Kelvin Teo / TOCI Writer
So the dust has now settled over Minister Mentor Mr Lee Kuan Yew’s provocative call to chinese Singaporeans to focus on learning mandarin instead of their dialects. From a personal perspective, I didn’t find Mr Lee’s call surprising, given the fact that he has always championed Singapore’s role as the gateway to China. There have been exhaustive discussions on the domestic cultural impact of Mr Lee’s remark but little attention is paid to the political economy beyond the dialects and languages.
Geopolitical shift towards East Asia
As the fallout from the current global credit crisis continues, there has been some talk of America losing its superpower status as it reels from a double whammy – the collapse of its financial system and the overstretching of its military in Iraq and Afghanistan. And naysayers have further rubbed salt into the wound by predicting that the US dollar will lose its world currency status. The writing is already on the wall when OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) countries started dumping the dollars. Iran transacts in Euros with Venezuela following suit. And after the dollars hit its lowest against the yen, the likelihood of the former being knocked off its pedestal seems closer to reality.
There could be a shift in the balance of world power, a transition from one dominant entity to a few powerful entities. The BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) nations seem the likely candidates. China is poised to overtake America in terms of GDP by 2040. For ASEAN nations, trading volume with China is set to rise with the establishment of the ASEAN-China Free Trade Area by 2010. The value of ASEAN-China trade was forecasted to hit $200 billion in 2008.
The Kra Canal Project, which is the planned waterway link between the Indian ocean and the South China sea and cutting across the Isthmus of Kra is in its revival stage. The Chinese will be providing assistance for the project, and it is a move to increase Chinese commercial and military presence within Southeast Asia, particularly in facilitating trade and enhance Chinese energy security. So the geopolitics shift and anticipation of increased trade links with China within the region might make learning mandarin an attractive postposition, no? Perhaps, there is use for learning mandarin after all. However, wouldn’t it seem a little premature to place the learning of our dialects into the backburner?
Mandarin alone offers no comparative advantage
Cantonese speakers amongst us might have a strong case for argument here. Cantonese makes up 15% of the Singaporean chinese population. Cantonese is spoken as a medium of communication in Guangzhou, a major business centre in China. And it will come in useful when interacting with business people from Hong Kong too. However, it is a fallacy to think that being chinese and able to speak mandarin would eventually lead to a comparative advantage. The failure of the Suzhou Industrial Park (SIP) serves as an important reminder to all of us.
SIP was initially conceived to the epitome of Singapore-style Industrial Township – a showcase of Singapore’s way of managing an industrial set-up. That wasn’t to be, and Singapore transferred a major part of SIP’s ownership back to the Chinese. What happened was that SIP was outgunned and outfoxed by the Suzhou New District, despite the former enjoying advantages ranging from initial political support from the Chinese Communist Party to freedom over planning and land use. The experiment to clone Singapore in China failed. Thus, what the SIP failure has taught us is that common language is no substitute for the appreciation of local political, social and economic culture. While learning the language or dialect involved in trade communications is important, but the key to survival is to be able to adapt to the prevailing business conditions.
Keeping Singaporeans at home
Last but not least, the very notion of home is increasingly diluted in Singapore. The Asia Research Centre of Murdoch University reported in December 2007 that 53% of Singaporean teens would consider emigration to greener pastures. Singapore’s outflow of 26.11 emigrants per 1000 citizens is ranked 2nd highest in the world, after Timor Leste. Deputy Prime Minister Wong Kan Seng also publicly acknowledged that Singaporean applications for overseas residency have already exceeded 1000 per month since 2007.
While many have attributed the emigration trend to better economic opportunities abroad, there are other push factors in Singapore that contributed to it. The growing disconnect between Singaporeans and their social environment, the OB markers keeping Singaporeans from taking ownership of their own identity in Singapore are among the push factors. Dialects play an important role in not only building a strong sense of identity towards one’s community, but also encourage Singaporeans to take pride of our own cultural diversity. If we cannot be proud of our own cultures, why would we even hold allegiance to this country by staking our individual economic futures here?
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About the writer: Kelvin Teo works in the healthcare sector. He also writes for the independent NUS daily The Kentridge Common.
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Good and difficult-to-rebut-otherwise article. When I was reading this article, I was silently comparing this article (which included statistical inputs on migration inclinations from singaporeans, therefore stronger case) with the other one which had the heading ‘Singapore more attractive than Hong Kong, says expat’ (lone input). Go get yourself a second career as a full-time writer :-)
Singapore needs a stable export market, it own hinterland for supplies of raw materials and a market for its output, an adequate labour supply and security from extternal aggression and terrorism, The PAP party also needs to retain its power and political support base and to marginalise oppositions but through a democratic electorate system. But the Singapore of today either doesn’t have or want more of these.
