The British Colonial Legacy in Modern Singapore

In a world of problem-ridden post-colonial nations that proliferated during the first decade of the 21st Century comes to a close, remain aid-dependent and largely off the radars of investors of the western nations, the nation of Singapore stands in stark contrast. A former British colony that gained full independence in 1965, its history reads, in part, very similar to the histories to the myriad of former British possessions around it - Malaysia, Brunei, Burma, India - and even the wave of colonies in Africa such as Nigeria or Ghana that saw independence brought to them in the same nationalistic drive after World War II that engulfed virtually all former colonial possessions of the great empires. However, there are very few nations today that can boast the achievements of the Singaporean state.

In the first quarter of 2007, the Singaporean economy grew by 7.2 percent, a figure that surpassed market analysts' predictions of a 4.9 percent growth . However, this kind of growth is hardly shocking, as the island nation of only 693 square kilometers boasts a per capita GDP of $30,900 as of 2006, roughly 30th in rank amongst the nations and territories of the world, placing it between France and the UK. Its neighbor and largest trading partner, Malaysia, in comparison, ranks 59th at $12,700 . According to the World Bank's "Doing Business Database", Singapore jumped to number one in "overall ease of doing business" in 2006, up from second place in 2005. The nation's economic numbers complement its rankings in other fields. The nation's corruption level is ranked number five out of all nations in 2006, according to Transparency International. UNDP's Human Development Index has ranked Singapore 25th of 177 countries. While the majority of its fellow post-colonial nations have been mired in problems from unemployment to water pollution to coup d'états in the past fifty years or so, and indeed many nations continue to suffer these problems today, Singapore has joined ranks with the developed world in virtually all fields, despite its humble beginnings as a breakaway Malaysian province in 1965.

Singapore's meteoric rise since independence, an achievement mostly visible statistically in the field of economics, have been attributed by its leaders, especially long-time Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, as a result of the work ethic and culture of the Singaporeans. Singapore today is a diverse state, encompassing a large ethnically Chinese population, but also includes significant Tamil, Malay, and European minorities . The policies instated by Lee and his successors were largely attributed to the "Confucian" ideology that the nation followed, according to the leaders. However, this discounting of the work of the British colonizers in the over one hundred years prior to the independence of the nation can hardly be considered fair. While the new, Chinese-led administration proudly attributes the progress the nation has made on the "Asianness" of the nation, culture, and government, by virtue of Occam's razor, it would be a lot simpler to attribute most of the governmental policies to either a direct continuation of British policies or a reaction to British policies of the century prior. The legacies left by the British and the age of Imperialism continue to be a defining factor in Singaporean policy making, even today.

Several significant areas of modern Singapore can be used to showcase the connection between the colonial policies and modern implementations. Singapore's diverse yet orderly society, under the overarching government that emphasizes on "good governance" over freedom as well as its focus on expanding international trade and economics as well as an ardent backing of free trade amongst nations can both be directly traced back to its colonial origins .

Singaporean Free Trade and Economic Self-Control

British Colonial Rule

Singapore's role as a high tech center of commerce in Asia have been solidified as it overcame the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997-1998 and remained a strong player in the international market. Its policies of encouraging foreign investments and the official encouragement for free trade had always separated itself from its neighbors. Singapore's specific policies in encouraging trade and foreign investments since independence differed greatly from the policies of its neighbors such as Malaysia and Indonesia, both post-colonial nations unable to attract the same level of foreign investments like Singapore. Singapore's overwhelming disregard for protectionist policies can indeed be attributed in part to its small size and lack of arable land or ability to foster large scale manufacturing as well as the lack of local investment capital - there simply weren't local businesses to be protected by tariffs and protectionism . At the same time, Singapore's strategic position at the crossroads of the India-Asia trade and trade with the Spice Islands during the 19th Century required it to historically provide a favorable policy for traders for it to compete with the established colonies of the day, especially the Dutch, whose grip on the Spice Islands made it one of the wealthiest nations in the world in the early days of imperialism.

Singapore's founding in 1819 hardly marked the first attempt by the British to establish a presence in the lucrative Southeast Asian market. The British East India Company, based out of Calcutta, had, for nearly two hundred years, attempted to establish a stable trading presence in the Spice Islands, dominated by the Dutch East Indies Company - Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie, or VOC - since 1602 . While the English during the time period focused largely on America and Africa, the Dutch fought to control the Far East trade against the Portuguese and Spanish. By the end of the Seventeenth Century, the Dutch monopoly in the area over the commodities of sandalwood, mace, nutmeg, and cinnamon was complete. A trading empire based out of Batavia on the island of Java stretched from the Cape of Good Hope to the Moluccas and New Guinea and became the dominant force in the Malay world.

The British East India Company - EIC - was founded at a similar time, in 1600, but its focus was largely on the Indian subcontinent. An English presence was established in Amboyna as early as 1609, but the twenty men under the employment of the EIC were massacred by the Dutch in 1623, in the Amboyna Massacre, an act that proved to be the end of British ambitions to dislodge Dutch power in the area for the greater part of the next century . The British later founded Bencoolen, on the island of Sumatra, in 1685, for the pepper trade . Unlike Amboyna or the rest of the Dutch East Indies, access to Bencoolen from India did not require passage through the two major waterways controlled by the Dutch that led to the Far East, the Strait of Malacca to the north and the Strait of Sunda to the south. The allure of the Japan trade, which at the time the Dutch held a monopoly over in Nagasaki and involved not only Japanese goods but Chinese goods as well, motivated the British to establish a presence in Canton, modern day Guangzhou, in Southern China in 1711, but trade was limited in part due to the lack of a British port in Southeast Asia .

However, by the late 1700s, the British started to gain the upper hand in the Asia trade. The loss of the American colonies to independence enabled the government to focus more resources on the expansion of authorities and power of the EIC, and the aggressive policies undertaken by the company during this period of time, starting with the ousting of the French in the Seven Years' War in 1763 and the consolidation of the subcontinent by the end of the Anglo-Mysore Wars, allowed for the British to make a serious attempt at dislodging the Dutch from their monopoly in the Spice Islands. The first such step was the establishment of the colony of Penang, in the Strait of Malacca, in 1786 by Captain Francis Light . Although a foothold was established, the location of Penang, towards the northern end of the Strait of Malacca, was not as advantageous as Light had touted it to be, and it failed to seriously challenge the Dutch presence. An English presence was established in Malacca in 1795, as Dutch interest in the area faded to focus further on the southern part of its empire, and the colony served to facilitate the burgeoning China trade, now encompassing the officially illegal Opium trade to Canton, but the presence in Malacca was disputed with the Dutch. A permanent, British-only alternative was sought, and as the Napoleonic Wars loomed in Europe, the British finally had the chance to dislodge the Dutch from their stronghold in Java .

