SINGAPORE - A brief scan of our Singapore cabinet members’ profile yielded an interesting statistic. 5 out of 21 (Mr Lee Hsien Loong, Mr Lui Tuck Yew, Mr Lim Hng Kiang, Mr George Yeo and Mr Teo Chee Hean) of the current cabinet were alumni of our military. Another thing all five of them have in common is that they are winners of prestigious overseas scholarships. Other top civil servants and executives of government-related firms who hail from the military are Mr Philip Yeo and Ms Ho Ching respectively.
Read the full article in The Kent Ridge Common.
From Martyn See’s Facebook:
Rear-Admiral (NS) Teo Chee Hean [top] is Singapore’s Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister. Brigadier-General (NS) George Yeo [front left] is Singapore’s Minister for Foreign Affairs. Lieutenant-General (NS) Lim Hng Kiang [centre] is Singapore’s Minister for Trade and Industry.
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Looking at the pic,
I wonder what happened to the unknown guy on the far right?
I wonder also how was their life in NS.
Must be very tough.
:)
“Other top civil servants and executives of government-related firms who hail from the military are Mr Philip Yeo and Ms Ho Ching respectively.”
This is news!
HC was ex-military? ??
Yes. Ho Ching had posts in the military. I think it was a director of a division. I thought the information on her is freely available?
Dear TOC:
I made a mistake. I forgot to add Mr Lim Swee Say. It should be six of the current cabinet members who are military alumni. Accept my apologies for the exclusion.
SINGAPORE – A brief scan of our Singapore cabinet members’ profile yielded an interesting statistic. 6 out of 21 (Mr Lee Hsien Loong, Mr Lui Tuck Yew, Mr Lim Hng Kiang, Mr George Yeo, Mr Lim Swee Say and Mr Teo Chee Hean) of the current cabinet were alumni of our military. Another thing all six of them have in common is that they are winners of prestigious overseas scholarships. Other top civil servants and executives of government-related firms who hail from the military are Mr Philip Yeo and Ms Ho Ching respectively.
so how about the one on the far right???
Yes, I believe she was a purchasing officer while she was in mindef.
Maybe thats why dunno how to sell investments at the right time LOL.
What do you expect? The Sim Wong Woo (Creative Tech) type? The Chee Soon Juan (no intro needed) type? Or ordinary folk type?
Not surprised. Militarism is a hallmark of a fascist government…
If I am not wrong, Lim Hng Kiang only made it to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel (in SAF lingo, “2 crabs”) and not Lieutenant-General (in SAF lingo, “2 stars”).
If he was Lieutenant-General, he would have been higher in ranking (militarily speaking) than PM Lee, DPM Teo and George Yeo liao, since the latter three were Brigadier-Generals (in SAF lingo, “1 star”).
Oops… Typo error: Lieutenant-General is “3 stars”, not “2 stars”… Anyway, the rank of Lieutenant-General is, I think, “reserved” for the Chief of Defence Force; I don’t recall Lim Hng Kiang ever attaining that position…
Scholars in the military and have scholar officers won wars yet. Not just Sing but in the world.
Did the old China scholars or mandarins become generals and win many wars?
West Point and Sandhurst and did they go all the way to recruit scholar types to become officers? No. Why not?
During WW2 the Yanks had a good crop of gnerals but not the Brits.
Gen MacArthuir was brilliant with his island hopping tactic. He knew he would lick the Japanese during the darkest hour in 1942. They attack fro the front and out flank and I will do that. They have poor logistics but mine will be excellent. He did.
General Patton or Blood and Guts self-studied tank tactics even before 1930. He was right and he beat the Germans in tank warfare.
The British were on a losing streak and its generals would not fight. Churchill would call them up for dinner and he would tell them true old stories about a cavalry charge he took part in Sudan during his young days. On hearing such stories the Brit generals would give all kinds of excuses to say they have to get home – my grandmother fell off her bed or my wife is sick etc.
In the end they found Monty and put all their money and hopes on him. He delivered the results.
All of them were not the scholar type.
One just need to read up their biographies.
If you look at the Japanese, Brit, Yank, German and Russian generals who fought in WW2 you would find that none of them belong to the scholar class.
They were the cream of the military officers. Period.
Can our scholars fight and win wars- with all that grey matter inside them?
.Think twice.
Ho Ching was in Defence Science Organisation.
Lim Hng Kiang was Lt-Col when he left.
Philip Yeo was Permanent Secretary at MINDEF, but for NS he was in the Police.
Lim Hng Kiang makes it to the rank of LTC not LG la..
Let me give a recall of some of the movements of our Chiefs of Defence, past and present:
1) LG Winston Choo : now Head of Red Cross
2) LG Beh Soo Khiang: Executive Vice President of SIA
3) LG Lim Chuan Poh: A Star Chairman
4) LG Ng Yat Chung: MD, Temasek Holdings
Currently serving Chief of Defence is LG Desmond Kwek.
Ho Ching was in Defence Science Organisation
Lim Hng Kiang left as Lt-Col
Philip Yeo was Permanent Secretary of Mindef and served NS in the Police (SC)
Not to worry..their kids are doing the same….those who can will go through a combat unit…those who find it tough will be in the service side…safe and sound….regardless where they are …white horse mah……
It’s not the title that maketh the man; it’s the man that maketh the title. Any smart sinkee will know that all these military ranks are mere titles. In case of internal unrest, these Lee loyalists have the authority to mobilise the army.
#Class of 95,
NS life tough? Got to be kidding..These were white horses..lol.
So with all these ex-military men, the Cabinet is one big groupthink! Is it good that we are always beset with a siege mentality? Hitler won many battles and over-ruled his Generals many times. He was not a scholar. But he was a great strategist, only he miscalculated his last battle with the Russians, and that cost him the War.
