Tran Thi My

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SINGAPORE RESEARCH

For a long time, I have heard much good information

about Singapore: The clean city in the world, the developed

country, the good leaders… However, I did not have

opportunity to study about this country. As the first

assignment in Asian Study subject gave me an option to

choose one among Asian countries to research, I would like

to choose Singapore.

My purpose in this brief research is to learn:

- A brief history about Singapore.

- What are the causes that led Singapore to such a

success.

- What did I learn from Singapore history?

I. GEOLOGICAL POSITION AND POPULATION OF SINGAPORE

Singapore is one of the smallest countries in Southeast

Asia with a total land area measuring only 273 square miles

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(707.1 square kilometers) and one of the youngest nations in

the world. The total population according to Population Trends

2013 is 5,399.2.

II. A BRIEF HISTORY OF SINGAPORE

1. Mythical Origins

The name Singapore has it origin from the legend that

at 14th century Sumatran prince spotted an auspicious beast

(probably a Malayan tiger) upon landing on the island after

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a thunderstorm. Singapore comes from the Malay words “Singa”

for lion and “Pura” for city. Prior to European settlement,

the island now known as Singapore was the site of a Malay

fishing village and inhabited by several hundred

indigenous Orang Laut people.

2. The Founding of Modern Singapore

In late 1818, Lord Hastings – the British Governor

General of India – appointed Lieutenant General Sir Stamford

Raffles to establish a trading station at the southern tip

of the Malay peninsula.  The British were extending their

dominion over India and their trade with China was

expanding. They saw the need for a port of call to “refit,

revitalize and protect their merchant fleet” as well as to

prevent any advances made by the Dutch in the East Indies.

After surveying other nearby islands in 1819, Sir

Stamford Raffles and the rest of the British East India

Company landed on Singapore, which was to become their

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strategic trading post along the spice route.  Eventually

Singapore became one of the most important commercial and

military centers of the British Empire. The island was the

third British acquisition in the Malay Peninsula after

Penang (1786) and Malacca (1795). These three British

Settlements (Singapore, Penang and Malacca) became the

Straights Settlements in 1826, under the control of British

India. By 1832, Singapore became the center of government of

the three areas. On 1 April 1867, the Straights Settlements

became a Crown Colony and was ruled by a governor under the

jurisdiction of the Colonial Office in London.

3. Loosening Britain’s Stronghold and the struggle for

independence

During World War II, Singapore was occupied by the

Japanese.  In the aftermath of the war, the country faced

staggering problems of high unemployment, slow economic

growth, inadequate housing, decaying infrastructure, labor

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strikes and social unrest. Nevertheless, it sparked a

political awakening among the local population and saw the

rise of anti-colonial and nationalist sentiments.

There were three big movement of Singapore

independence struggle :

- In 1959, Singapore became a self-governing state

within the British Empire with Yusof Bin Ishak is the

eminent “Master of the State” and Lee Kuan Yew as its first

and long-standing Prime Minister (he served until 1990).

- On 31 Agust 1963, Lee Kuan Yew declared Singapore’s

freedom unilaterally from the Bristian. The island enjoyed

an anomalous fifteen days of full independence before

becoming part of Malaysia.

- On 9 August 1965, Singapore left the federation after

heated ideological conflicts arose between the Singapore

government’s major political party called the People’s

Action Party (PAP) and the federal Kuala Lumpur goverment.

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Yusof Bin Ishak sworn in as its first president and Lee Kuan

Yew remained prime minister.

4. Road to Success

At first, singapore’s government and most singaporeans

were faced with the shock of separation (loss basic in

politician, culture, and many other aspects of the society .

However, these problems motivated Singapore’s leadership to

focus on the nation’s economy. With Cambridge-educated

lawyer Lee Kuan Yew at its helm, the Singaporean government

was aggressive in promoting export-oriented, labor-extensive

industrialization through a program of incentives to attract

foreign investment. Singapore grew rapidly as a financial

center and capital market. In 1968 she was made the

headquarters of Asian Dollar market, and in 1969 she became

a gold market and quickly outstripped Hong Kong and Beirut.