As Holland was annexed by the French in 1811, the Indian government launched an attack on the poorly defended island of Java, capturing it in forty-five days. A previously inexperienced EIC clerk, favored by the Governor-General Lord Minto for his fluency in Malay, was installed as the governor of Java. This marked the first significant post held by the future founder of Singapore, Thomas Stamford Raffles .

Raffles, despite his inexperience, managed the newly-acquired colony with care. His policies were not only entrepreneurial, but also humanistic. His abolishment of slavery and the assimilation of both the existing Dutch civil servants into the English system were largely unheard of and alarmed the authorities in Calcutta . Further in contrast with the aggressive militaristic style of colonial management of the EIC in India and surrounding territories, Raffles negotiated with the local sultans and Temenggongs to accept his rule, and allowed for a large degree of self-rule to proliferate in the poorly-manned colony . The change of style ultimately ended in his dismissal in 1815 after the incursion of massive financial losses in an economy suddenly freed from a long-standing slavery-based plantation system, and the colony was returned to Dutch rule at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, but his knowledge of Java and the subsequent publication of A History of Java earned him a knighthood and popularity in England.

While the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814 delineated in part the division of British and Dutch colonial possessions in the area, its ambiguity was the source of conflict between the two former allies in the years immediately after the Napoleonic Wars. Raffles was sent to Bencoolen as the governor-general, but he found the colony unprofitable and sickly . The economy was focused on little more than the exportation of pepper, which placed the colony's economic fate at the whim of the unstable markets of the product. It is at this time Raffles convinced the Indian government, under Lord Francis Hastings, to launch a survey mission in the islands immediately south of the Malay Peninsula, basing it on a positive report regarding negotiations between Major William Farquhar, the British resident at Malacca, and the Sultan of Johor who nominally controlled the area, including much of modern day Malaysia, the Riau Archipelago, and the island of Singapore. Raffles had explicit instructions to not provoke the Dutch, who still claimed the Malay Peninsula under its sphere of influence .

Raffles and his party, which included Farquhar, landed on the island of Singapore on January 29, 1819. After ascertaining that no Dutch presence was on the island - the island was populated by no more than small bands of Malay and Chinese fishermen numbering only in the hundreds - he established it as a free port and left Farquhar in charge of the nascent garrison . The establishment of a free port, open to any vessels but retaining a British garrison, was a first in the region. Raffles perhaps drew inspiration from the failed model of monopolized trade in the region practiced by the Dutch and later in his rule of Java and Bencoolen, and despite the fact that Singapore had few natural resources, its strategic advantage was evident from the start . It was located at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, which allowed it access to both the Strait of Malacca and the South China Sea.

The initial problem with the establishment of Singapore was largely diplomatic instead of commercial, as the free port almost immediately attracted a large number of traders plying the lucrative trade between Canton and India, mostly Chinese and sailing in junks . Farquhar, who was named resident as Raffles returned to Bencoolen, largely allowed the port to grow on its own, without a central plan or a comprehensive set of legal codes. The Dutch protested fiercely both in Europe and in India, and even force was threatened, but the Dutch presence in the area was still weak from the ravages of war and the bankruptcy of the VOC in 1800, and the war of words amounted to little as the colony quickly grew to the size of 5,000 by the end of May, 1819, when Raffles returned to Singapore . His policy of non-interference in trade continued, although he enacted a rudimentary segregation of the European and non-European parts of the settlement, and encouraged the development of churches and native schools.

The new colony stands in stark contrast to the previously dominant pattern of European Imperialism, exemplified by the colonization of the Americas. Instead of the drive to assimilate or wipe out the local population as was the case in the Americas, Raffles allowed the "local population", in actuality almost all recent arrivals from Malaya, China, and other surrounding regions, to freely practice their own religions and use their own languages. This was perhaps done out of practicality, as the European presence was small and amounted to little beyond the cantonments, but it also reflected a trend of encouraged a limited amount of self-determination that gained popularity on the heels of the American and French revolutions. Raffles also did not encourage any monopolies, as the colony was founded to counter the Dutch monopoly model that had ultimately bankrupted the VOC as the spices previously only found in the East Indies began to be cultivated around the world, driving down prices and making the one-commodity economies of the Dutch factories unprofitable . Continuing a trend started by the early EIC representatives in India, treaties were negotiated with the local rulers, although Raffles did this much more earnestly than many of his contemporaries. The founding of Singapore did indeed secure the claim of Turku Long, a pretender to the Sultanate of Johor at the time of Raffles' landing, but Raffles was not in favor of direct and heavy-handed British involvement in local politics, an act that in India caused over a hundred years of wars against the princely states and later spilled over into Burma and ultimately caused the disastrous British involvement in the First Anglo-Afghan War of 1839 . In fact, as Farquhar started to engage in local politics, Raffles ordered his replacement in 1820 by John Travers, an act openly defied by Farquhar and soured the relations between the two former friends and caused a rift that was to cause a minor scandal after the retirement of both in England.

Singapore remained a testing ground for many new policies, and in the early years, not all of them were successful. Raffles early on attempted to start a series of public works such as the building of roads and schools, but it proved to be prohibitively expensive and unfeasible as the bare-bones colony had little reserves of funds. Raffles was to spend the two years after the founding of Singapore in Bencoolen, and his last and longest visit in Singapore came as he headed home in 1822 .

