CPC 100 - The Major China Events That Made Modern Singapore

The historical developments in China from 1950-1961 had tremendous impact on ethnic Chinese in South East Asia (SEA), where most of whom have family and relatives in Mainland China which they returned regularly with financial and other living resources.

With the Communist Party of China (CPC) in power in 1949, the consensual conclusion by the vast number of Chinese in SEA, or specifically “Nanyang” (South Seas), was that China under Communism was no longer a viable place as home or to be able to return to to be buried next to their ancestors. Their strategic imperative was to seek out and adopt new “homelands” for themselves and their next generation of Chinese in South East Asia. 

On the small island of Singapore, then a British colony with a mostly Chinese population, the existential implications were both real and critical for her eventual survival and the fate of at least 2 million Chinese. Their final decision for Singapore as the preferred new homeland was not difficult, as it was driven, and confirmed, largely by 4 major events in China.

(1) The 1949 Communist ascendency in China was closely watched in SEA by Chinese-majority Singapore as well as Chinese in neighbouring Malaya, also a British colony. On a daily basis, they read first-hand accounts in the local Chinese newspapers the relentless unpacking of brutal, cruel and intolerant Communist governance. The suffering and mass killings of Mainland Chinese were superseded only by Japanese wartime atrocities against the Chinese in their recent memory, just over a decade earlier.

(2) The 1956 Hundred Flowers Campaign in China, also termed the Hundred Flowers Movement (Bǎihuā yùndòng), by the CPC was intended to motivate and embolden Mainland Chinese to express their opinions of the new Communist government openly. It was supposed to uncover the "enemies of the state". From 1956 and throughout 1957, the merciless crackdown continued against those who were critical of Communism and the Chinese government. Those found were made an example. Beside being publicly criticized and condemned to prison labor camps, many were executed.

(3) The Great Leap Forward (Dà yuè jìn) from 1958-1961 was an ambitious initiative as China embarked on her economic and social agenda based on Marxist-influenced Communist economic principles. The national goal was to transform the country rapidly from an agrarian economy into a communist society through deliberate and massive industrialization and collective communalisation. 

However, her development inexperience coupled with the inherent weaknesses and contradictions of Marxist Communism drove The Great Leap Forward into unprecedented social misery as her people drowned in the abyss of famine, poverty and intolerable official persecutions never before encountered by the 6,000-year Chinese Civilisation since the days of Dynastic Emperors. The Great Leap Forward plunged and plummeted directly and relentlessly, transforming eventually into the Great Chinese Famine.

As she struggled to pull back from the impending economic and social darkness, China embarked incrementally on mandatory agricultural communal collectivization. In ideological defiance of common-sense economic principles and logic, private farming was prohibited and private farmers were labeled as counter-revolutionaries and persecuted. The rural population was severely restricted through public shame sessions, social pressure, even as many were also conscripted as forced labor.

The Great Leap Forward resulted in some 18-45 million premature deaths as China faltered, stumbled and succumbed to the self-inflicted disastrous social experiment. Historian Frank Dikötter asserts that "coercion, terror and systematic violence were the very foundation of the Great Leap Forward" and it "motivated one of the deadliest mass killings of human history".

Meanwhile in 1963, Singapore merged with then Malaya to form Malaysia with Sabah and Sarawak. What hastened the eventual Union on 30 August 1963 was their profound fear of Communism.    

However, the convenient Singapore-Malaya-Sabah-Sarawak political marriage through merger was doomed from the get-go. One party group, Malaya with Sabah and Sarawak, was eager, enthusiastic, and the other, Singapore, lukewarm and hesitant. Malay power elites in Malaysia demanded dominance and total subservience, whereas Singapore was hoping for equality and social justice. Malaysia’s approach was expressly racist and ethnocentric. Malaysia was for a “Malay Malaysia”, and Singapore for a “Malaysian Malaysia”.

Never in human history had a political marriage so destined for failure from the get-go as our merger to form Malaysia. 

The marriage of convenience with Malaysia was never consummated. The constant acrimonious foreplay over the conflicting visions of meritocratic, multicultural “Malaysian Malaysia” vs a Malay-dominant, racist, ethnic supremacist “Malay Malaysia” marred 2-years of love-hate, bittersweet honeymoon. With no ethnic group then exceeding 50% in the population, a Malaysian Malaysia would have made the most sensible choice, but not to the powerful Malay political elites and their interest groups. 

At midnight on 9 August 1965, Singapore was booted out of Malaysia like a pariah and bastard child. 

The failure of merger was a heavy blow to then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, who believed that it was crucial for Singapore’s survival. In the live TV press conference that same day, he fought back tears and briefly stopped to regain his composure as he formally announced the separation and the full independence of Singapore to an anxious population:

"Every time we look back on this moment when we signed this agreement which severed Singapore from Malaysia, it will be a moment of anguish. For me it is a moment of anguish because all my life ... you see, the whole of my adult life ... I have believed in merger and the unity of these two territories. You know that we, as a people are connected by geography, economics, by ties of kinship...".

