From Third World to First The Singapore Story pdfdrive com

Time
magazine from 18,000 to 9,000 and then subsequently to 2,000 copies.
After this, 
Time
published our reply in full. We lifted the restriction – eight
months later.
The 
Asian Wall Street Journal
(
AWSJ
) in December 1986 printed an untrue
story about our proposed second securities market, SESDAQ (Stock Exchange
of Singapore Dealing in Automated Quotation Systems). It alleged that the
government was setting it up in order to dispose of dud government-owned
companies to its citizens. The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) wrote to
rebut these false allegations. The 
AWSJ
not only refused to print this letter but
claimed its article was fair and accurate, that such a dud company did exist and
that our letter had defamed its correspondent. The MAS wrote again to point out
further errors in the journal’s letter, and asked it to name the dud company and to
indicate which specific passages in our letter had defamed its correspondent. We
asked that it publish the correspondence so that readers could judge for
themselves. It refused to name the dud company or point out the supposedly
defamatory passages. In February 1987 the government restricted the 
AWSJ
’s
circulation from 5,000 to 400 copies and released the letters between the MAS
and the 
AWSJ
. The Singapore newspapers published them. We invited the
journal’s correspondent to sue if he had indeed been defamed. He did not.
To our amazement, a US State Department spokesman, as reported in the
AWSJ
, expressed regret at the restrictions on both the 
AWSJ
and 
Time
magazine.
Our ministry of foreign affairs asked the State Department to confirm the
reported remarks which, if true, represented “an unprecedented interference in
Singapore’s internal affairs”. Its spokesman did so, but maintained the US
government did not take sides in either of these two cases. We asked the State
Department whether, on the same grounds of impartiality, it would express
regret over the refusal of the 
AWSJ
to publish the exchange of letters. The State
Department repeated that it did not take sides; it was merely expressing concern
because of its “fundamental and long-standing commitment to the principles of a
free and unrestricted press” – which meant that “the press is free to publish or
not publish what it chooses however irresponsible or biased its actions may seem
to be”. Our ministry of foreign affairs pointed out that we were not obliged to
follow US laws on the press. Singapore had its own laws and reserved the right
to reply to wrong reporting. Foreign publications had no right of sale and
circulation in Singapore. We gave them this privilege, but on our terms, one of
which was the right of reply. The State Department did not reply.

---

Two weeks later, the 
AWSJ
wrote to our ministry of communications and
information offering to distribute its journal free of charge to all paying
subscribers who had been deprived by its restriction. It was willing to “forego its
sales revenue in the spirit of helping Singapore businessmen who had
complained of lack of access to the journal”. The ministry agreed, provided it
left out the advertisements to prove that the journal’s motive was not to increase
circulation but to justify its higher advertising charges. It declined the offer,
arguing that advertisements were an integral part of a paper, and that there would
be additional costs and scheduling problems. We offered to defray one-half of
the additional costs of removing the advertisements. The 
AWSJ
rejected our
offer. We responded, “You are not interested in the business community getting
information. You want the freedom to make money selling advertisements.” It
did not reply.
In September 1987 American-owned