By 1822, the three-year-old colony was already shaping up to be the regional center of trade, but it was disorganized, much to the dismay of Raffles, who thought Farquhar as incompetent and took over the reins of city planning. He quickly enlisted the advice of the engineer Phillip Jackson in designing a planned city that was to carry Jackson's name . The Jackson Plan called for a segregation of the races, gridded streets, and allotted the best land to the European settlement, displacing many of the already established Chinese or Malay traders. Codes regarding settlement were drawn up and even included some land previously thought to belong to the jurisdiction of the sultan, and a police force as well as a magistrate were set up. Finally, Raffles enacted a land registration scheme that asserted ultimate British control over the colony. Satisfied with the establishment of an orderly society, Raffles started the first steps towards a Malay language college in Singapore, putting $2000 towards the effort, and encouraged the preservation of local flora and fauna, as he had long been a keen naturalist. Before he left Singapore for the last time, Raffles drafted a rudimentary constitution and a code of law, specifically preserving the multiethnic culture of the colony by forbidding laws criminalizing race, and established a basic set of criminal codes . As he sailed home in 1823, John Crawfurd, the renowned Orientalist and close confidant of Raffles was placed as the resident. Crawfurd and his successors were to largely follow the basics of Raffles' policies: that of maintaining order without sacrificing the economy and allowing for a limited governance of the people throughout the first half of the 19th Century . In modern Singapore, at least half of Raffles' policies can still be seen, notably in the free-trade and nonexistent tariffs that have made Singapore a regional hub for trade. The "good governance" and "positive economic policies" that Lee Kuan Yew proudly enacted and attributed to his government certainly can be seen, albeit in slightly different form, in Raffles' plan for Singapore as well.

Singapore's development economically have been largely one of "salutary neglect", a term used by Edmund Burke to describe the British policies towards America but could also be applied to Singapore . The Singaporean colonial government featured a series of civil servants of the EIC who were more intent on keeping order and largely followed the blueprint set up by Raffles and his immediate successors rather than enact dramatic changes, and as Raffles had neither the funds nor the ambition to set up a sweeping government that would immediately delve into civil projects at the cost of high tariffs and taxes, the residents and later, governors of Singapore largely followed suit . There was a distinct lack of communication between the upper crust of Singaporean government and the large masses of the population - within ten years of its founding, more Chinese than Malay, and while European firms gradually took hold and grew to prominence, including some agency houses and trading firms that still exist until today, business was largely a matter of a complex ad hoc system outside of direct control by the government . The government even allowed economic practices such as the slash-and-burn farming techniques employed by the gambier and pepper farmers to continue, despite the damage it caused to the land and ultimately made Singapore wholly dependent on trade instead of native agriculture . Although in hindsight this proved to be beneficial as Singapore was forced to expand trade and allocate more resources, land, and attention to shipping, trade, and high-tech manufacturing, at the time this lack of action by the Singaporean government in regulating the limited agriculture as colonial governments in primarily agriculturally-based colonies elsewhere would have done was certainly a shocking divergence from traditional imperialist policies of the day.

Singapore took on the principle of free trade as almost a sacred cardinal rule, and the few European merchants who were able to vote and influence governmental policies in the early years of the colony vehemently rallied against any change to the free trade policies . Of course, while the colony and the individuals involved in the trades were able to profit from the lack of government control, the government itself hardly had any income at all from this prosperity. The government, therefore, was unable, in the initial years, to provide even basic social services or hire a large number of administrators . Social services such as the police force were at least partly funded by subscription, as were the education system during the 1800s, especially the English schools . The schools of other languages were entirely private ventures without real uniformity and had little intermingling with the European educators. Even hospitals were built with private funds in the first part of the 19th Century, and as trained doctors were a rarity, mortality rates were high.

Ultimately the source of revenue for the government became centered on the taxation of vice, but even this was not a centralized government venture . Instead, the right to excise taxes on items such as opium and spirits were auctioned off to wealthy local merchants, who paid the government and enacted a series of middlemen and ultimately created secret societies explicitly for the purpose of revenue collection . The informal hierarchies and Chinese societies were to cause enough havoc in the colony so that by the end of the century, the government was forced to step in to prevent violence between the different societies to wage out of hand, but such steps were taken only in times of absolute need. The freedom of the economy and taxation based on vice and consumption remains a hallmark of Singaporean policies until today.

After the demise of the EIC in 1858, the governance of Singapore remained at first in Calcutta, and finally becoming a crown colony in its own right in 1867 alongside the Straits Settlements of Penang and Malacca. While previous administrators have remained largely anonymous figures, merely following the guidelines of development set by the colonial founders and encouraged by the powerful, wealthy merchants, the new colonial administrators, starting with Sir Harry Ord in 1867, were more intent on exacting direct changes upon the Singaporean government and system . Ord's reign was earmarked by the unpopular remarks he made to the legislative council regarding the suggestion that a direct taxation scheme might be needed to raise revenues, which created an immediate negative response amongst the merchants of the colony. However, at the same time, the opening of the Suez Canal created a boom in trade for Singapore during his reign as well. The merchants of Singapore, still following the strict adherence of non-interference in matters that would create involuntary expenditures, balked at the idea of having a partially funded military garrison in Singapore, showcasing a sentiment for a bare-bones government free of any slightest bit of unnecessary costs that would be incurred upon the population that would potentially place burdens on the funding of trade .

The first real reforms to the completely laissez-faire policies of the government came in the 1870s with the creation of a Chinese Protectorate . As the new generation of governors became more fluent in Chinese and the desire to interact with not just the European sectors of the economy but also the large Chinese portions as well, ordinances that were obviously financially disadvantageous to the Chinese merchants but were enacted on humanitarian grounds such as the attempt to stop the coolie trade were enacted to little protest from the European population, many of whom by now have seen the troubles caused by the stratification of the Chinese society as well as the social problems caused by the continuous influx of poor immigrants . The regulation on the coolie trade was viewed as a humanitarian effort instead of an earnest attempt in restricting free trade. An increasingly evident pattern by the late 1800s and early 1900s was the usage of Singapore as a warehouse facility as well as a shipping depot for raw materials coming in from the surrounding regions - petroleum, rubber, and tin took precedence over spices and exotic goods, and Singapore almost struggled to catch up with the increasing trade, with new port facilities only completed in 1917 . Prosperity was followed by an allowance for the government to finally expand its abilities to finance reforms, such as the construction of new buildings, which came in the 1920s during the boom years.

The world experienced a universal slump in finances by the late 1920s and early 1930s, and Singapore certainly was affected by it. The government initially attempted to curb unemployment by starting public works projects, and then as the slump continued, cut back on expenditures and increased taxation, a grossly unpopular move coupled by the protectionist trade policies that were being imposed upon Singapore by the British authorities in London . Quotas on textile imports were placed and preferential tariffs were imposed to give precedence over British trading. This also led to a decline in the amount of capital available for the Chinese, especially the middlemen dependent on the comprador system for profit, as the decrease of trade volume also decreased their profits . As a side-effect, this led to the expansion of the banking system as the Chinese were now more inclined to save money rather than sending remittances back to China .

