Press freedom ranking based on country's media laws, not quality: News veteran Patrick Daniel

IPS-Nathan Lecture: The Singapore Media's Long and Winding Road: 1824 to 2022

By Goh Yan Han, Political Correspondent, The Straits Times, 17 Feb 2022

The commonly cited Reporters Without Borders (RSF) index reflects its assessment of media laws in a country, rather than the quality of the journalism there, said Mr Patrick Daniel on Thursday (Feb 17).

He noted how RSF's annual World Press Freedom Index ranked Singapore 160th in its 2021 edition, and questioned if Singapore deserved its ranking, which was one spot above Somalia, one below Sudan, and well below Russia and Myanmar.

"It's baffling to many people," he said at the Institute of Policy Studies lecture.

He pointed out that the index is a measure of "the level of freedom available to the media". It is not an indicator of the quality of journalism in the country.

"Many of our critics don't make that distinction."

RSF's view is that Singapore's media laws breach media freedom, Mr Daniel added.

When Singapore passed the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA) in 2019, "they punished us by dropping us seven places".

With the Foreign Interference (Countermeasures) Act (FICA) passed last year, Singapore's ranking will drop further, he said.

He was asked if the Singapore media should engage with the people behind the index.

Mr Daniel said that in his many years as editor-in-chief of Singapore Press Holdings' English/Malay/Tamil Division, not once had those behind the index tried to engage him.

If anyone had asked to see him to discuss press freedom, he would have been happy to do so. "But there is a little bit of opacity in the methodology," he said. "I don't want to rubbish them, they've been doing it for a long time, but there should be some kind of audit of their methodology."

Of POFMA, he said in his lecture: "We will run afoul of people who are absolutist and say you can't have a POFMA. If you looked at what POFMA is, it just says you cannot communicate false facts, it's simple, that's it.

"So for everybody else who is doing a good job, talking truthfully, POFMA doesn't affect us."

GE2020 shows a new political culture of a 'kinder and gentler politics' is emerging, says Chan Heng Chee

These are edited excerpts of a lecture and question-and-answer session held virtually with Professor Chan Heng Chee on Wednesday. Prof Chan is an S R Nathan fellow with the Institute of Policy Studies. The session was moderated by Mr Bilahari Kausikan, chairman of the Middle East Institute.
The Straits Times, 18 Jul 2020

General Election 2020 is over.

The PAP (People's Action Party) Government has been returned to office with 61.2 per cent of the vote and 83 of the 93 seats. The Workers' Party now holds two GRCs (group representation constituencies) and a single-member constituency, 10 seats in all, and for the first time since independence, Singapore has a Leader of the Opposition in Parliament.

This is a historic watershed. The election demonstrated that the electorate chose safety, security and solutions by returning the incumbent PAP, but at the same time wanted to strengthen opposition voices and checks and balances in the legislature.

The electoral result was a vote on the last five years, the last five months and the last nine days.

The last five years: Voters were looking at PAP predominance or the "super majority" and how governance and parliamentary debate had been conducted. They did not approve of the way the elected president was introduced and other policies as well, like Pofma (Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act).

The last five months. The vote was also on how the COVID pandemic was handled, with the lack of clarity and micromanaging of rules and protocols for businesses. There were also growing fears and anxieties about jobs. And in the last nine days of the campaign, it was about messaging, communicating and the online presence and savviness of the parties.

Which brings me to an important fact and trend in our society. We talk a great deal about the youth vote and younger voters.

What has not been highlighted in the commentaries is that GE2020 occurs at a time when Singapore is at its youth peak.

The biggest youth bulge is aged between 25 and 35, and if you include those in the age group 20 to 24, it is a huge group. The Workers' Party understood this and chose youthful candidates and issues for the Zoomer generation who prefer personal narratives and "I feel your pain" connectivity, approachability and authenticity. This online digital politics is now the new retail politics. Up close and personal.

Clearly, this age group bought the opposition message of the need for diverse voices in Parliament and the need for checks and balances.



The question is: As this demographic group grows older, will their values and issues change? It has been conventional wisdom that as people get older, they become more conservative, but a Pew Research report suggests American millennials and Gen Xers are different from boomers and the silent older generation.

They buck the trend of changing, and on many issues, they have a distinct and increasingly liberal outlook. So I expect our millennials will continue to support diverse voices and an opposition in Parliament as a good thing even as they age. They will have specific personal concerns too in different phases of their lives. The incumbent party will have to understand this group better to win back their vote.

During the campaign and in the post-GE analysis, the word that comes up in most conversations is "fair". There is a strong desire to see the incumbents play politics more fairly when dealing with the opposition. I have been thinking about the evolving political culture of Singapore for some time now. As I listen to panellists and read the online posts, it is evident that a new political culture is emerging.

On the one hand is the culture of government which emphasises strong government, effectiveness, a legalistic culture, delivery of public goods and services, and a better life for the people. Critics have characterised the PAP political style as paternalistic. On the other hand, many Singaporeans invoke democracy and want to see Singapore evolve into a full-fledged democracy.

