Jul 6, 2010
By Rohit Brijnath, Sporting Life
THE official photograph at the net was done. The duel had commenced. Tomas Berdych was about to walk to his baseline when Rafael Nadal murmured something to him. A greeting? A gentle 'good luck'? Often he will do it, as if acknowledging his opponent's humanity. It is refreshing, an act of a man who plays as if he is at war, yet his every gesture is of an athlete who recognises this is only sport after all.
Nadal knows about lines. Lines to hit and those not to step over. When the match was done and they crossed paths with their different silverware, he tapped Berdych on the back. When he left the court, he high-fived the crowd; when he broke Andy Murray's heart, he offered a healing embrace. His respect for his world is consistent: At last year's US Open, knees aching, he signed autographs after his defeat.
Nadal, at 24, is already Jimmy Connors' equal with eight Slams. These men make for interesting comparison for both share a strong similarity yet are different.
Connors trained as if locked in competition, as if a practice point lost was manhood questioned. Ethic became habit and passion transferred automatically from training ground to championship arena. Nadal's tennis echoes a similar religiosity. As he said on Sunday: 'I think all my life I practised with my high 100 per cent of intensity in every ball in the practice.'
But Connors, insulting umpires, surly in the press room, a picture of puerile, bowl-cut rebellion, could not keep sport in proportion. Nadal does, he appreciates that his responsibility to sport goes beyond displaying skill. It is about respecting the audience and his profession.
A game is defined by its present champions, they give it stature, they are handed it for safe-keeping. When Tiger Woods, throwing clubs and tossing invective, forgot this, Tom Watson said last year: 'I think he needs to clean up his act there and show respect for the game that people before him have shown.'
Watson's words should have been etched in World Cup dressing rooms, reminding footballers of their place and purpose. Too many perform as if the game owes them, as if this sport that offered them opportunity is lucky to have them.
Into modern sport has been built an unequal relationship: a fat pay cheque but slim responsibility. Even great players forget they are temporary owners of a sport. Eventually they go, but football stays, yet few care if they leave it a finer game.
Robinho's tantrums were unforgivable. Arjen Robben is far too gifted to require diving, yet this cheap tactic, rehearsed in his mind, mocks football. If diving has become custom, it is because too few stand up against it and surely this is the job of the great player. Yet they know that we, the audience, are too quickly forgiving of lower standards.
Luis Suarez's handball on the goal-line might be forgiven as instinctive, yet his bragging later, his inflated sense of himself as a saviour, was ridiculous. Beckenbauer thumped England repeatedly, Pele sneered at Maradona, Maradona jousted with Platini, Argentina and Germany derided each other, Rooney moaned about fans, Ronaldo spit at a cameraman.
[I cannot judge if in the heat of the game, the passion of the game, with patriotism and national pride flooding thru my veins I would not do the same as Suarez. But at the end of it all, there must be humility and respect for the game. Acknowledging that what was done was not sporting, but that one can still be a sportsman and not brag about it like it was a badge of honour. Yes, I would do it again, for my country, but I am not proud of it. I extend my apologies to the other team. Something like that.]
Only Messi, even in frustrated defeat, even aware of criticism to come, did not fall into sly posturing against Germany in some faux attempt to show passion. He came and left in dignity.
This is no call for sanitised sport. In arenas of despair and devotion and desire, some anarchy is inevitable, even desirable, for humans are at play. But even amidst passion, respect can breathe. As Nadal's uncle, Toni, told a newspaper once: 'Rafael has never thrown his racket. For me, it is unbelievable how some people treat what they are given.'
Athletes often use competitiveness as excuse for surliness, they believe praise of rival is weakness. On the contrary, in acknowledging an opponent, a team recognise the valour of other men seeking the same prize as them. It makes football what we like to believe it is: beautiful.
And so it is belated, yet appropriate, that as the Cup begins its conclusion, a flicker of sport's etiquette has returned. Andres Iniesta has simply said: 'Germany have had a brilliant World Cup so far and regardless of their excellent results, they're also playing very well.' Miroslav Klose has said: 'Villa is a very clever player, he has a great deal of qualities.'