Up until the outbreak of the Second World War, the free trade and free economic policies of Singapore have been largely secured by tradition and rule. The lack of centralized control came as a result of both the unwillingness and the inability for the government to exert control, but it certainly worked in making Singapore a powerful economic force in the area.

Post-Independence Policies

The trauma of Japanese occupation was still being felt by the Southeastern Asian nations in the 1950s when Singapore first reached self-rule, followed by a dramatic forced removal from the Malay state in 1965. The nation's economic situation looked dire. The British, despite maintaining a military presence in Singapore, was planning to pull out of the area under Prime Minister Harold Wilson's "East of Suez" Policy in 1971 . The closing of the British shipyards, the cornerstone of the economy at the time, would've exacerbated the already serious unemployment problem, which reached double digits at the time of independence .

Singapore was left in a particularly disadvantageous position by the sudden independence. Unlike its sizable neighbors, Singapore had virtually no arable land left, leaving the convenience of cash-cropping to increase hard currency out of the question. Singapore was in a similar situation as several other British dependencies that were given independence such as Malta in 1964, as the war drove out the consistent stream of investors present before the war, and the newly achieved independence under an inexperienced government certainly did not aid the investor confidence .

Singapore's pre-war success in large part was due to the overwhelming investor confidence that the colony would be administered with little government interference, at least in the financial sector. Without the British military presence securing its independence and existence in the area, especially during a time when Indonesia and Malaysia were engaged in an undeclared Konfrontasi which by mere virtue of distance also involved Singapore, a new way to assert its ability to sustain its own independent military presence was paramount . Just as the investors relied on the inability for the Dutch to challenge the British authority in Singapore in 1819 as a stepping stone to grow, the need to assure domestic security was the first step the Singaporean government undertook after independence, creating quickly a small but comparatively well-equipped military, trained by Israeli commandos and following similar doctrines adhered to by Switzerland and Israel in the ability to mobilize the nation quickly . The Singaporean government also attempted, during this time, to actively alter the perception from the Chinese population regarding the undesirability of military service, and instead started a national movement to make national service appear desirable and "patriotic" . By the time the British pulled out in 1971, the nation had a rudimentary army and air force, with tanks purchased from the French, which even the neighboring Malaysians did not have . Quick defense arrangements with regional powers such as Australia and New Zealand, followed by a leading role in joining ASEAN to promote regional cooperation, certainly cemented the position of Singapore's status as a nation secure from outside interference, even without an active British military presence.

Indeed, the upheavals caused by WWII and the subsequent independence movements have almost given Singapore a tabula rasa to rebuild an economy on its own terms, terms Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew attributed to the hardy Asian work-ethic that rebuilt an economy from scratch based around light manufacturing of high-tech goods, a shipping industry, and a finance sector that became the center of the Southeast Asian financial world at a time where the loss of the British presence represented a loss of 20% of the nation's GDP. While the work-ethic of the Singaporean people cannot be discounted as a part of the financial success of the nation, one must also recognize the parallels between the independent Singaporean success story and the policies of the British colonizers.

With the investor confidence slowly rebuilding as the region returned to peace and Singapore asserted itself as not merely a pawn of its neighboring nations, Singapore was able to take advantage of one of the main advantages of the long colonial legacy - a trained workforce. Unlike colonies that relied on cash-crop agriculture as the main form of income, the cash-cropping days of the gambier and pepper plantation ended over half a century ago when independence was achieved, and instead, the British shipyards employed a large amount of the population, a population already in some ways proficient with both skilled, technical work as well as the English language . The existence of such a class of workers was a boon to the economy, which set it aside from a vast majority of post-colonial societies in economic development. The existence of an English-speaking and technically proficient workforce certainly aided the introduction of the first international investors in the early 1970s, mostly in the semi-conductor business. Conversion of British assets to civilian use was also a key, especially in the warehousing and shipping facilities, but also the creation of tourist facilities as a way of diversifying the economy . The economic slumps due to the overdependence on the exportation of natural resources in the early parts of the century certainly were actively countered by the encouragement from the government to create a multi-faceted array of businesses in the nation. The government's neutral stance in the international arena, showcased most prominently by its willingness to service ships of all nations in its shipyard facilities, also aided its international status as a nation unwilling to take specific sides during the Cold War, yet at the same time, took full advantage of its strategic position on the international shipping routes, much as it has done during the colonial times .

The Singaporean government also actively attempted to create an atmosphere favorable to foreign investment and joint ventures, as to not become overly dependent on foreign capital. The government protected some of its small businesses, especially low-cost home-based businesses run by local businessmen, but larger, more financially substantial ventures were encouraged by creating favorable taxation schemes for multi-national corporations (MNCs) . This was a dramatic departure from the popular sentiment that MNCs were exploiters of Third-World nations and their resources, but Singapore's unique position of having no natural resources to exploit but merely infrastructure and a trained workforce allowed the leaders to disregard such claims. Furthermore, Singapore's prosperity was certainly started by prototypical MNCs in the early part of the century, and the encouragement for MNCs to invest in the development of Singaporean infrastructure and facilities was a natural extension of colonial policies . Tax-free status was given to companies for five years in 1970, and by 1975, the tax-free status was expanded to ten years .

The proliferation of the MNCs represented a transfer of technology that spearheaded a drive for Singaporean businesses to grow, as well as the capital to do so. The Singaporean banking industry that started before the war almost as a necessity now allowed for its expansion into a premiere financial center of Southeast Asia . Singapore's high rate of savings coupled by the influx of work opportunities from the MNCs allowed for the creation of joint ventures, the modern version of the interactions of the agency houses, except now at a more even level. While the agency houses of the colonial era relied on native support mostly in a pragmatic way, now the joint ventures saw Singaporean sources funding these businesses as well. Just as a class of rising Chinese investors were able join the ranks of the European elites by saving and wise investments by the late 1800s, the Singaporeans were able to take advantage of the economic opportunities provided by the MNCs to invest and stake a piece of the prosperity for their own .