Yet, political commentators have asked why the PAP is asking for a strong mandate, and why they are not more magnanimous in the treatment of opponents. They would like to see rules applied to all political participants fairly, that gerrymandering be restrained.

A KINDER, GENTLER POLITICS

It strikes me that even as we yearn for democratic competition, competitive politics, we are asking for a kinder and gentler politics. We seem to be repulsed by the competitive mean politics of some Western democracies.

Educated and younger Singaporeans do not want to see political overkill when the Government deals with political opponents. This may be the result of the decades-long predominance of the ruling party in Parliament and in government that, as politics matures and evolves, these are the values and norms that have come to be shared by the society and community. This is who we are.

Consequently, the political tools in the toolbox that worked in the past may not be acceptable or as effective going forward. Prime Minister Lee (Hsien Loong) was seen by many as gracious and honest in his reaction to the election results, and his reaching out to the Workers' Party leader Pritam Singh was applauded.

Post-election, the PAP as a party would seek to understand the messages voters were sending in the results and as (Law and Home Affairs) Minister Shanmugam said: "It requires a lot of soul-searching and reflection." I believe we will see changes. The tone post-election was a unifying one.

Can Singapore Fall? The Accidental Nation by Lim Siong Guan

IPS-Nathan Lectures by Mr Lim Siong Guan:
- Lecture I (“The Accidental Nation”)
- Lecture II (“The Fourth Generation”)
- Lecture III (“The Way of Hope”)


Intangibles underpin Singapore’s success, says pioneer public servant Lim Siong Guan
By Elgin Toh, Insight Editor, The Straits Times, 13 Sep 2017

Singapore's success is built on intangibles such as honour and a drive to overcome its smallness, former head of the civil service Lim Siong Guan said in a lecture yesterday.

A continued emphasis on these same intangibles is the country's best hope in avoiding the decline as seen in many nations, he added.

On honour, he noted that Singapore's reputation for being trustworthy is crucial in its dealings with the world: "We are a country and a people who honour our word."

Internally, honour has also been critical, he said. "It is about Singaporeans honouring each other, appreciating our social differences, our diversity, and at the same time seeking strongly to maintain social harmony as a common good for all."

These two aspects of honour form a big part of the Singapore brand name, he added, noting that the London consultancy Brand Finance ranked Singapore as the top nation brand in 2016, ahead of Switzerland and Japan.



Mr Lim was giving the first of three lectures as the Institute of Policy Study's (IPS) fourth S R Nathan Fellow for the Study of Singapore. Former S R Nathan Fellows include Mr Peter Ho, also a former head of the civil service, ambassador-at-large Bilahari Kausikan and Banyan Tree executive chairman Ho Kwon Ping.

In his introduction of Mr Lim, IPS director Janadas Devan said he belonged to a "very select" group of pioneer public servants who are not as well-known as political leaders like Mr Lee Kuan Yew and Dr Goh Keng Swee, but whose "contributions to Singapore are as great as those of the political leadership".

Mr Lim was permanent secretary in the defence, education and finance ministries. He had also been group president of sovereign wealth fund GIC.

Yesterday, he noted that when Mr Lee died in 2015, some associated the founding prime minister's legacy with the physical transformation of Singapore.

Mr Lim, a former principal private secretary to Mr Lee, felt the physical was not as important as the intangible, like a determination to overcome Singapore's smallness. This included refusing to be weak.

'New model of governance needed' for Singapore to thrive: Peter Ho

IPS-Nathan Lectures 2016.17: Lecture III - The Paradox of Singapore and the Dialectic of Governance

Ex-civil service head says success depends on Govt working well with businesses, society
By Charissa Yong, The Straits Times, 4 May 2017

Unlike the top-down approach taken in the past, Singapore's future success hinges on the Government working well with businesses and society, said former head of the civil service Peter Ho yesterday.

"The view that 'the Government knows best'... is increasingly challenged in today's world, in which citizens and businesses can easily gain access to much of the information that governments used to monopolise in the past," he noted.

Given the new situation and other changes in the environment, Mr Ho argued that a new model of governance is needed.

He made the point in his third lecture as a Institute of Policy Studies' S R Nathan Fellow for the Study of Singapore, a position that requires fellows to give their ideas on public policy and governance in a series of lectures.



Singapore is already a leader in public policy, so it is no longer enough for policymakers to simply copy and adapt a model of governance from elsewhere, he said.

"For many of the emergent issues that we have to deal with, Singapore will have to evolve its own strategies and approaches."

He boiled down the reason for a new governance model to three factors.

One, the unfavourable conditions at Singapore's birth continue today, despite its success as a sovereign city-state.

"Our success in overcoming them may well have masked the deep challenges that remain, and remain mostly undiminished. This is the paradox of Singapore," said Mr Ho, a senior adviser at the think-tank called Centre for Strategic Futures.

