By Yichuan Tang
The recent COVID-19 virus poses a challenge to China, Western European Countries, United States and other countries globally. Not only did the spread of COVID-19 unveil each country’s capability to deal with a crisis of large scale, the pandemic also shows the world the philosophy of governance of societies around the world. There is actually an escalating debate on the internet about which governance is more advantageous, some argue that the way western societies are governed is out-of-date, making them incapable of mobilizing people and resources to cope with COVID-19 pandemic effectively. China, on the other hand, is showing its advantage in having a highly centralized government organization. Compared to western countries, China made quick decisions and implemented very efficiently, thus the country has already had its COVID-19 spread under control when the virus continued its momentum in western societies governed by a liberal, democratic way. The United States, now losing lives rapidly (>2000 deaths each day), is a direct opposite to China in its philosophy of governance.
The discussion about how to govern modern societies has been there for long. It is widely accepted in western societies that a government elected according to democratic principles, acting based on the principle of rule of law, embracing the free market and the freedom of speech, is the universal approach to govern modern societies. Such a model and its many derivatives have been used to run western European and northern American countries for over two hundred years, they have achieved quite a success in the western world. Some east Asian countries, like Japan and Korea, or autonomous regions like Hongkong also adopted a similar system to govern their societies. These eastern societies are quite successful in terms of economic progress and cultural exporting after WWII. However, there are other east Asian countries that followed western governing philosophy but resulted in a society of continuous poverty and chaos. On the other hand, China keeps exploring its own model of governance and has also achieved great progress since reform and opening up (since 1978).
So is western model the solution for governance of east Asian society ? Instead of giving an yes or no answer, we should turn to facts, and the facts suggest that elements from the western model play essential roles in modern east asian countries, but adopting the entire model doesn’t seem like a practical choice for most east asian countries. It is worth noticing that a small country on the southern corner of Malay Peninsula, which has the highest GDP per capita in Asia, implements rule of law and plays an important role in international trading, is a country whose ruling party has been running the government since the establishment of the nation since 1950s without a shift of power, and has a strict control over speech and press activities. This country is Singapore, and the principles behind its governance were shaped by its first Prime Minister, Mr. Lee Kuan Yew and his colleagues.
After the colonial era, Singapore has established a political system based on democracy and rule of law. The government is headed by the Prime Minister and the cabinet, which is accountable to the parliament. One-person-one-vote is used to elect the government and parliament leaders. Since the 1950s Singapore government has been known for its cleanliness and efficiency. Although Singapore adopts a multi-party political system, its ruling party has been the People’s Action Party (PAP) since 1959 when Lee Kuan Yew was first elected as the Prime Minister. Question has been raised why there’s no rotation for the ruling party like in Taiwan or Japan. Lee Kuan Yew thinks that the government should put more emphasis on the quality of leadership and consistency in policy than democratic norms. In his observation of East Asian Society, countries with bad systems but good leaders are more likely to succeed compared to those with good systems but bad leaders. Idea of good leadership in Eastern culture is different from that in the west, where leaders with great personal charisma are more likely to be elected in a one-person-one-vote system. Ministers of Singapore government sectors have to go through election as well, but more importantly they must be good at doing their job. Public servants in this country often have good education backgrounds, first-class work ethic and receive high payments. In other words, Ronald Regan may stand a low chance in Singapore for his lack of professional training. Another practical insight of Lee Kuan Yew is, good people deserve good amounts of pay, or they will try to make their fortune by other means, or from elsewhere.