One major difference from the underfunded and virtually neglected Singaporean colonial government of the 1800s is that the new government needed money to provide funding of basic social needs such as schools, hospitals, and infrastructure. The government was able to start corporations that, while technically being owned by the government, were given leeway to enter into joint-venture agreements with privately-owned corporations . At the same time, government subsidies were low, both due to a fear of allowing the corporations to become unprofitable and overdependent on subsidies as well as the more pragmatic reason that the government was in no position to offer high levels of subsidies when tax rates on the MNCs that dominated the economy in the 70s and 80s were so low .

The government also maintained low income taxes and tariffs, much in the tradition of the colonial policies. While the initial years of independence saw a rise of taxation, the government gradually reduced both income and corporate tax levels by half between 1965 and 1996 . Estate duty was also reduced to between five and ten percent. While the colonial government was unable to levy high taxes due to public pressure, the new government consciously lowered taxes to repeat the personal prosperity that the colonial government was able to achieve.

The wealth of the individual Singaporeans ultimately have allowed the nation to invest in other nations and create joint ventures of other nations. One of the most prominent examples of this was the experimental Suzhou-Singapore Industrial Park in Suzhou, China, funded by Singaporean investors in 1994 and was slated to become a focal point of foreign investment under the guidance of Singaporean experience. The experiment, at least for the Singaporean side, was a failure, even though after Singapore sold its stake to native investors, the complex was able to pull a profit . The ability for Singapore to expand beyond mere participants and followers in the international market and retake its position as an important economic power once again, under the principles of free market and cooperative investment and taking full advantage of the nation's meager resources, is an impressive example of post-colonial success not widely seen in the world today.

The Quest for an Orderly Society and Social Control

Unlike most post-colonial societies, the nation of Singapore seldom makes headlines for riots, social disorder, and severe, violent political upheaval. The policies of Lee Kuan Yew and his successors are certainly not without its critics, but its merits are at the same time, evidently successful. While Lee's reforms, in the aftermath of a period of riots between ethnic groups during the post-war era and the union with Malaysia, certainly were in part a response to the tensions between the Chinese, Malay, and Tamil populations of the nation, the ethnic complexities of Singapore extend have historically extended far beyond the more clear-cut ethnic groups based on nations of origin . The Chinese, especially, were a fragmented society that had been out of touch with the European administrators during the colonial times, and the divisions amongst it followed by the European attempts to make the smorgasbord of Chinese cultures legible was the precursor to the current, Chinese-led government's attempt to keep order and peace amongst the different cultural groups today. The Singaporean government's attempt to maintain a unified Singaporean identity, instead of the separate and often conflicted identities based on places of origin, also dates from the British colonial system. The overreaching hand of the Singaporean government today to unify the Chinese community under the roof of an official government dates back to the confusing Chinese social structure and the conflict that it caused the British authority during the colonial days and a conscious reaction to the chaos that was the informal colonial society that the British had to contend with during the colonial era .

The British Colonial Government and the Informal Colonial Society

In the early days of the colony, the appointed British administration in Singapore, including the resident and the judiciary, was virtually invisible to the masses of the immigrants due to both the lack of fluency in local languages and the small size of the administration itself until 1867 . The great majority of the immigrants were ethnically Chinese, a trend that started almost as soon as the colony was founded, despite the fact that the colony was geographically firmly located in the Malay world. However, the proliferation of Chinese traders in the "Nanyang" trade in the region since antiquity made the feature less surprising as one might expect. As the unfavorable Dutch policy of monopoly in Java was superseded by the freer trading policies present in Singapore, the Chinese junk trade, although officially illegal, quickly made Singapore the regional hub of a network that linked the Chinese provinces of Guangdong and Fujian with trading colonies such as Penang and even India. Many ethnic Chinese in Singapore today, including Lee Kuan Yew, are descendants of the Chinese fortune-seekers who came during the British administration .
The presence of merchants of other nationalities certainly existed in Singapore. The Malay presence as well as Tamils from India and Arabs who shared a religious connection with the Malays were present in large enough quantities early enough so that the British designated areas of early Singapore to them, but their numbers, compared to the Chinese, paled in comparison, and even the native Malays were surpassed by the Chinese presence within ten years of the founding of the colony and soon was outnumbered by Indians as well. The European presence, British at first but encompassing many more nationalities especially after the end of the EIC monopoly over the China trade in 1833, was also an important minority, especially in the fact that the Europeans were virtually the sole participants of the official government of Singapore for a great majority of its existence as a colony and at the same time, provided much of the initial investment and operating capital in the colony. Yet, the Chinese community undoubtedly made up the most complex and most significant group socially and by sheer economic influence in Singapore from the start.

Even the Chinese community could not be considered a singular, unified entity. The Chinese community consisted largely of persons from the Guangdong and Fujian provinces in China, but even between these provinces, several mutually unintelligible dialects existed and their allegiances were more towards their places of origin and their clans than the concept of "China" . Furthermore, there existed a class of Chinese who were already in Southeast Asia by the time of Singapore's founding and had in some part, intermarried with the locals and classified as the "Baba Chinese". These Chinese served as interpreters between Malays and Chinese and even Europeans, yet their cultural and linguistic differences separated them from the rest of the Chinese population .

Further separating the Chinese community was the hierarchal structure based on wealth that developed within the community. The Chinese engaged in several fairly specified industries in the colony during the first part of the 19th Century: the pepper and gambier plantations, the only viable agriculture in the colony ; opium farms, government-issued mandates allowing the sale of opium; and the majority of the labor forces operating the entrepot economy, filling roles from dockworker to interpreter to warehouse workers . The newly arrived immigrant from Asia typically joined the ranks of the lower class laborers while many of the Chinese moving from other British colonies such as Penang sometimes had enough capital to invest and quickly gain status and operate from the top of the hierarchy . The hierarchy played prominently in Chinese secret societies that dominated Singapore for much of the 19th Century.

The secret societies were typically organized by dialect, family name, and/or place of origin . They appealed greatly to the newly arrived Chinese immigrants who usually lacked financial resources, personal connections, and linguistic knowledge to communicate with a great deal of others in Singapore. However, the secret societies also were an avenue of opium distribution as well as an occasionally disruptive social and political force that engaged in violence in a largely lawless Singapore in the early years . The societies transformed over time to different social and economic conditions, but their function as the representative of the Chinese Diaspora remained a constant dominating factor until 1889, when all such societies were outlawed by the colonial government . The transformation of the societies during this period of time, due to their dominance, also showed the progression of the Singaporean society and how it influenced the Singapore of today.