These include Singapore's small size, making it vulnerable to climate change and rising seas, and its water scarcity, which not many Singaporeans grasp fully, he said.

Even Singapore's status as the world's second busiest container port is not secure, he told an audience of about 200 officials and students at the National University of Singapore.

A Smart Nation limited only by imagination: Peter Ho

IPS-Nathan Lectures 2016/17: Lecture II - Governing in the Anthropocene: Risk & Resilience, Imagination & Innovation

Mr Peter Ho's expertise is in futures thinking and, in his second Institute of Policy Studies-SR Nathan lecture on Wednesday, the former head of the Civil Service explores what Singapore can become if its people can imagine and innovate. Below is an edited excerpt of his speech.
The Straits Times, 21 Apr 2017

Singapore has a big ambition to become a Smart Nation.

But what is a Smart Nation?

On one level, it is about the exploitation of technologies in order to make the lives of people better, by giving them convenient and fast access to information and to customised services, including those that we cannot even imagine today. The current state of technology already offers all the ingredients of a Smart Nation.

But on another - I would argue more fundamental - level, being a Smart Nation calls for innovation at the systems level - aggregating technologies and combining them with new operating concepts, policies and plans - to solve national problems, such as the effects of climate change, traffic congestion, an ageing population, or simply to improve service delivery.

But its realisation is the sum of many innovations, big and small. Its ambition should be big, but its implementation is in hundreds and thousands of projects, both large and little.

But on both levels, it is a product of our imagination, and it is limited only by our imagination. Imagine a Smart Nation where there is increased efficiency, convenience and connectivity in and between workplaces and homes. Wearable technology such as hologram devices are used on the go to check and respond to work e-mails. Wi-Fi is available islandwide, eliminating restrictions from fixed data and limited call minutes. In the workplace, robots take over routine administrative tasks like coordinating meetings, conducting research and running daily errands.



At home, robotic helpers do the household chores and prepare meals. They order groceries when food items are low in stock, which are then delivered by drone to the doorstep.

Throughout Singapore, there are healthcare pods deployed islandwide at every housing block. These provide medical diagnosis, dispense medicine and provide simple medical services as well. These make it more convenient for elderly residents, who have mobility problems, and those who do not have the time to visit a clinic.

However, the Government may not be structured to reach this level of imagination and boldness of vision. Some might argue that it is not even its business. Innovation at this level is perhaps better achieved by the private sector, and by individual start-ups with the boldness and the ideas.

Empowerment is key. Too much top-down control will kill the spirit of innovation that is central to a Smart Nation. Instead, the role of the Government should be to facilitate such innovation by funding incentives and arrangements through flexible - rather than restrictive - regulations.

Hunting Black Swans & Taming Black Elephants: Peter Ho

IPS-Nathan Lectures 2016/17: Lecture I - Hunting Black Swans & Taming Black Elephants: Governance in a Complex World


Ex-civil service head Peter Ho: Shape future, don't predict it, this will help Singapore tackle a more complex world
By Charissa Yong, Political Correspondent, The Straits Times, 6 Apr 2017

Before the United Kingdom voted last June on whether to leave the European Union, polls showed that the outcome of the Brexit referendum would be a close call.

Despite this, the UK Treasury did not prepare for the "leave" scenario.

Former civil service head Peter Ho cited this yesterday as an example of a "black elephant" event - "a problem that is actually visible to everyone, but no one wants to deal with it, and so they pretend it is not there".



Speaking at his first lecture as the Institute of Policy Studies' S R Nathan Fellow for the Study of Singapore, he said such occurrences are a cross between a rare and hard-to-predict event, popularly known as a black swan, and the proverbial elephant in the room.

"When it blows up as a problem, we all feign surprise and shock, behaving as if it were a black swan," added Mr Ho, who is a senior adviser to the Centre for Strategic Futures.

Governments today have to grapple with an increasingly complex world with more moving parts, and it has become harder to predict the outcome of the interactions between those parts, he told 490 officials, academics and students at the hour-long lecture.

To minimise the chances of being blindsided in such an environment, policymakers will have to think about how they can shape the future instead of predicting it, he said.

In an ambiguous world, can Singapore cope?: Bilahari Kausikan

IPS-Nathan Lectures: Lecture V - Can Singapore Cope?

Domestic strength key for Singapore to stay relevant
Veteran envoy stresses three aspects that are crucial for that internal strength
By Rachel Au-Yong, The Straits Times, 26 May 2016

Singapore, as a small city-state, needs to have a sound domestic foundation in order to remain relevant in the international arena, said ambassador-at-large Bilahari Kausikan.

And that internal strength hinges on three aspects: politics, policy and the role of the civil service, and social cohesion, Mr Bilahari said yesterday in his fifth and final lecture as the Institute of Policy Studies' S R Nathan Fellow.

With politics, partisan interests should be kept out of foreign policy. But in reality, this is hard to achieve, he added.