Singapore Short Stories #13 -
It appears that Winston Choo is no longer head of the Red Cross. He apparently had wanted to step down after 6 years into the job, saying “it is not healthy to helm any group for too long”. Apparently he only managed to persuade former Police Commissioner Tee Tua Ba (was he the first?) after another 6 years on the post.
It seems the Head of the Red Cross is an appointed position, at the discretion of the President.
http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_315965.html
So, anyone knows what Mr. Choo is up to nowadays? I generally (no pun) do not like military people, but Winston Choo and George Yeo have been two exceptions of mine.
Why is the Head of the Red Cross a position appointed by the President of Singapore?
Wouldn’t most of the male ministers be ‘alumni of military’ anyway since they would have all served their NS and reservist obligations in the military? I don’t understand the correlation here. Looks like it was just a good way to make use of (read: circumvent) a compulsory stint to beef up their resumes to look as though they were military leaders of some sort.
It is still ‘exam elitism’ which runs common.
#20) smallvice585
‘ Why is the Head of the Red Cross a position appointed by the President of Singapore?’
……………………………………………………
The Head of the Red Cross is appointed by the President of Singapore on the advice of the government.
A long serving and capable committee member was supposed to be appointed but was bypassed. I can only speculate a few reasons why he was not appointed: 1. he is not a PAP member, 2. he is not a PAP-connected grassroots leader, 3. he is not a civil-servant. Therefore, his loyalty to the PAP is not guaranteed.
Of course, the government will give other reasons.
Military elites and other scholars in Singapore are well taken care of by the government. It pays to work for the PAP. With so many of them in the government and GLCs drawing huge salaries and bonuses do you think they would hand over power to a democratically elected government in a ‘freak’ general election?
6/4/09
I have written in a similar article on TOC ie Singapore is a defacto Military government and as we have seen, Military government is not flexible like democratically elected government which can governs nation better and making them more prosperous, colorful and v ibrant (Military government expects their orders Yes or No, to be carried out without any questions). The last Military government was in Thailand which deposed off the democratically elected government of Thaksin and today, they are indirectly in controla via the Abisit government.
We can argue till the cows come home that our defacto Military government is a Civil and Democratically elected as the PM, DP, Minister and MPs, all retired from the Armed Forces….very good. Our last PM was Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong, and he did a very good job in the running of our Modern Singapore.
The OnLine Citizen in Singapore is similar to Malaysia’s Malaysiakini and today, Singapore has opened up and we are in the Internet Age where there are alternative news apart from the main stream media or the hard copies newspapers (I have stopped buy and now get all my information from these alternative news which first are called Rumours but later proven to be true besides very reliable)
Regards
Andrew Chuah
I think the reason why singapore has few ministers that were businessmen is because if you are a successful businessmen running a private company, you have no incentive to be a politician.
I believe businessmen running a private, profitable company have the best job in the world. They decide on their working hours, their pay and how they spend their office hours.
The danger of having too many military people in our cabinet is their authoritative mindsets. They are used to people obeying their commands and used to obeying commands from people in authority. The military is an organisation that demands and rewards conformity. The danger of this is that we will churn out too many yes-people. I would like to see more academics in cabinet positions. The University is a place which encourages free exchanges of ideas. It is only when ideas are explored and alternative views noted that a good solution can be found.
its very obvious why our ministers and Lee’s son and grandson are all scholors of the Military. Like our MM said, if anything freak were to happen in the polls and PAP cannot make it to power, these ministers need the support of the military to overthrow the Opposition government. Well, its something our MM had already hinted.
So isn’t it wise to make these scholors, who will most likely become ministers, to go thru the military line, so that they can be “close frens” with future Chief of Army and Chief of Defence Force. This is why no Ministers have a rank higher then the BG or Rear-Adm, becos its no use.
Can the scholar generals win wars?
Can history prove that a group of scholars joined forces and became war generals and won brilliant battles?
None.
Caesar and Alexander the Great were not scholar generals.
America’s MacArthur, Patton, Eisenhower etc – were not scholars.
They were just very professional. They study and study and study warfare and during war time they carried out their craftmanshp skills. That’s all.
Put our scholar generals in simulated war situationsand see how they react.
doesnt matter boy, girl, scholar, generals…the ppl with key control are exclusive to ppl from famiLEE & famiLEE & famiLEE ..famiLEE
rush to wait, wait to rush. remember?
Lee Bee Wah counted?
You will have to wait for a REAL democracy before this state of affairs change . Its not just a Singapore problem its an ASEAN problem , look at all the governments , no real democracy , basically what in Europe we call an old boys clubs . Asean countries have a long way to go , and they have been overtaken by countires like China in making changes and improving things .
Here’s something for us to consider. Can you think of any of our military scholars who have been hired by organisations with utterly no link to the Singapore Government? I mean, if our government people were of such a high calibre (Hence the need to pay them higher than average salaries), surely international organisations would have snapped them up by now.
The only SAF Scholar I can think of who has actually got into an international organisation (at least one that is not owned by the Singapore Government) is my client, Mr Ed Ng who was a Commando Officer (LTC) but has since moved onto becoming Regional CEO of General Electric’s Commercial Finance Division. Other than that, every SAF scholar and top civil servant ends up in a government owned organisation.
To the guy crapping above about the US army and westpoint, yada yada, actually, you may like to know that most of the top generals in the US army are Ivy League educated.
I even know of at least two Harvard alumni US generals currently still in service. And we’re just talking about one elite school Harvard here? There are at least 20 top American universities.
And to Tang Li above, err actually there are a couple of SAFOS alumni in UBS and CSFB holding MD positions..jealous?
There’s another one in McKinsey and his income tax paid this year is easily a few times of your annual income..don’t cry.