From Third World to First The Singapore Story pdfdrive com

23. New Bonds with Britain
On 24 September 1975, the Gordon Highlanders’ drums and pipes struck up in
final farewell as the HMS 
Mermaid
pulled out of Sembawang Naval Base. It was
a mere 2,500-tonne frigate – a tiny component of the Royal Navy warships and
aircraft carriers that once were based there. The last of the British troops left
soon after. Their departure marked the end of 150 years of British political and
military influence in the region.
The economic strength of the United States, Japan, Germany and the
European Economic Community prevailed over the region. This meant we had
to build up our links with these other powers from scratch. For me personally, it
was a difficult adjustment. After a lifetime of close association, I had come to
know British society and its leaders well. Listening to the BBC World Service
and reading British newspapers had become a habit. I had a network of friends
and acquaintances in both the Labour and Conservative parties. It was easy to
make contact and have a meeting of minds. After their pull-out I had to learn
about and get to know American leaders and the different style and standards of
their media, and to gain some understanding of American society, which was so
much bigger and more diverse. Doing this with the Japanese; French and
Germans was even more difficult because we neither spoke their languages nor
understood their customs.
Although old ties with Britain continued even as we widened our links and
established relations with these important new centres of wealth and power, it
was nevertheless sad to see Britain’s gradual economic displacement by Japan,
Germany and France. Time and again, its recovery was slowed down by
industrial action of unions driven by class antagonism and not merely economic
injustice. I believe one great obstacle to Britain’s adjustment to its post-imperial
condition was its class-conscious society. It was slow to shed class distinctions.
Without empire, Britain needed a meritocracy to retain its position as the leading
nation of Europe, not a ruling class which distinguished itself from the working
class by its accent, social manners and habits, old boy network, clubs and old

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school ties. Akio Morita was chairman of Sony in 1991 when he told me that
Sony found it hard to get engineers in its British factories to go to the production
line. Japanese engineers start from the bottom so as to fraternise with and
understand the men who would be working under them. British engineers, he
said, preferred their own private rooms. Aware of these shortcomings, Mrs
Thatcher as prime minister downgraded class and promoted meritocracy. John
Major, her successor, spoke of a “classless” Britain. Prime Minister Tony Blair’s
New Labour wants Britain to be rid of class consciousness.
What was worse, welfarism introduced by the Labour Party in the 1940s, and
sustained by the Conservatives in a bipartisan consensus, had blunted the
people’s motivation to exert themselves and excel, at the expense of the
economy. Most leaders in both main parties, and even in the Liberal Party, were
aware of the debilitating effects of welfarism. But no one tackled this problem
until Margaret Thatcher became prime minister.
As Britain’s worldwide influence shrank, so did the worldview of its younger
parliamentarians and ministers. Some old friends, British commanders who had
fought in the last world war and had served in Singapore defending us against
Sukarno’s Confrontation, compared the old generation British leaders to oak
trees with wide-spreading branches and deep roots. They described their younger
leaders as “bonsai oak”, recognisably oak trees, but miniaturised, because their
root area had shrunk.
Adjusting to a different power position was difficult for Britain. It was the
Conservative Party led by Margaret Thatcher, followed by John Major, that
reversed the downward trend. British entrepreneurs became more self-confident
and spearheaded their revival in Southeast Asia, including Singapore. The
Labour Party returned to power in the 1997 election, committed to the same
economic principles of the free market. It wants to cut down the government’s
share of total GDP (gross domestic product), encourage exports, and promote
trade and investments abroad to create jobs in Britain. The triumph of Margaret
Thatcher and the Conservative Party was in turning around the attitudes of the
British people. This forced the Labour Party to change from Old to New Labour.
Habits and ties long established do not change easily. Our students continue
to go to Britain to seek higher education. As Singapore’s middle class expanded,
they sent their children to Britain for their tertiary education. By the 1990s some
5,000 Singapore students were studying in British universities and polytechnics.

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Oxbridge graduates still dominate the elite in Singapore. The pulls of history are
responsible for this cultural lag, a delayed response to changed circumstances.
After the British withdrew their forces the only power in East Asia was America.
We needed to have some of our best students educated there to understand them,
and to network with future leaders in their centres of excellence. Even by the
1990s the number of our students in the United States was only two-thirds that in
Britain.
History has locked us into the British educational system. Our professions
are affiliated and geared to Britain’s professional institutions: doctors, lawyers,
accountants, architects, engineers – the lot. Professional ties endure across all
echelons of our society. In some sections, however, such as medicine, because
the United States spends some 14 per cent of its GDP on health, more than twice
what Britain does, American doctors and hospitals have excelled. We have
gradually forged ties with American institutions. But our basic training in
medicine is still British. So too with the other professions.
During the Thatcher years of the 1980s, Singapore-British trade grew
significantly. When she freed capital movements, British investments in
Singapore increased. They were of a different nature – in high value-added
products such as pharmaceuticals, electronics and aerospace. By the 1990s
Britain was again one of our major investors, the fourth largest after the United
States, Japan and Holland. Singapore investments overseas went primarily into
Southeast Asia, but a significant number of our private entrepreneurs have
invested in Britain, especially in tourism. One of our major companies bought a
chain of hotels in Britain and our Government Investment Corporation bought
into another chain of over 100 hotels, confident that the British tourist industry
would continue to grow, notwithstanding the problems created by IRA
bombings. Singapore’s main link with Europe is still London. We have more
daily flights to London than to other capitals in Europe.
When the British announced the withdrawal of their forces in 1968, there
were gloomy articles, including one in the