In countries with long histories, partisan debates over foreign policy are conducted in a framework of shared assumptions on what ought to be in the fundamental interests of the nation, regardless of which party is in power, he said.

Singapore's opposition parties, so far, have not shown they "have any concept of the fundamental national interest", he added.

Mr Bilahari criticised the Workers' Party's Mr Pritam Singh for asking in Parliament in 2013 about Singapore's Middle East policies that "could have stirred up the feelings of our Malay-Muslim ground against the Government".

Noting that Singapore has been consistently even-handed in its relations with Israel and Palestine, he said: "The Arab countries understand our position and have no issue with our relations with Israel.''

Also excoriated was the Singapore Democratic Party's Dr Paul Tambyah, who called for a reduction in the defence budget in favour of health spending, pointing out that Singapore had a history of being non-aligned in its foreign policy.

Mr Bilahari retorted: "If the good doctor really thought that being non-aligned is an adequate substitute for deterrence through a strong SAF, he ought to consult a doctor of another sort without delay: a psychiatrist."

No clear-cut, single definition of human rights: Bilahari Kausikan

IPS-Nathan Lectures: Lecture IV - The Myth of Universality; The Geopolitics of Human Rights

Veteran diplomat highlights effect of asserting such rights on Trump's rise, Europe's refugee crisis
By Cheong Suk-Wai, Senior Writer, The Straits Times, 30 Apr 2016

American presidential hopeful Donald Trump has gained much traction in the race for the White House because of the gap between what American elites desire and what everyday Americans are comfortable with, according to ambassador-at-large Bilahari Kausikan.

In his fourth lecture as the Institute of Policy Studies' SR Nathan Fellow yesterday, he noted the "outrageous" comments Mr Trump has made on women and minorities.

He said these "tap into the anger of his white working class base who feel culturally as well as economically insecure because a once familiar America... had been 'stolen' from them by liberal elites and mainstream political leaders who have promoted women's rights".

The veteran diplomat cited the reasons for Mr Trump's surprising popularity as a backlash against pockets of Americans asserting their human rights, such as women's rights.



Another dilemma from the assertion of human rights, albeit in a different context, had ballooned into a crisis in Europe, he noted.

Europeans are now torn between welcoming the hordes of refugees from Syria, which befitted their championing of human rights, and exposing themselves to the risks of doing so.

China 'trying to become the central Asian power': Bilahari Kausikan

IPS-Nathan Lectures: Lecture III- Southeast Asia and ASEAN

Top diplomat warns ASEAN against thinking that it has US and China's favour
By Cheong Suk-Wai, Senior Writer, The Straits Times, 31 Mar 2016

China's continued ratcheting up of its presence in the South China Sea is a bid to reassert itself as the central power in Asia, ambassador-at-large Bilahari Kausikan said yesterday.

The crux of the matter was that "China must give the appearance of recovering lost territory" because "for the past century, the legitimacy of any Chinese government has depended on its ability to defend China's sovereignty and preserve its borders", he said in his third lecture as the Institute of Policy Studies' S R Nathan Fellow.



China's territories had included Mongolia and Siberia in the past.

But as history has marched on, China can now lay claim only to outlying islands and outcrops such as the Paracels, the Spratlys and Macclesfield Bank, he said, stressing at the outset that the views at the lecture were entirely his own.

With the United States emphasising that it intends to remain an East Asian power, Mr Kausikan said China was merely trying to nudge the US a little more off-centre in the region. The challenge for China was how to do so without "provoking responses from the US and Japan that could jeopardise Chinese Communist Party rule".

The US, on the other hand, had always to find ways to "accommodate" China while assuaging its allies' concerns about its overtures to China without, as he put it, "stumbling into conflict".

And the view that the US was trying to contain China by forging the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) with allies in the Asia-Pacific, including Japan and South Korea, was "arrant rubbish". This was especially so as most TPP signatories were also part of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, a Chinese initiative.

Taking questions from the audience later, he noted the long continuity in US foreign policy of having a regional presence and suggested that if US establishment stalwart Hillary Clinton won the upcoming presidential polls, that policy would likely not change. He could not say the same for Republican candidate Donald Trump, though.

War between China, US highly improbable: Bilahari Kausikan

IPS-Nathan Lectures: Lecture II - US-China Relations

War is unlikely but distrust runs deep
Road to new modus vivendi will be long as powers grope forward
By Bilahari Kausikan, Published The Straits Times, 27 Feb 2016

US-China relations set the tone for East Asia: When they are stable, the region is calm; when they are roiled, the region is uneasy. In time, the same will hold true, I believe, for other regions as well. United States-China relations will certainly be a, if not the, central pillar of any new post-Cold War international order.

US-China relations are mature; it has been 44 years since president Richard Nixon's visit to Beijing transformed the global strategic landscape. US-China relations are intricately interdependent across a broad spectrum of domains. And US-China relations are infused with deep strategic distrust.