The first form of the societies were the kongsi, which would be directly translated into "company" or "corporation" but in Singapore represented a far wider array of activities than a traditional western-style corporation would entail . The kongsi was, like corporations, an economic cooperative, but the cooperative nature differs from the western model. The kongsi started under the model similar to a collective - the members enjoyed profit-sharing and leaders were at first democratically elected . The kongsi became the primary method to access the largely illiterate Chinese labor force, and the leaders of the kongsi quickly became wealthy and somewhat connected to the westerners. Their ability to communicate with foreigners and Chinese alike gave them the advantage to hold sway over both how the Chinese laborers were represented to the westerners and used by the westerners. In the early days of limited agriculture, the kongsi also maintained a tight grip over the little arable land in Singapore, in the forms of pepper and gambier plantations . The agricultural aspect of the Singaporean economy was short lived, however, as slash-and-burn tactics used by farmers quickly depleted the land and made much of the island unsuitable for any sort of agriculture, and the economy quickly reverted to a trade-based one, with the merchant class holding much of the wealth and power. The kongsi adapted to the change by exploiting the most valuable commodity in the Chinese society at the time, opium .
The opium trade was certainly one of the main causes of the British establishment in Singapore, as a way-station to penetrate the Chinese market. Although opium was outlawed in China, the EIC, starting in the late 18th Century, obtained a monopoly and traded with virtual impunity in southern China. The loss of the EIC monopoly on the opium trade in 1833 gave many merchants the opportunity to partake in the trade, with the Chinese being the largest consumers. Opium became not only a valuable commodity and nearly a way of life for the Chinese in China, but also in Singapore . In the early days of the colony when hard currency was limited, opium was used as a substitute by the Chinese population, a problematic arrangement as the value of opium fluctuated greatly and affected the Singaporean economy as a result in drastic fashion. In an age where the developing colony had few exports and few sources of income, the opium habit of the Chinese majority dictated a large part of the functioning of the economy in Singapore . Singapore represented a market which although lucrative, the westerners lacked direct access due to the Chinese market, especially the burgeoning underclass. The kongsi was the logical and convenient middleman in tapping this market, and the addictive nature of opium ensured a steady customer base and income for both the western merchants and the kongsi captains .

Furthermore, the status of opium as the main source of revenue for the government quickly became recognized. The government, unable and unwilling to collect tariffs or duties that would restrict the flow of free trade, had a long history of turning the vices into a source of income. Following in Raffles' crusading footsteps, excise farms allowed the collection of revenue from even parts of the population that had no direct contact with the government and focused on vices such as gambling or liquor . However, it was the opium farms that ultimately became the most important source of revenue for the government and source of both power and conflict between the kongsi. All the other farms had a combined income of only one-tenth of the revenues produced by the opium farm, and the precedent of taxing consumption continues in Singapore until today. The farms, started in 1823 by Crawfurd, did not become abolished until 1910 . Until then, up to fifty percent of the yearly revenue of Singapore came from the opium farm .

The farms changed hands by the process of bidding. While the government described the farms as being owned by "a farmer", the actual winning bidders were actually the heads of the kongsi, and the process of transferring a farm from one kongsi to another occasionally caused violence to erupt . The kongsi were most significantly split amongst the Hokkien speakers from Fujian and the Teochew speakers from Chaozhou, two coastal areas that had a history of competition. By the 1840s, the two groups have formed their own syndicates to participate in the opium farming business. Their conflicts extended beyond merely the issues surrounding opium farms. The cultivation of gambier was done by Teochew speakers in the early years, and the sale of gambier was an enterprise significantly populated by the Hokkienese. The Hokkienese began to enter the gambier cultivation business in the late 1840s and 1850s. Friction between the two groups in both the opium farms and the gambier cultivation industry caused several secret society riots, such as the Chinese Funeral Riots of 1846 and the Hokkien-Teochew riots of 1854, all kongsi conflicts over economic rights but ultimately became widespread enough to garner British attention . The revenues of the opium farms were intricately connected to the well-being of the gambier and pepper plantations as the main consumer of the opium was the Chinese cultivating the cash crops. As the prices of gambier and pepper fell dramatically in the late 1840s, the values of the opium farms also decreased accordingly, as the peasants with less income were unable to legitimately purchase opium . The smuggling of opium during this period of time also came onto the British radar, and undoubtedly also affected the price of opium and in turn, the revenues of the opium farms .

By 1851 the disputes have grown to include a riot between the Christian and non-Christian Chinese, one of the few early conflicts over religion in Singapore . However, the conflicts were still relegated to within different factions within the Chinese population, and still over the cultivation of pepper and gambier, now a far less profitable venture than before. The establishment of plantations in neighboring Johor further eroded the profitability of the basic commodities that kept the kongsi profitable. After the smoke cleared, the tenuous balance of peace was maintained largely by the financial clout of a new generation of kongsi leaders who joined together and with profit in mind, started the opium syndicates that were to dominate the opium trade and Chinese society alike. Building upon the gambier and pepper cultivators at the base of their hierarchy, the syndicate held a private monopoly over the opium farms in the 1850s, essence controlling the main economic sector of the government and leaving the European-based merchant houses behind in revenue . However, the hold was certainly short lived - the issues over the farms in Johor ultimately separated the farms of Johor and Singapore, and the smuggling of opium from Johor to Singapore followed soon after. Violence between the two syndicates soon started and spilled into the streets, even garnering the attention of the Straits Times, the leading English newspaper in Singapore, which described the fighting as a "chronic disease" in 1861. The fighting that waged across the border between Singapore and Johor had become an international incident .

At last, the British governor of the time, Orfeur Cavenagh, who had largely stood by silently since he took office in April 1861, attempted to take action. His solution was to rejoin the Johor and Singapore opium farms, and force the two farms to maintain the same rent to prevent smuggling and further violence over the discrepancy . However, the deal between him and the Temenggong of Johor collapsed, as it did not involve the Chinese farm owners in the negotiations, and Johor would have lost a valuable way to obtain profit, albeit covertly and against Singaporean laws. As no further negotiations were undertaken in earnest, the conflict between the opium farmers expanded to include the spirit farmers - a far less lucrative but also a part of the vice taxation scheme implemented in the early days - as well, and soon embroiled the area in an all out diplomatic conflict between Johor and Singapore . It was not until 1866 that British and individual Chinese pressure finally allowed the Temenggong of Johor, Abu Bakar, to allow for the joining of opium farms on Singapore and Johor. Perhaps the 1865 creation of the union of pepper and gambier shopkeepers in Singapore which had considerable economic clout to influence the gambier and pepper based economy in Johor became too much of a threat for the Temenggong to continue his anti-Singaporean policies .