It did not cost them anything, but already it makes their semi-final appealing, a collision of fine teams who respect each other. Somewhere, on the banks of a river near Mallorca where he might be found fishing, a Spanish tennis player will be applauding their grace.
rohitb@sph.com.sg
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Monday, July 5, 2010
Life is tough at 24 with Us and Them
Jul 5, 2010
Young Singaporeans too are discomfited by huge foreign presence here
By Rachael Chang
MY SISTER was back in town this past month for the first time since moving to Tanzania, in East Africa, a year ago.
During an idle conversation on property prices, she made an offhand comment that hung in the air with a note of finality: 'I cannot live here any more, it's too crowded.'
She sounded just like, well, me.
Nine months ago, I returned from a four-year study stint abroad, resigned to returning home to start work. The country that greeted me had transformed in my absence.
Singapore has been developing at breakneck speed for close to five decades now; it can sometimes be both thrilling and despairing in equal measure to find familiar alleyways gone, old shopping malls razed in a day.
But this time, it was different. It was the Chinese national frying up char kway teow, the Malaysian bus driver who had never heard of 'Clarke Quay', the Indian nationals dancing up a storm to Bhangra music in nightclubs, and the conspicuous Caucasians dotting MRT train carriages and in the heartlands. These were the things that jarred.
And it was really, really crowded.
This topic of conversation has been a perennial one among my peers for close to a year now. A recent Institute of Policy Studies survey revealed that we weren't the only Singaporeans in our mid-20s preoccupied by the issue. My sister is 27, I am 24.
Of the over 2,000 polled, the sentiment that the presence of foreigners made them economically worse off was highest among those aged 21 to 29 years old - 31 per cent of this age group felt this way, compared to only 22 per cent of those aged 50 and over.
The numbers puzzled some observers I spoke to. Shouldn't this young cosmopolitan generation be the most amenable to foreigners? Globalised and raised on a steady diet of Taiwanese pop music and American movies, surely we were comfortable with the new sights, smells and accents in our midst? And shouldn't this well-educated group better understand the economic argument for needing immigrants in a baby-strapped country?
Yes, and no. There are a myriad of reasons why young Singaporeans can tick all those boxes and still feel vulnerable about the influx of foreigners.
Some are utilitarian concerns that Singaporeans are known for - like the size of the sliver of pie that is our lot, and the strength of the rice bowl. But much of the source of our discomfort is intangible, revolving around generational angst and concepts of Singaporean identity.
But first, a caveat before anyone cries 'spoilt' and 'entitled': It is true that foreign workers do some jobs Singaporeans eschew - like build malls and clean toilets.
Some argue that Singaporeans would never stoop to certain menial tasks; others counter that these jobs pay too little to make a living, and the fount of foreigners willing to take these wages keeps them at that level.
Putting that perennial argument aside, I believe that the foreigners who irk those survey respondents - and my friends - are a different category. These are the ones in direct competition for places on the Dean's List, or who take up starting managerial positions for less money than we would have. These are the ones we are told time and again are 'hungrier' than us and therefore more likely to succeed.
Our mixed feelings towards this group spring from uncertainty and identity.
There is the sheer fact of being young. The 20s is the 'generation of angst', as political observer Eugene Tan puts it. We are thrust into the painful reality of adulthood without the internal resources, which age inevitably endows, to cope. We worry about affording a Housing Board flat and getting that promotion. We fret over whether our lives are going according to plan, having not yet accepted that they never do.
Our parents went from Third World to First, with every decade surpassing the last. Born into the First World but expecting rising affluence, we find our heads banging up against the ceiling of a country fully developed.
In school, we got used to foreigners beating us in examinations. Grown-up, it's all too easy to point the finger at them for inflating the prices of HDB flats, and stealing that promotion while 'I was away at reservist', a complaint I have heard.
Some argue that this is a misperception; that even if the foreign population had not swelled to a third of the total resident population in a decade, we would find something else to blame for the hardship - economic and otherwise - that is a part of young adulthood.
Perhaps. But Singapore society is already coping with the pain of transitioning from developing to developed. It may not have sufficient sociological ballast to withstand the shock of a sudden, intense influx of foreign labour over several years. Even if not a cause, the influx certainly deepens the stresses of an evolving nation, and intensifies the uncertainty of my generation terrified of what the future has in store.