The US and China are currently groping towards a new modus vivendi with each other and the rest of East Asia. The complexity of US-China relations and hence the complexity of the adjustments between them are a large part of the uncertainties of our times.

I am not clairvoyant. My purpose here is to sketch some of the issues that will have to be confronted. In particular, I want to deal with the roots of the strategic distrust that exists between them. Unless that is understood and dealt with, no matter how well the US and China may work together on climate change or terrorism or finance or any other specific issue, a stable new equilibrium will be difficult - if not impossible - to achieve. And even if some sort of equilibrium is reached, it will be difficult to maintain.

Despite or perhaps because of their long experience of each other, US-China relations have been rife with misunderstanding. The most persistent in recent times is the notion that economic reform will lead to political reform. American attitudes towards China have oscillated between hopes and fears that perhaps say more about America than China. What is surprising is that despite persistent misunderstanding, there has been so little trouble, although when trouble ensues it has been spectacular, as during the Korean War.

Singapore's sovereignty 'never a given': Bilahari Kausikan

IPS-Nathan Lectures: Lecture I - An Age without Definition

Veteran diplomat, in first of five talks, also dissects dangers of global political order
By Cheong Suk-Wai, Senior Writer, The Straits Times, 30 Jan 2016

Singaporeans have enjoyed half a century of independence, but that happy state is never a given, Ambassador-at-large Bilahari Kausikan said yesterday.

Mr Kausikan, 60, the Institute of Policy Studies' second S R Nathan Fellow for the Study of Singapore, was responding to a question at a public lecture on whether Singapore's sovereign status was guaranteed.

Calling it "a very good question", the veteran diplomat, who was ambassador to Russia and Singapore's Permanent Representative to the United Nations (UN) from 1995 to 1998, said: "You can remain formally sovereign, but your sovereignty could be severely compromised... we must be conscious that that is not to be taken for granted."

For example, he said, the 193 countries that make up the UN were sovereign, but beyond their "one seat, one vote and one flag" there, some were either being yanked every which way by major global powers or rent asunder by internal conflicts.



He made the comments at his first of five lectures that will run throughout the year and focus on, among other things, United States-China ties, threats to comity in South-east Asia and how ready Singaporeans were for the future.

The year-long fellowship, which kicked off in 2012 and now has a fund of almost $6 million, is for deeper research into what IPS director Janadas Devan called "Singapore-centric" areas of policy.

At the start of his talk at the NUSS Kent Ridge Guild House, Mr Kausikan noted that "the level of public interest in and understanding of foreign policy is not high" in Singapore.

That, he added, was undesirable because first, Singaporeans lived in a "complicated and dangerous region" and second, with everyone hyper-connected to everyone else today, what happened abroad would affect what happened at home to some degree.

Being more plugged into what was happening elsewhere in the world would give them "a sense of proportion" when they discussed domestic policies.

He added: "Too many of our compatriots, especially... the intelligentsia, sometimes seem almost ashamed of being Singaporean, whereas we are quite often the object of admiration and emulation by foreigners."

Trust the people, share govt data

Expose the body politic to stress by being open with data to spark robust debates on Singapore's future.
By Kishore Mahbubani, Published The Straits Times, 13 Jun 2015

ONE of my recent big regrets is that I was unable to attend a single one of the five S R Nathan lectures delivered by Ho Kwon Ping as the first S R Nathan Fellow at the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS). His lectures were brilliant. I wish I could have been there. I also wish that he will now compile them and produce a book. In this article, I would like to develop one of the suggestions he made.

As Singapore moves into a new era, it is clear that we have to prepare for new possibilities. It would be unwise to assume that the next 50 years will all be smooth sailing. Most normal countries have ups and downs. Singapore will also have ups and downs. So far, we have prepared well for the ups. The big question is whether we are prepared for the downs.

Our goal should be to create a resilient society. The best way to create resilience is to be exposed to stress from time to time. Let me use a medical analogy. The worst thing we can do to a human body is to protect it by putting it into an incubator, cutting it off from the world. The moment it leaves the incubator, it will not be able to handle even the smallest stress. The best thing we can do to a human body is to allow it to encounter and fight off bacteria and viruses in daily life, so that the body's immune system can develop immune cells and anti- bodies to handle these new challenges. When a human body is exposed to these manageable stresses, it will become more resilient.

Educated citizenry, best defence

THE same is probably true of the body politic of human society. It should also be exposed to stresses and strains from time to time.

Hence, for example, it may be better to have robust debates from time to time instead of an artificial calm. As a result of these robust debates, we will get an educated and informed citizenry. Such a citizenry is the best defence if a political crisis crops up.

An educated citizenry is also the best defence against a demagogic politician who tries to sway the voters with populist policies.

