Closing down Chinese schools turned out to be counterproductive. English Educated Chinese people make better 五毛.
At the Bloomberg New Economy Forum Gala Dinner PM Wong was asked: do you think poking the dragon in the way that the Prime Minister (of Japan) did? Do you think that was advisable?
PM Wong replied: “As far as the history is concerned, it has taken some time, but with the passage of time, with the passing of generations, the feelings are not the same and we have put the history aside. And we are moving forward.
“And it is quite striking that survey after survey shows that Japan is the number one trusted great power in Southeast Asia. And so Singapore and all the Southeast Asian countries support Japan playing a bigger role in our region, including on the security front, because we think that provides for some stability in the region.”
Not surprisingly, his words triggered a propaganda campaign against Singapore. That’s not surprising at all. Nor is it worrying until some Singaporeans join in the fray to whack not the propagandists but PM Wong. This is where I draw the line. It’s OK to criticise PM Wong and stand with the opposition. It’s not OK to criticise PM Wong and stand with China. For the 五毛, Japan is suddenly the enemy and the PRC now has every right to territory held on by the ROC.
How did we come to this? Folks who can’t even string a cogent argument in Chinese are standing with China, demonising Japan and Taiwan which have laws and systems more similar to ours than China’s is to ours. How did we end up here?
This is where we need to take a contrarian view. The lack of Chinese means that these folks don’t get to read or listen to what the dissidents and escapees have to say about the PRC which, because of decades of prosperity, has enough government coffers to buy up Western media and report in English. Propaganda is the forte of communist parties. The majority of my friends who fall for it have very limited Chinese – just like George Yeo, Tay Kheng Soon, Jack Sim, Tan Kin Lian and Kishore Mahbubani.
Singaporeans who have not been exposed to China and didn’t notice its rise as an economic superpower were brought up thinking that China is poor and backward. When they see a modern and seemingly progressive China on their 5-star travels, they are mesmerised. In a lightbulb moment, they turn into BACs. In fact, being able to read Chinese and see what the dissidents say would have given these BACs a lot more depth and breath into what China is all about. Those of us who have been watching China for decades and seen a more complete picture would certainly be less vulnerable to such infatuations.