Prime Minister Lee did not know at that time that independent Singapore would thus escape from the gathering storm of China’s Cultural Revolution, which began a year later in 1966.

(4) The May 1966 Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, commonly known as the Cultural Revolution, was a social-political movement led by the CPC from 1966 until 1976. The proclaimed goal was to preserve 'true' Communist ideology in the country by purging remnants of traditional and capitalist elements from Chinese society, and to re-impose Maoist interpretations of Marxist Communism as the dominant national ideology. The Cultural Revolution further paralysed China politically and aggravated her economic and social development still recovering from the deep wounds of The Great Leap Forward.  

As violent struggles erupted across China, millions were persecuted. They suffered a wide range of abuses including torture, public humiliation, arbitrary imprisonment, sustained harassment and seizure of property. Segments of the population was forcibly displaced, transferred and resettled from urban to the rural areas. Many Chinese historical relics and artifacts were destroyed as cultural and religious sites were ransacked.

The China-wide Revolution spread into the military, urban workers, trade unions and the CCP leadership itself, pitting family members against each other and factions, as Red Guards formed by the CPC took upon themselves to drive the Revolution’s success. Top CPC leaders were purged, among whom Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping, the latter was to become the Father of Modern China after Mao Tse Tung’s death. In 1969, Mao officially declared the end of his Cultural Revolution but it did not end until the 1971 death of CPC military leader Lin Biao.  

With the arrest of the Gang of Four in 1976 after Mao’s death, Deng Xiaoping came to power and gradually began to dismantle the Maoist policies associated with the Cultural Revolution. In 1981, the CPC admitted that the Cultural Revolution was "responsible for the most severe setback and the heaviest losses suffered by the Party, the country, and the people since the founding of the People's Republic."

On 9 August 1965, Singapore became a sovereign, independent nation.

The promised land of Malaysia 2 years earlier had turned into a desert of acrimony. The mirage of mutual prosperity clouded the reality of sandy political interests. Singaporeans could not be forced into drinking the sand of political racism to quench our thirst for justice and equality. And we refused to mistake it for the precious water needed to nurture our dream of a multiracial, meritocratic, equal and socially just Nation.

It was worse than the worst of times.

And the worst had yet to come. 

Our age of foolishness had passed.

We woke up, and realized we were alone, once more.

It was the epoch of belief and hope. 

Summers were still hot, and the Winters warm and wet.

The darkness grew thick and thicker,

Seemingly impenetrable by any Light.

Many thought we were all going direct to Hell,

But we had already been there

Before being cast out like a pariah and violated Groom.

We had nothing, no one, but each other.

It was enough.  

Malaysia today can only be understood in term of a class structure of social inequality created by her mostly Malay power elites. Political Racism in Malaysia nurtures a large number of politically connected Bumiputra (Native and Muslim) rent seekers promoting a business system riddled with kickbacks and corruption. Economic and commercial policies favour largely the already rich with lucrative government contracts awarded according to cronyism and nepotism facilitated by widespread systematic corrupt practices. Government and local authority contracts, permits and licenses are given to people who are linked to the major ruling political parties and other powerful Bumiputra politicians who in turn rent out their licenses and permits for a fee or a percentage of profit, thus depriving others of these lucrative contracts. They take a huge cut of any privileged contracts before re-awarding the crumbs to the mostly Malay contractors since 80% of registered contractors are Bumiputra. The mostly Malay sub-contractors therefore earned little compared with the power elites. Malaysia as a promised land of opportunities and justice exists only as an illusion.

Remaining in Malaysia would have made Singapore impotent, just as it rendered pyrrhic their merger victories into Malaysia for both Sabah and Sarawak.

Singapore’s initial problems with communism eventual gave way to mutually respectful bilateral ties. Singapore and China established diplomatic relations in 1990, and has been China’s largest trading partner since 2013, just as Singapore has also become China’s largest foreign investor.

SINGAPORE IS NOT EASY. It took hard work, long patience, deep endurance, plenty of diligence, as well as many lessons from mistakes and lots of good fortune to get to where we are today. 

From the ashes of a failed vision, Singapore has emerged more prosperous, stronger, more Rugged, more resilient, more robust and more independent. Our natural right to survive with independent sovereignty cannot and must never be compromised or sacrificed. Our authenticity as a Nation State providing exceptional value to the world must always be visibly demonstrated without any equivocation.

We once had a difficult birth under a precarious regional geo-political climate, a risky delivery, a vulnerable existence and a daunting struggle to continually assert our right to live among the community of nations as an equal sovereign State deserving of their respect, friendship and admiration. To a significant extent, among other factors, Singapore would never have existed if not for the troubles in China under the CPC. 

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