The 1867 switchover of the colony from the EIC to the Colonial Office also marked the change of key persons in administrative positions. However, the new governor, Harry Ord, inherited not only a growing trading hub, but also one with violent conflicts within and against Johor. Ord once again in 1869 made the conscious decision to place the Singaporean and Johor opium farms in the hands of separate owners, in an attempt to end smuggling. By 1870, the farms in Singapore, Riau, Malacca, and Johor were merged into one, and formed the largest syndicate ye t. The sources of the smuggled opium were now under the control of one group, and the monopoly made illegal many competing secret societies that now had no chance of gaining control of the farms and remained only as virtual street gangs. The monopoly's legitimacy was unprecedented, as the previous attempts at monopolizing the surrounding farms were uninvolved with the British government for the most part. The new colonial government had made a monopoly out of the largest source of revenue in a port where free trade was the founding principle and a lauded quality.

The downfall of the kongsi system was heralded by the downfall of the agricultural system in Singapore. The manpower-intensive plantations were dependent on both a steady supply of new members as well as the agricultural output. In a colony with limited land for agriculture, the land by the late 1800s had been spent, and with revenues of the kongsi diminishing, their usefulness also decreased. Furthermore, smuggling under the monopoly began to seriously undermine the profits of the opium farms, as opium coming in from neighboring Johor and even Penang started to undercut the set prices in Singapore. While the colonial government was able to actively fight against smuggling, it had no such authority to control the internationalization of capital that was flowing into Singapore . A distinct Chinese upper-class, with wealth from the Nanyang trade, were able to buy up revenue farms even though they were not based in Singapore, and the loyalty system based on origin was undermined by the loyalty towards money, especially as the money was coming in from sources outside of the kongsi and the secret societies. As the Twentieth Century began, a serious anti-opium movement started to take shape, ending in the abolition of the opium farms in 1906 . The abolition brought down the informal organized Chinese secret societies at last, and the British colonial authorities were able, for the first time in almost a hundred years, to exert direct control and power over the Chinese masses it ruled over. By then, however, Singapore's main need for manpower resided in the shipping business, especially as rubber and tin from British Malaya, made it once again a bustling port, now no longer specializing in exotic wares but bulk export of produce . Opium production itself did not cease, as it merely have been completely taken over as a state venture, but its significance reduced as other forms of commerce took center stage.

By the turn of the century, the Europeans have asserted their authority over the Chinese and greatly expanded their presence. Certainly, they're still numerically a minority, but their interactions with the Chinese and other minority communities steadily increased. The large Chinese workforce was needed for the European-funded and sometimes joint-funded enterprises to grow and the incorporation of the local workforce into these enterprises became a priority.

The increasing sentiment of viewing the Chinese community as a unified entity was a response to the lack of Chinese representation in the upper society of Singapore . A drive to learn a common language, heritage, as well as English to communicate with the Europeans was started and showcased in the increasing number of schools that taught Mandarin or English. Mandarin was seldom if ever the first language of any Chinese immigrant, but its status as a neutral but still Chinese language that didn't favor one of the major Chinese groups in Singapore gave it the advantage of acceptance, especially by the straits-born Chinese. The Chinese response to the increasing separation of the Overseas Chinese community was the establishment of consulates in Singapore, and although this did create more cultural links to China amongst the Chinese, it also divided the loyalties in the populace . Ultimately, when the spirit of revolution arrived in Singapore, the majority of the Singaporean Chinese were cautious in providing support, and no extensive revolutionary activities broke out. The wealthy aligned themselves with the English, while the poor had no resources to fund the revolution and rather work and rise through the ranks than funding a revolution . The distance between Singapore and the mainland ensured that politically, it remained largely stable during the 1912 revolutions in China, although the success of the revolutionaries saw an increased amount of funding going towards the cause in the end.

The increased wealth of the Singaporeans allowed more government supported but privately funded schools to form, such as the Edward VII Medical School. The rise of government-subsidized English schools also took place during this time period. The government-sponsored education scheme, however, did not extend to the Malay, Tamil, or Chinese language sectors, the start of a language divide that would be one of the main concerns of independent Singapore .

Throughout the 19th Century, Singapore was a post staffed by few Malay and fewer Chinese staffers. The result of that the Singaporean authorities could only contact a few of the bilingual interpretations, most of them the likes of Whampoa, who had a stake in the businesses ran by the Chinese . Such impartiality was merely an example of the diversification of the society between the ruler and the inhabitants of Singapore. English schools, as a result, were subsidized and encouraged, with graduates going to prestigious schools such as Oxford and Cambridge. The Singaporean elite who were present during the independence were mostly graduates of such institutions, and the British education system undoubtedly had a significant impact on the viewpoints and actions taken by the Singaporean leadership . The institutions of other languages were largely privately funded, and created a divide that, as independence loomed after the Second World War, demanded closure and the establishment of a national identity.

As the colonial era came to a close, Singapore became a significantly more orderly society than that of the 1800s Singapore. Unlike Hong Kong, no major or crippling strikes regarding the growing Communist/Nationalist split occurred. The distance from Mainland China certainly had a role in keeping this order, which is not to say that unions and even a communist presence was not established, but their involvement in Singaporean politics became the focal point largely came after WWII.

The Orderly Post-Colonial Singaporean Society

Modern day Singapore lacks a similar sort of an informal system, and the orderly government have been attributed to the Confucian emphasis on an orderly society . However, while correlation cannot prove causation, many administrative decisions made by the Singaporean authorities since 1965 seems to be enacted to consciously avoid the pattern of disorder of the 19th Century, especially since the Chinese administration today can trace its roots to the Chinese informal society of that century. The present-day policy of taxing consumption over income is also a similar sort of policy that can trace its origin to Raffles' plans and Crawfurd's execution of said plans. Although the specific targets of taxation have changed, the concept of using taxes or other similar sorts of fiscal restrictions to curb "unwanted" activities such as the complicated process of bidding for a permit to operate a vehicle is similar in idea to the government-sanctioned monopoly on the opium trade . Furthermore, the chaos caused by the opium trade, especially upon the Chinese population, resulted in a serious and draconian policy against the drug trade in general. Today, Singapore imposes the death penalty on the possessor or manufacturer of many drugs, with a particular focus on opiates and opoids, under its Misuse of Drugs Act .