By 1970 she had thirty-six banks, twenty-six foreign and ten

Singaporean. In 1969 Singapore outstripped London to become

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the busiest port in the Commonweath, with the completion of

her container complex in 1972 she became the container

trans-shipment center for South-East Asia, and by 1975 she

claimed to be the third port in the wold qfter Rotterdam and

New York1. By the late 1970s, the government changed its

strategic focus to skill and technology-intensive, high

value-added industries and away from labor-intensive

manufacturing. In particular, information technology was

given priority for expansion and Singapore became the

world’s largest producer of disk drives and disk drive parts

in 1989. In the same year, 30 percent of the country’s GDP

was due to earnings from manufacturing.In the late 1980s,

its economy accounting for nearly 25 percent of the

country’s GDP. In the same year, Singapore ranked with Hong

Kong as the two most important Asian financial centers after

Tokyo. By 1990, Singapore played host to more than 650

1 Turnbull, C.M. P. 307-309

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multinational companies and several thousand financial

institutions and trading firms.

On the political front, Goh Chok Tong succeeded Lee

Kuan Yew and in 2004 Lee Hsien Loong, the eldest son of Lee

Kuan Yew, became Singapore’s third prime minister. Singapore

government has led its country to the road of open-door

policy, democratic and non-communist. In 1959, Lee Kuan Yew

promised in a broadcast speech at the time of assuming

office, this was to be “a revolution by peaceful means”2.

In the statement of policy read by the Yang di-pertuan

Negara at the opening of the first session of the new

legislative assembly, the government declared its stand, “to

end colonialism and establish an independent, democratic,

non-communist, socialist Malaya.”3 Overcome the problems of

racial differences, Chinese or English or Malaysia Education

and so on, Singapore government has successfully built a

2 Ibid, p. 271.3 Ibid, p. 273.

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modern Singapore in multi-racial policy, integration and

development.

III. THE CAUSES THAT LED SINGAPORE TO SUCH A SUCCESS

Through the very brief history of Singapore, we learned

that the success was led by many reasons. However, for me,

these are two main reasons:

- The first reason is Singapore has a unique set of

geography and history - Singapore’s strategic location on

the major sea route between India and China that has been so

a good condition for Singapore on becoming an important

financial center of South East Asia and the world.

- Singapore had excellent leaders: The first leader was

Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles. He built Singapore as a free-

trade harbor and created a framework for Singapore ‘s early

success. After him, it was Singapore’s former Prime Minister

Lee Kuan Yew who shaped the first quarter-century of

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Singapore’s existence as an independent nation and defined

the path to its current success. And so on, the continuous

Singapore’s leaders are all building the success to this

their country.

The leadership of Singapore’s PAP government was

considered as the energetic and dedicated leadership. Lee

Kuan Yew claimed with some justification that independent

Singapore was built on the ability, drive and dedication of

about 150 individuals.4

IV. REFLECTION

Before reading the history of Singapore I did not think

that Modern Singapore today had encountered so many

difficult and apprehensive situations like that. Like other

Asian countries, Singapore used to be colonized by Western

countries and Japanese. Besides, She had to face many issues

in the federation relationship with Malaysia. Within her

4 Ibid, p. 320

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country, the racial and education problem were not easy to

resolve. The communist party was present and was also a big

threat to Singapore government. However, all above, it was

the wise and unceasing dedicated leadership that led

Singapore to such an ideal development country in the world

today. I myself am not really interested in politics as well

as in history of other countries, but I was so attracted to

the history of Singapore, especially the way Lee Kuan Yew

and his government resolved the problems during the year

1959 to 1965 and some years upward.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

A. Books

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Turnbull, C.M.(1977) A History of Singapore 1819-1975.

Oxford University Press, London.

Devan Nair, C.V.(1976) Socialism that works … The Singapore

way. Federal Publications, Singapore.

E. Websites and internet materials

http:// www . aferchildren.net/print/daro.pdf: Anne Cohn Donnelly,Overview, Child abuse is not a new phenomenon.

http://www.headington-institute.org : Headington Institute,Understanding and cope with Traumatic stress, 2010.

http://www.singstat.gov.sg/: Population Trends 2013.

Department of Statistic of Singapore, 2013.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/: History_of_Singapore.

http://www.yoursingapore.com: A brief history of Singapore,

http://www.guidemesingapore.com/: A brief history of Singapore,