Ho Kwon Ping: Young and upset? Offer solutions

In five lectures over the past six months, the Institute of Policy Studies' first S R Nathan Fellow, Mr Ho Kwon Ping, stirred up debate about Singapore's trajectory over the next 50 years. The executive chairman of Banyan Tree Holdings and one-time political detainee tells Charissa Yong about the polarised responses to his ideas and the political implications of the outpouring of grief for the late Mr Lee Kuan Yew.
The Straits Times, 18 Apr 2015

Which of your ideas provoked the most response?

The two that got the most response included the first one, (which) broke the ice about being able to talk about scenarios for a possible loss of power by the People's Action Party (PAP). That got quite a lot of responses, comments, discussions.

The second one was the idea of national service for women.

I'm not sure they're positive responses, but they're the most responses.



What was the response regarding the possible loss of PAP power?

I got all kinds of responses, because anything to do with the PAP elicits both the very positive and the very negative. I think the response was generally one of "this issue is now in the open, we can discuss it without feeling that we are anti-PAP, this is something that we need to discuss".

My understanding from other sources is that nobody in the PAP was particularly upset either. In fact, some asked their own friends to read it.

It's not bad for a ruling party to understand how it might lose power, in the same way that I welcome people telling me how Banyan Tree could collapse. You have to know what could be the source of your demise in order to ensure that it does not happen.



What about the response to national service (NS) for women?

The knee-jerk reaction from women was, "Oh no, no way am I going to do that for two years."

But once there was a greater realisation of what I was actually suggesting - NS for women during a short period between schooling - the responses were actually quite positive.

Particularly the notion that a) women nowadays don't want to be seen as pretty little things that are quite useless, and that should there be an emergency, women knowing how to do CPR is useful; and b) within the context of the rapidly ageing society, caregiving has to be undertaken by a lot of people in the future.

These notions of NS - in a broader context of what Singapore as a society needs in the future, not just defence - drew more positive responses.

Ho Kwon Ping: Singapore Society and Identity

Singapore must 'embrace diversity as its strength'
Ho Kwon Ping sees nation becoming increasingly diverse in next 50 years
By Charissa Yong and Nur Asyiqin Mohamad Salleh, The Straits Times, 10 Apr 2015

SINGAPORE'S sense of nationhood and unity has never been stronger than in the past weeks when hundreds of thousands of Singaporeans came together to mourn the late Mr Lee Kuan Yew, said businessman Ho Kwon Ping yesterday.

But in the next 50 years, post-LKY, the country will be increasingly diverse in ways that run up against rigid expectations of racial and social attitudes.

Singapore's challenge is to embrace this diversity as its strength and as an integral part of itself, said Mr Ho in his fifth and final lecture as the Institute of Policy Studies' (IPS) S R Nathan Fellow.

In his 50-minute address, he examined how this openness and acceptance of Singaporeans who may be different from the mainstream can be a defining characteristic of Singapore's identity.

He said Singapore is ethno-culturally more similar to New York City - where culturally distinct neighbourhoods coexist cheek by jowl - than to the homogeneous cities of Tokyo or Shanghai. "New Yorkers, for all their amazing diversity, all love their city. Like New Yorkers, Singaporeans must also embrace each other as individuals and not as categories."

For one thing, the traditional racial categories of "Chinese, Malay, Indian and Other" oversimplify Singapore's diversity, he said.

Immigrants or foreign workers from China and India, for example, fall into the Chinese and Indian categories respectively, but hardly identify or interact with Chinese and Indian Singaporeans.

Traditional norms of heterosexuality also do not adequately describe "people of different LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) affiliations, or alternative family norms such as single or unmarried parents, or same-sex couples", he said.

Mr Ho suggested abandoning these stereotypes and viewing people as individuals. "Everyone is unique, everyone is quirky, everyone is rude and kind at different times, and everyone has to simply respect and even appreciate the other's difference."

In an ensuing hour-long question and answer session, Mr Ho was asked how a diverse society should be organised. He said: "You cannot change human nature. People find affinity among their own kind... But we should try more consciously to break down barriers to allow people to have more cross-cultural interaction."

His lecture, attended by about 560 people including civil servants and students, followed four others on Singapore's politics and governance, economy and business, security and sustainability, and demography and family.

Mr Ho also addressed two other social challenges: mitigating divides between different classes of Singaporeans, and having a more collaborative style of governance.

Education reform can help level the playing field and prevent Singapore from ossifying into a static meritocracy with only children from rich families making it to the top. He suggested re-looking the system of priority Primary 1 admissions based on distance from homes, as many elite schools are in wealthy neighbourhoods.

As for having a less paternalistic, more participatory democracy, the Government can involve more civil society activists and citizens in decision-making, and give them information to debate issues.

Closing the event, IPS director Janadas Devan said the next S R Nathan Fellow is Mr Bilahari Kausikan. The Ambassador-at- large will research public policy and governance issues.

Ho Kwon Ping proposes 'CPF-Plus'

This would entail govt top-ups so retirees can lead dignified lifestyle
By Linette Lai, The Straits Times, 5 Mar 2015

THE Central Provident Fund (CPF) needs a "bold and audacious" revamp to meet future retirement needs, said businessman Ho Kwon Ping yesterday.

