Emboldened by "success"

It used to be only used as a defensive rhetoric whenever PAP's national ideology was attacked by some "Western" nation, with the whole "Asian values" argument coined in the late 1990s.

But recent events seemed to suggest that Singapore's government is getting very bold in its anti "Western-syled democracy" rhetoric. Offence, it seems, is increasingly being perceived as the best form of defence.

In fact, the PAP has gotten so bold that on a recent working trip Down Under, Lee Hsien Loong "criticised Australia and New Zealand's liberal democratic practices, suggesting that Singapore's system, under which a single party has ruled since independence, is more efficient" (Financial Times, June 22).

The same report quoted the junior PM Lee as saying that "although the democracies of Australia and New Zealand made for 'more exciting' politics, the national interest could suffer in a multi-party system."

Lee took the "endless debates" in the political systems in Australia and New Zealand to task, saying that they are "seldom about achieving a better grasp of the issue but to score political points."

Lee also apparently said that as a result of having to "spend all his time dealing with this party politics," Australian PM John Howard does not "have a lot of time to worry about the long-term future."

His comments came as he "blamed Australia's multi-party system for his failure to persuade Canberra to open its aviation market to state-owned Singapore Airlines, which is seeking to fly the transpacific route from Sydney to Los Angeles" (FT, June 22).

They also came as he attempted to shake off questions from the local press about Singapore's human rights records.

In an online opinion piece, Tze Ming Mok questioned Lee's familiar response in asserting that New Zealanders needed to be "more attuned to what is happening in Asia".

Lee added that while human rights were "familiar issues to Western journalists and maybe readers too, but really they don't define Asia. You need to come and learn how people live."

I shall not expound on what Mok has more than adequately done in his piece. Instead I shall highlight a worrying trend.

Because of Singapore's perceived success as a country over a relative short timespan, other similar sized developing countries are starting to look to Singapore as a possible model they might emulate. The case of the recent visit of the Benin president is a case in point.

In this regard, the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy is one such mode of transmission, very much in the mould of how the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard is for the American government.

Which can only mean one thing - that there could be more "Singapores" popping up all over the world, with little focus on people's freedoms, but more on creating stability so that business might thrive and give rise to the whole development rhetoric.

But perhaps thankfully, the Singapore model of business is not proving to be very resilient internationally.

In another Financial Times article dated June 24, John Burton explores how "Temasek finds leaving home a chilling experience" as he explored how recent high profile acquisitions by the ultra-secretive Temasek Holdings have been underperforming in the stock markets.

However, the increasing boldness in the Singapore PAP government's international rhetoric cannot be dismissed.

In light of its recent lukewarm showing at the General Elections where one-third of the electorate voted for the opposition, one might be inclined to question the legitimacy of their rhetoric.

But perhaps more significantly and most recently, how despite his claim to a more open society when he first assumed the prime ministerial role two years ago, events seem to suggest that the contrary might be true.

A recent mrbrown column in TODAY newspaper commenting on the increasing rich-poor income gap in Singapore merited a sharp response from a government official. It subsequently led to his regular column being suspended.

So, is Lee Hsien Loong right? That human rights "don't really define Asia"? Do we really live that differently from everybody else?

Perhaps, but why do I feel like I have been flogging a dead horse since time immemorial?