Singaporean.
Singapore has accepted too many immigrants within too short a period of time such that there is no time at all for them to be integrated properly into local society.
Furthermore, Singaporeans have less a racial or cultural identity than the Chinese, Indians, and Filipinos and it would not be easy to assimilate them especially when there are so many of them here causing them to congregate within their own communities.
Uncontrolled immigration can easily destroy a nation as exemplified by the Korean empire of Balhae (渤海).
Balhae (698 AD – 926 AD) was founded in 698 AD from the remnants of the Korean state of Gorguryeo (高句麗) after it was conquered by a joint invasion from Tang China and Silla (新羅), another Korean state which occupied the Korean peninsula.
Balhae became a major empire in Northeast Asia and occupied southern parts of  Manchuria, Russia’s Primorsky Krai, and the northern part of the Korean peninsula.

This area was a volatile region with several ethnic tribes of which the Koreans were one of them. Due to historical animosities between Balhae and Silla, the Balhae kings banned the inflow of Korean immigrants from Silla and relied on immigrants from other ethnic groups instead.
(Balhae blamed Silla for “conspiring” with Tang China to destroy its predecessor state Gorguryeo)
As Balhae was a newly founded country, it adopted an open-door policy to immigrants from neighboring kingdoms and tribes including the Khitan (契丹) and Malgal (靺鞨).
Large numbers of Khitans and Malgals were allowed into Balhae and the Koreans became an ethnic minority in their own country in less than a hundred years.
Unlike the Koreans, the Khitans and Malgals were Tungesic nomads and it was impossible to integrate them fully into Korean society though the Balhae kings had implemented policies to assimilate them such as allowing inter-racial marriages between the two groups.
While the Koreans retained control of the central government and aristocracy, the administration and military became dominated by the Khitans and Malgals which soon led to social conflicts and civil wars between them.
During the last years of the Balhae kingdom, it was wrecked by endless internal turmoils, ethnic strifes and civil wars between the various races in the empire and it was eventually conquered by the Khitan kingdom of Liao in 926 AD.
Like Singapore, Balhae was a country built out of nowhere. Though its southern portion was a remnant of Gorguryeo, its northern territory were entirely virgin lands not ruled by any state before.
The Balhae kings realized that their fledging nation would not stand a chance against its powerful neighbor China or its more populous Korean cousin Silla if it did not open its door to immigrants to increase its population.
Unfortunately, they failed to appreciate the fact that while immigrants may spur economic growth and increase a country’s military strength within a short period of time, social unrest and strife will ensue if the newcomers are not wholly integrated into local society.
Though Balhae was able to achieve rapid growth and prosperity a few decades after its founding due to the influx of immigrants, it sowed the seeds for its eventual demise.
Balhae was the largest and perhaps one of the richest states in the history of Korea, but also its shortest-lived, existing for barely more than 200 years when compared to other more ethnically and culturally homogenous states like Gorguryeo (700 + years), Baekje (700 +), Silla (900 +), Goryeo (300 +) and Joseon (600 +).
Silla (53 BC – 935 AD) was a nation of immigrants like Balhae and Singapore too, built by gradual conquest and assimilation of neighboring statelets and tribes but at a much controlled pace than Balhae which explained its political longevity of nearly a thousand years.

[Three Kingdom era of Korea 53 AD - 668 AD, Source: Wikipedia]

The name of Silla in Hanja – 新羅, means to “cast a net far and wide to accept talents from all over the world”. From the beginning of its existence, Silla was one of the most open nations in East Asia at that time.
Being the weakest and smallest state on the Korean peninsula compared to Gorguryeo in the north and Baekje (百濟) to the west, the Silla kings had long realized the importance of immigration in order to survive.
Though Silla was able to grow and prosper by keeping its door open to immigrants, it practised a highly selective immigration policy unlike that of Balhae.
Silla welcomed only certain ethnic races which were closer to them in terms of language, culture and bloodline and not those who were further apart.
For example, when the Gaya confederacy (加倻) was conquered in 562 AD, its people who were closely linked to the Silla Koreans were completely accepted as Silla citizens and they eventually become assimilated into Silla society, one of whom became the great Korean general Kim Yu-Shin who conquered the other two kingdoms and united Korea.
However, the Japanese (Wa) and those with mixed Silla/Japanese heritage were evicted from their settlements along the southeastern coast of Korea and sent back to Japan as they were deemed “culturally distant” and “unsuitable” for permanent residence in Silla.
Furthermore, while Silla maintained an open-door policy to Korean immigrants from Baekje and Gorguryeo, Chinese, Khitans, Malgals and other races were deliberately kept out. They were allowed to trade with Silla, but could never become its citizens.
Such a targeted immigration policy enabled Silla to increase its population via immigration and ensuring the “ethnic compatibility” of its people at the same time.
Though there were many ethnic minorities in Silla, they were culturally and linguistically linked to the original Silla Koreans thereby maintaining a largely homogenous society.
There were few ethnic strifes or conflicts during Silla’s long history unlike Balhae whose fault-lines were exposed within a hundred years of its founding leading to political instability and its eventual downfall.
Balhae was the last Korean state to hold any territory on Manchuria. There are still a sizable number of ethnic Koreans living in northeast China and Russia’s Maritime province today, but few will remember the existence of Balhae.
Will Singapore end up like Balhae one day? We are now fifty years old. When Balhae was fifty years old, it was a major economic powerhouse in the region (northeast Asia) like Singapore (southeast Asia) and it was also the same period of time when it became  swarmed by immigrants.
If a country the size of Balhae which was about the size of France could implode and destroy itself in only 200 years, why not Singapore?
Singapore should learn from the targeted immigration policy adopted by Silla and focused on getting immigrants who can integrate more easily into our society such as those from the southern provinces of China, Hong Kong and Taiwan of which a basic command of the English language is a must instead of accepting everybody indiscriminately like Balhae without studying if they are culturally, ethnically and linguistically compatible with native Singaporeans in the first place.
History has given us one important lesson of how uncontrolled immigration can destroy a nation. We must take heed before it is too late.

Hougang By-Election 2012_ Png Eng Huat Nomination Day Speech