In a lecture organised by the Institute of Policy Studies, he said it has become harder for the basic CPF scheme to fund retirees' living expenses.

Instead, he proposed a "CPF-Plus" - under which the Government would top up people's accounts to ensure a "minimally reasonable" quality of post-retirement life.

This sum, he said, would be more than what is needed for survival. It would allow retirees to lead a "basic but dignified" lifestyle. How much is needed to sustain such a lifestyle can be determined by an impartial authority at regular intervals - for example, every five years, Mr Ho added.

Doing so, he said, "removes the anxiety from Singaporeans that occasional measures to help them may still not be enough to bridge future retirement funding gaps".

Mr Ho said CPF-Plus would be means-tested and could be funded using the net investment income from Singapore's national reserves.

In fact, it is time to start discussing how much more of our reserves can be used rather than saved, and for what purposes, he added.

Mr Ho's proposal drew questions and comments from about 300 people who attended last night's lecture. This is the fourth in a series of five lectures Mr Ho is delivering as the Institute of Policy Studies' first S R Nathan Fellow.

Among the questions Mr Ho was asked was whether Singapore saves too much. Another person lauded the idea of a compulsory savings system that is simple and easy to understand.

The question-and-answer session was held under the Chatham House rule, which guarantees confidentiality in order to promote free discussion.

During the lecture, Mr Ho also proposed more than just monetary incentives to fix Singapore's falling fertility rate, such as better work-life balance and encouraging small and medium-sized firms to take over household chores from working parents.

"A two-child - or more - family is a natural desire of all parents but they are not procreating because the overall support environment is not conducive," he said. "Create a truly conducive environment and leave the rest to nature."

National service for women: Time to change mindset

The writer suggests starting with short stints of a few months for all women to learn the skills needed by a rapidly ageing society
By Ho Kwon Ping, Published The Straits Times, 28 Feb 2015

IN A recent dialogue session, Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen was asked about female conscription, and he answered that it should not be for reasons of equity. In other words, it should be only for demographic reasons - if there are not enough young men to defend the country. To start young women thinking about this possibility, a volunteer corps has been started.

I wholly agree that female conscription should not be undertaken simply for equity reasons. It has been argued that the moral equivalence of national service for women is bearing children, and while this is not directly comparable - not all women bear children, and some bear more than one, for example - the debate quickly degenerates into a male-female divide with emotionally competitive overtones.

Post by The Straits Times.

The reasons for female conscription must instead be underpinned by national need. However, as I argued in my recent Third S R Nathan Lecture at the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) on the topic of Security and Sustainability, national need can be more broadly defined than as simply military defence.

In the Singapore 50 years from today, there will possibly be a defence need - but most certainly a social need - for all our young women to be trained in the skills needed by a rapidly ageing society. Therefore, we should start to prepare for this eventuality.

The whole notion of Total Defence, which Singapore subscribes to, is that for a small city-state, military defence is only one part of a more complex equation.

Whatever is critical, not only to the sovereignty of Singapore but also its economic, social and political sustainability, is a strategic imperative which requires full support from its citizenry. In this context, female conscription for military defence should be considered only as a final resort should male conscripts be unable to fulfil military needs.

But conscription may still be warranted, to serve the equally important social and community needs of an ageing population whose well-being is a strategic necessity. That would still fall within the ambit of Total Defence.

But let us deal with purely the defence need first.

Ho Kwon Ping sees need for ISA but urges changes

IPS-Nathan Lecture III - Security and Sustainability
Ho Kwon Ping also calls for phasing out caning, and starting NS for women
By Nur Asyiqin Mohamad Salleh And Rachel Chang, The Straits Times, 6 Feb 2015

BUSINESSMAN Ho Kwon Ping has called for limits to Singapore's Internal Security Act (ISA), under which people can be detained without trial if they are deemed to pose a threat to national security.

The one-time political detainee also called for the phasing out of caning, and the introduction of a period of national service (NS) for new male citizens and Singaporean women.

In a lecture yesterday on security and sustainability, he said Singapore must evolve to keep up with changing social values.

"A willingness to change with the times... can prevent the intellectual rigidity that weakens the sustainability of our society as a dynamic and evolving culture," he said in the third of five public lectures as the Institute of Policy Studies' first S R Nathan Fellow.

A former journalist, the 63-year-old was detained under the ISA in 1977 for writing articles with a pro-communist slant.

But yesterday, he held back from calling for the Act's abolition.

Instead, he suggested reducing the initial detention period to one year - down from the current two - and putting in more rigorous checks and balances for the subsequent periods.

As Islamic radicalism casts a pall over the world today, Singapore needs to find a balance between the Government's power to meet some threats and the space that civil society needs to express its views without fear of detention, he said.

In fact, preventive detention - once heavily criticised - has become "grudgingly accepted" by Western governments as they struggle with the terrorist threat, he said. And calls to abolish it have been watered down to calls to ensure that unconstrained power is not abused.