In other words, foreigners feed our sense of insecurity. If that sounds like a poor reason for our mistrust of foreigners, we can lay claim to the second: Foreigners, through no fault of their own, cannot partake in a strong and pulsating Singaporean identity.
Our immigrant parents went to either English or Chinese schools. My generation went to school under one education system. Where some of our parents spoke crisp English with no second language, and others knew only dialect, my peers speak that lovable yet vilified Singlish, a unifying patois that means my Indian friends use Hokkien phrases and vice versa; that allows a Singaporean to be plucked out of a crowd in a foreign land by another attuned to the same cadences of speech.
Whether a sneaking fondness for package deals or a love-hate relationship with the ruling party, it is difficult to define exact components of a Singaporean identity, but its presence cannot be disputed.
We feel Singaporean enough to feel keenly the impact of those different from us, in our homeland. Instead of calling this anti-foreigner, perhaps we should cheer what this means for national identity: There's apparently enough of 'us' to generate an 'us versus them' mentality.
No, I'm not anti-foreigner. But as one friend noted, 'I like foreigners who try their best not to be foreigners.' Childish? Perhaps. But what's wrong with that?
rchang@sph.com.sg
[A rather balanced article. I can sense the writer trying not to be churlish about her, well for want of a better word, insecurities. These are insecurities, or anxieties that many Singaporeans feel. That is why the govt has realised that the influx of foreigners have to be reduced. If there are too many of "them" there won't be enough "us" to hold onto our identity.
That said, I wonder if in a sense our brand of multi-culturalism is responsible for our current predicament. Our "distinct" multi-culti approach is to respect and keep distinct the various cultural identities in our society in contrast to "melting pot" multi-culti where it doesn't matter where you come from, but you're in America now so assimilate. So New York is a melting pot multi-culturalism.
Because we don't pressure our diverse groups to "melt" together or assimilate, there are distinct cultural identities, and because we have these distinct identities, it removes our moral right to require new foreigners to assimilate.]
Young Singaporeans too are discomfited by huge foreign presence here
By Rachael Chang
MY SISTER was back in town this past month for the first time since moving to Tanzania, in East Africa, a year ago.
During an idle conversation on property prices, she made an offhand comment that hung in the air with a note of finality: 'I cannot live here any more, it's too crowded.'
She sounded just like, well, me.
Nine months ago, I returned from a four-year study stint abroad, resigned to returning home to start work. The country that greeted me had transformed in my absence.
Singapore has been developing at breakneck speed for close to five decades now; it can sometimes be both thrilling and despairing in equal measure to find familiar alleyways gone, old shopping malls razed in a day.
But this time, it was different. It was the Chinese national frying up char kway teow, the Malaysian bus driver who had never heard of 'Clarke Quay', the Indian nationals dancing up a storm to Bhangra music in nightclubs, and the conspicuous Caucasians dotting MRT train carriages and in the heartlands. These were the things that jarred.
And it was really, really crowded.
This topic of conversation has been a perennial one among my peers for close to a year now. A recent Institute of Policy Studies survey revealed that we weren't the only Singaporeans in our mid-20s preoccupied by the issue. My sister is 27, I am 24.
Of the over 2,000 polled, the sentiment that the presence of foreigners made them economically worse off was highest among those aged 21 to 29 years old - 31 per cent of this age group felt this way, compared to only 22 per cent of those aged 50 and over.
The numbers puzzled some observers I spoke to. Shouldn't this young cosmopolitan generation be the most amenable to foreigners? Globalised and raised on a steady diet of Taiwanese pop music and American movies, surely we were comfortable with the new sights, smells and accents in our midst? And shouldn't this well-educated group better understand the economic argument for needing immigrants in a baby-strapped country?
Yes, and no. There are a myriad of reasons why young Singaporeans can tick all those boxes and still feel vulnerable about the influx of foreigners.
Some are utilitarian concerns that Singaporeans are known for - like the size of the sliver of pie that is our lot, and the strength of the rice bowl. But much of the source of our discomfort is intangible, revolving around generational angst and concepts of Singaporean identity.
But first, a caveat before anyone cries 'spoilt' and 'entitled': It is true that foreign workers do some jobs Singaporeans eschew - like build malls and clean toilets.