The Singaporean government is also notoriously intolerant of dissidence, and any challenge to the legitimacy of the government is heavily rebuked and censured by the government . The official line in Singapore, in essence, is the only stance, and in a nation ruled by the same party - the People's Action Party (PAP) since independence, the democratic nature of the nation have came under intense international scrutiny and criticism. This certainly at least in part can be attributed to the desire for an orderly society in contrast to the out-of-touch British administration that allowed for the secret Chinese societies to flourish and ultimately come into violent conflict with each other. Despite having an overwhelmingly Chinese society, the government of Singapore have emphasized on the inclusion of at least one or two Malay and Tamil representatives in the cabinet, the most prominent possibly being Sinnathamby Rajanatam, Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore from 1980 to 1985 and a member of cabinet from 1965 to 1988 . To avoid ethnic conflict and tension that plagued Singapore during its union with the Malay states, an active policy towards encouraging English, a neutral language, as the language of communication between the different races, much like the conscious attempt to use Mandarin to encourage a unified Chinese identity . While nationalist drives in other post-colonial societies have emphasized on using the language of the dominant ethnic group to assert national unity, Singapore's attempt to use a neutral language have been nearly uniformly positive, as no language is actively suppressed, and the increased communications between the ethnic groups have avoided the ethnically-related conflicts that became prevalent in post-colonial nations elsewhere. Even though distinct Chinese, Tamil, Malay, and other identities do exist in Singapore, a unified Singaporean identity, at least some distance away from their nations of origin, now exist, and despite the Chinese majority, Singapore can hardly be called an extension of China or a puppet state by any means.

However, Singapore receives its greatest critics from the international community in its intolerance of oppositional voices. The trend started in its active suppression of the Communist Parties at the outset of independence, and resulted in the active jailing of many prominent communist leaders . More recently, any dissenting voice accusing of voting fraud or corruption have been countered with libel suits and active censoring. Singapore itself today is largely a corruption free society in its bureaucracy, a result of an active measure undertaken in the 1970s to boost investor confidence, and completed with a great deal of success, and recognized by the international community . The anti-corruption scheme, accomplished via different levels of oversight, have been cited as an example where only societies focused on collective interests can join together in preventing corruption, especially in small nations such as Singapore . At the same time, the lack of dissenting opinions allowed by the Singaporean government can be seen as a troubling sign as one would hardly know whether the perfect image Singapore projects and the widely sensationalist claims of corruption from the few dissenting voices were to be believed. Regardless, Singapore prides itself today on its orderliness and participates in the "Asian Values Debate" as a forerunner in the advocacy of "Asian Values", claiming that Western values cannot be applied to nations with no similar tradition of democracy, dissent, and the check and balance systems present in the western systems of government .

The PAP had made numerous arguments for "good governance" in Singapore, especially by its more senior ministers. Rajaratnam have stated that "Given a one-party government, the capacity of such a government to act far more independently than if it were harassed by an opposition and by proxies, is obvious. In the game of competitive interference pawns which can behave like bishops and castles and knights can in certain circumstances be extremely inconvenient and very irritating." Cherian George, the Arts and Photo editor of the Straits Times, the de facto official newspaper of the Singaporean government, in a speech made in 1998 at the University of California, Berkeley, further stated that:
"PAP power is hegemonic power, in the Gramscian sense: it is a perfect blend of coercion and consent. If the first two levels represent control through coercion, then this third level is the consensual side of the hegemony coin. Call it self-censorship, call it internationalisation, prostitution, enlightened self-interest, or, as some of my editors do, call it intellectually-honest journalism. Whatever you call it, the inescapable truth is that Singapore's newspapers are, at least in part, willing partners, of the state."
Whatever the case, the Singaporean government has held a monopoly on the press. Without an active dissenting press, oppositional factions such as the Communists have been unable to establish a strong following since independence. Although heavily criticized, the stability that an uncontested one-party system that follows a market economy principle is one that is virtually unseen elsewhere in the world. The policy of a unified press can also be seen as a continuation of British colonial policies, as very few oppositional newspapers to The Straits Times were able to survive during the colonial days, and the government ran mostly on the opinions of a majority voice. It was only during the ascent of the dissenting groups such as the Communists after WWII that serious rioting and social disorder came about, and the current Singaporean effort in curbing that would be a clear attempt at avoiding a repeat of such disorder.

Singapore's emphasis on "good governance" certainly encompasses the ideal of a "collective good" over the individual. Some defining features of Singapore include the Central Provident Fund (CPF), which acts as a social security system, except it features more as an investment rather than a pure savings scheme. Whether the desire to save can be considered as an "Asian value" is debatable, but the CPF is certainly now an integral part of the Singaporean system of governance . In a way, the CPF's role of using the income of Singaporeans to fund public works projects and nationalized enterprises mirror the subscription-based system of funding public works that started with Raffles and continued throughout colonial Singapore. Of course, this comes at cost as the CPF, despite the fact that it is funding public housing and other public facilities, remain a system managed not by the contributors but by the appointed few in the government . While the enforcement of the CPF in creating a high savings rate might seem paradoxical, it would be easy to link it to the British attempt monopolize the opium farms in the late 1800s in order to keep a consistent system of currency circulation within the colony, without having too many individual investors investing in foreign ventures taking precedence over the investments over domestic enterprises.

"Good governance" certainly goes beyond merely financial terms, however. Lee Kuan Yew have controversially encouraged the marriages of the educated elite as early as 1983 , and more recently, the ban on chewing gum as well as the caning of American teenager Michael Fay in 1994 for vandalism brought Singapore's policy under more criticism . Despite international concern and outrage in some cases, however, Singapore continues to use the indisputable facts such as its stability and economic prosperity as examples as to why it remains a successful post-colonial state today. The extreme measures of the Singaporean government in suppressing any activities contrary to its official line seems to be a direct response to the British inability to assert effective government control in the face of oppositional Chinese informal societies and the chaotic state the colony fell under afterwards.

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