"What must not change is the constant awareness that any people who surrender too many extraordinary powers to any government do so at their own peril," Mr Ho cautioned.

Ho Kwon Ping: The next 50 years of Singapore's economy

IPS-Nathan Lectures: Lecture II - Economy and Business 0n 12 November 2014

Singapore 'must get creative' on housing, income inequality
Ho Kwon Ping offers radical ideas on challenges facing economy
By Fiona Chan Senior Economics Correspondent, The Straits Times, 13 Nov 2014

HOUSING affordability and income inequality are two challenges facing Singapore's economy in the next 50 years, businessman Ho Kwon Ping said yesterday.

In a lecture that examined how the nation's economic strategy would need to evolve in the coming decades, Mr Ho offered some radical solutions for these bread- and-butter issues that have become political hot potatoes.

To keep home prices within the reach of Singaporeans, he proposed setting "sale price caps" for all new homes and doing away with the distinction between public and private housing.

The price caps would be decided by a redefined Housing Board, which would have given up its role as a developer and become a "national housing price regulator", said Mr Ho, in the second of five Institute of Policy Studies- Nathan lectures that he is giving on Singapore's public policy.

After setting the sale prices for homes on a land parcel, the HDB would auction the plot to private developers to build the homes.

This move would ensure housing affordability by allowing home prices to be directly pegged to the economy's health and income growth, said Mr Ho, who is also executive chairman of hospitality group Banyan Tree Holdings.

"We already have price regulation through HDB unilaterally setting the price of entry-level flats," he noted.

Extending this to private homes would improve the current system, in which the prices of public housing - where 85 per cent of Singaporeans live - are influenced by private home prices which, in turn, are determined to some extent by foreign demand, he said.

Mr Ho's proposal drew several questions from the 250 people at last night's lecture, with some questioning how it would dovetail with housing subsidies and whether the proposal was similar to the now-defunct Design, Build and Sell Scheme (DBSS). Mr Ho responded that the subsidies would be built into the HDB's price caps, and the proposal differed from DBSS as the HDB would not be selling the flats itself.

As for tackling income inequality, the erstwhile journalist and dissident had two proposals.

Can PAP stay dominant? A daunting task, says Ho Kwon Ping

'Freak election', party split, or defeat by opposition possible scenarios
By Tham Yuen-C, The Straits Times, 21 Oct 2014

SINGAPORE'S best days are still ahead of it but, in contemplating its next 50 years, a key question to ponder is whether the ruling party will stay dominant, said leading public intellectual Ho Kwon Ping yesterday.

The People's Action Party (PAP), which has been in uninterrupted power for 56 years, has accomplished two major feats where many others have failed, he said.

First, it has produced consistent economic growth with broad- based gains for its entire people, and second - even harder - it has maintained exemplary, transparent governance with an entrenched ethos of incorruptibility.

"Its third challenge is not to just remain in power, nor to maintain its one-party dominance and deny the opposition its self-described role as a 'co-driver' of the nation, but to do so in a manner which ensures that the party truly renews itself and retains its original vitality, vibrancy and vigour," said Mr Ho in the first lecture of the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS)-Nathan lecture series on Singapore's public policy.

But will it be able to do so, asked the businessman as he sketched out three basic possibilities.

First, an accidental or freak election that throws out the PAP. Second, a split within the PAP resulting in a loss to an opposition party which might not otherwise be stronger than a united PAP. And third, an anticipated, outright loss to an opposition party.

"I would rate the first possibility - a freak election - as having the highest chance, followed by an internal split, and the least likely is an outright, widely predicted loss," he said.

In all likelihood, it would be an interplay of these scenarios, he added.

While he did not think the PAP would lose its dominance in the next 15 years, it could happen further down the road, he said.

Only one other democratically elected ruling party, Mexico's Institutional Revolutionary Party, had ruled continuously for a longer time than the PAP's 56 years, said Mr Ho.

Pointing out that a change of power can happen only when people believe an opposition party can govern, Mr Ho noted that recent elections had established the credibility of some opposition parties as "serious-minded, competent and constructive".

Mr Ho, who was giving the talk as the first S R Nathan Fellow - a title given to honour the former president's contributions - predicted that the journey towards socio-political and cultural maturity would define Singapore's next two decades. In yesterday's first of five lectures, he said: "In the history of young nations, this is the most precarious period of transition, when new generations who have not the slightest personal memories of or connections to the founding generation, take on the mantle of leadership."

Noting that Singapore was at a "watershed moment in history", where "economic progress must now be matched by a more holistic maturation in other spheres of life", Mr Ho urged the younger generation to grasp the nettle and define how society should develop.

The one-time rebel and political detainee also said that this evolution would not be tension-free.

How the younger generation approached this task would determine if the country was "fated to either decline through thoughtless hubris, or flounder in equally thoughtless self-doubts and anxiety", he said.