Lee Kuan Yew and his colleagues built up such a meritocratic government because they think that people in Western countries and East Asian countries hold different criteria for what is a good government. For westerners, a good government means respecting individual rights and promotion of freedom, but for East Asian countries, people have more practical expectations, such as stable social environment, low unemployment rate, economic growth, more opportunities for the next generation, in a nutshell, a good life and a good projection for the future. And another reason why putting one single capable party in power makes sense in an East Asian society is that without switching power the policies already implemented will not be easily terminated. Not every policy beneficial in the long run is welcomed by its beneficiaries when first introduced. Each time a revolve-door government goes through a switch of power, some policy will be abandoned. Lee Kuan Yew is correct that as if not for the stable ruling of PAP in Singapore, large-scale projects like public housing may fail, and this project played an important role in sustaining housing prices in Singapore on a reasonable level. This point is better supported by China’s experience during the last three decades, and even the policy of the United States during WWII, i.e. government’s intervention in economic activities with a considerable duration. Elected or not, a competent, strong government which provides good service to people to meet their practical needs, and in the meanwhile rewards public servants sufficiently to minimize corruption, seems more practical for an East Asian country, than a government which goes through processes of election and has every legitimacy from the constitution, but not capable in running the country, or couldn’t hold its position long enough to deliver any meaningful change.
The freedom of press enjoyed by the media in western countries forms political power different from political parties. Although it is not involved in legislation, jurisdiction, or administration, the media has the power to shape voters’ opinions and preferences during the election. Singapore once allowed western media to circulate hardcopies, but they decided applied a restriction at the end. Lee Kuan Yew was questioned when he was in a press conference in the United States talking about the governing of Singapore. He sees the restriction not as an oppression of the freedom of press, but as a necessary prevention to stop the people from being misguided by outsiders. He emphasized that the role of western media in Singapore is to report the policy and life of the people to their fellow westerners, not an opinion-shaping power like what BBC has in the UK. Actually east Asian countries are very careful about the message sent through the media to their people, not to mention a foreign media. Even in the United States any newspaper company wants to publish something, the company should have an American citizen as its shareholder. This is a bonding of stake, without which the western media has only a moral obligation to consider what kind of influence its reporting can have on the people of a country. If things go wrong, they don’t have to take any responsibility.
A reporter challenged Lee Kuan Yew why he doesn’t trust the highly educated population in Singapore is capable of making their own judgment to accept or reject the opinion from western media. The same question has been posted to other east Asian countries as well. Lee Kuan Yew responded with some vagueness, that he as a Prime Minister in power for decades did know his people better than the reporter. In another word, the western reporter doesn’t understand the situation of the country. Here I try to elaborate what this situation is in Singapore or other East Asian countries which is hard for westerners to understand. First, people always put emphasis on the improvement of the quality of life, and to achieve that the government needs to be tough and efficient to ensure economic growth, so the bandwidth to balance all kinds of opinions is low. Second, as the western world thinks it has established a liberal, democratic system successfully, English-educated population tend to believe that the western way is an universal solution and become less supportive of some of the policies introduced by its government, and such a belief is exactly what leaders like Lee Kuan Yew want to avoid. To pursue democratic norms is costly, and the cost will be paid by the people of Singapore if they find that western ideologies do them no good. The last point is that the western reporter has never witnessed how people in his country react to foreign media, because no such situation has ever existed (due to the law posed on foreign media). What if Xinhua Daily is allowed to be published and distributed in the United States ? Will there be a change in Americans’ view about themselves and their leaders, or even about the system they have built up? And if there is a change, are the people ‘worth trusting’ anymore ? This is how westerners do not understand their own situation, so they find it difficult to understand the situation of people in east Asian societies.
The role played by the media in east Asian Countries could not be the same as it is in western countries also because as Lee Kuan Yew points out, leaders’ authority needs to be respected so people follow their policies. Westerners might have gotten used to seeing their leaders being mocked up in talk shows and movies, the situation is quite different in countries like China. People in East Asian societies need a strong figure, just like Americans need a charismatic figure. The absence of strong figures might decentralize the power of government, making it less efficient.
Although Singapore’s governing method looks similar to systems adopted in the Western world, the latter has been criticizing Singapore for its incomplete freedom and democracy. Is it necessary to push further ? Not necessarily. East Asain societies have a different value system, that is to put the practical needs of people as the top priority, thus it needs a strong and centralized government to allocate resources and keep the policies consistent. East Asian societies may not need media to play a role as it does in the western world. Yet east Asian countries do need to think about how to adapt their system based on the principle of rule of law, to interface with market economy and globalization. Singapore’s approach, largely shaped by Lee Kuan Yew and his colleagues, has shed some light.
OWLS 