What’s PAP’s solution. Simple.
Migrate the whole nation to China and it will enjoy all of these with one stroke of the pen. USA has it’s Guam and Puerto Rico. China has its HK and in due course Taiwan. Why not also majorly-Chinese Singapore which is in many ways similar to China, ethnically & culturally. Is this why the govt has let in huge no. of Chinese workers, students, understudying govt and private officials in recent years and forcing Singaporeans to speak Mandarin to them and is also stepping up the Chinese learning campaign?
Who is to say that this possiblity is a mere pipe dream and not in anyone’s mind? In the long run, for Singapore’s economic survival is there a better solution?
Indignified has brought up an interesting point.
It could be that the ruling party has come to realised that Sgp as a nation is not viable. We are just too small, and without natural resources. Our citizens are not reproducing and replacing. Take a note from recent MM’s comment – even our immigration polices are not attracting the best as many FT are using Sgp as the stepping stone to greener pastures. What we get are the 2nd rate FT.
Our neighbours are not exactly sound subject for integration or merger. There seems to be a strong undercurrent of citizens consideration migrating. So what is left ?
Singapore to become a satelite, another SAR of China, is a real possibility.
27/3/09
Indignified-I noted your posting where you wrote migrate the whole nation to China and this is madness and insane, perhaps more true import as many Mainland Chinese from China to Singapore as they are more controlable unlike we Singapore born Chinese who have more education and have seen the world unlike the Mainland Chinese. As I have written in response to similar articles on TOC, again I am writing ie the Mandarin speaking world is very small and worse dull, colorless, traditionaless and cultureless unlike the English speaking world which bigger and colorful, and much much more for those who speak our dialects like Hokkien, Cantonese, Teochew, Khek, Hakka etc (our world are very colorful,very rich in traditions and cultures).
So, let us as Singapore born Chinese continu to speak to each other using our dialects and ensure o
27/3/09
Continue ……..So let us as Singapore born Chinese continue to speak to each other using our dialects and ensure our rich traditions and cultures which are embeded in our dialects continue and flourishes forever and our future generations are able to speak their dialects and continue to t inheirt and practise our traditions and cultures which are very rich, colorful and vibrant unlike those who solely speak Mandarin.
Regards
Andrew Chuah
The Asia Research Centre of Murdoch University reported in December 2007 that 53% of Singaporean teens would consider emigration to greener pastures.
yep i’m one of them. Singapore and I are totally disconnected.
What will you defend? NOTHING.
The Chinese population in China is aging due to the one child policy. By 2040, the population will be lower than 1.3 billion. Besides, not all of the 1.3 billion people in China are Han Chinese of even Chinese at all. There are Uzbeks, Russians, Mongols, Tatars, Khazaks, Manchus, and so on.
The number of Mandarin speakers may be higher than English but the reason for this is that the Chinese population is larger but mainly confined to China. Most south-east Asian Chinese people are from southern China and not northern Chinese.
When the Chinese population declines, there will be a corresponding decline in the number of Mandarin speakers in the world.
Mandarin is probably spoken by about 43 – 46% of the population of the People’s Republic of China.
Singapore already has a culture of its own. Singaporeans do not need the government to tell them what culture to adopt and what language to speak.
This government thinks Singaporeans are not mature enough for anything. Mr Wong kan Seng, and Mr Ong Seh Hong have said so.
Cheers
Much of the success of the Singapore story ended when the first generation ministers retired except for Lee Kuan Yew. The succeeding ministers with their huge salaries were only to him and what he stands for.
Instead of nation-building, the PAP government have turned Singapore into a financial (money-laundry) haven for rich corrupt tycoons (wanted for tax-evasion and corruption), and tyrants of authoritarian regimes to hide their ill-gotten gains.
The PAP government have completely failed in nation-building and are the very threat of the existence of Singapore as a nation state. The statistics speak for themselves,
“… 53% of Singaporean teens would consider emigration to greener pastures. Singapore’s outflow of 26.11 emigrants per 1000 citizens is ranked 2nd highest in the world, after Timor Leste.”
I fully agreed. Mandarin is just one of the dialect of Northern China. It was propagated by past government to be our mother tongue; something ‘forced’on us.
Our ancestors came from Southern China and our mother tongue is Cantonese, Hokkien and Teochew etc.
I am afraid by concentrating on Mandarin, our heritage will be eliminated.