Some argue that Singaporeans would never stoop to certain menial tasks; others counter that these jobs pay too little to make a living, and the fount of foreigners willing to take these wages keeps them at that level.
Putting that perennial argument aside, I believe that the foreigners who irk those survey respondents - and my friends - are a different category. These are the ones in direct competition for places on the Dean's List, or who take up starting managerial positions for less money than we would have. These are the ones we are told time and again are 'hungrier' than us and therefore more likely to succeed.
Our mixed feelings towards this group spring from uncertainty and identity.
There is the sheer fact of being young. The 20s is the 'generation of angst', as political observer Eugene Tan puts it. We are thrust into the painful reality of adulthood without the internal resources, which age inevitably endows, to cope. We worry about affording a Housing Board flat and getting that promotion. We fret over whether our lives are going according to plan, having not yet accepted that they never do.
Our parents went from Third World to First, with every decade surpassing the last. Born into the First World but expecting rising affluence, we find our heads banging up against the ceiling of a country fully developed.
In school, we got used to foreigners beating us in examinations. Grown-up, it's all too easy to point the finger at them for inflating the prices of HDB flats, and stealing that promotion while 'I was away at reservist', a complaint I have heard.
Some argue that this is a misperception; that even if the foreign population had not swelled to a third of the total resident population in a decade, we would find something else to blame for the hardship - economic and otherwise - that is a part of young adulthood.
Perhaps. But Singapore society is already coping with the pain of transitioning from developing to developed. It may not have sufficient sociological ballast to withstand the shock of a sudden, intense influx of foreign labour over several years. Even if not a cause, the influx certainly deepens the stresses of an evolving nation, and intensifies the uncertainty of my generation terrified of what the future has in store.
In other words, foreigners feed our sense of insecurity. If that sounds like a poor reason for our mistrust of foreigners, we can lay claim to the second: Foreigners, through no fault of their own, cannot partake in a strong and pulsating Singaporean identity.
Our immigrant parents went to either English or Chinese schools. My generation went to school under one education system. Where some of our parents spoke crisp English with no second language, and others knew only dialect, my peers speak that lovable yet vilified Singlish, a unifying patois that means my Indian friends use Hokkien phrases and vice versa; that allows a Singaporean to be plucked out of a crowd in a foreign land by another attuned to the same cadences of speech.
Whether a sneaking fondness for package deals or a love-hate relationship with the ruling party, it is difficult to define exact components of a Singaporean identity, but its presence cannot be disputed.
We feel Singaporean enough to feel keenly the impact of those different from us, in our homeland. Instead of calling this anti-foreigner, perhaps we should cheer what this means for national identity: There's apparently enough of 'us' to generate an 'us versus them' mentality.
No, I'm not anti-foreigner. But as one friend noted, 'I like foreigners who try their best not to be foreigners.' Childish? Perhaps. But what's wrong with that?
rchang@sph.com.sg
[A rather balanced article. I can sense the writer trying not to be churlish about her, well for want of a better word, insecurities. These are insecurities, or anxieties that many Singaporeans feel. That is why the govt has realised that the influx of foreigners have to be reduced. If there are too many of "them" there won't be enough "us" to hold onto our identity.
That said, I wonder if in a sense our brand of multi-culturalism is responsible for our current predicament. Our "distinct" multi-culti approach is to respect and keep distinct the various cultural identities in our society in contrast to "melting pot" multi-culti where it doesn't matter where you come from, but you're in America now so assimilate. So New York is a melting pot multi-culturalism.
Because we don't pressure our diverse groups to "melt" together or assimilate, there are distinct cultural identities, and because we have these distinct identities, it removes our moral right to require new foreigners to assimilate.]
Rising yuan forces rethink of China ops
Jul 5, 2010
Manufacturers consider moving to places with lower costs like India
Manufacturers consider moving to places with lower costs like India
THE recent rise of the yuan is prompting a rethink among Asian companies with manufacturing operations in China.
Analysts say a more robust yuan would further erode China's labour-cost advantage over other links in the global supply chain, even as foreign-owned factories in China are seeing more workers strike over poor working conditions.
Last month, China's central bank pledged to let the yuan trade more freely against the United States dollar, with the result that the yuan hit five-year highs of 6.8089 to the greenback in the days that followed. It has since risen 0.8 per cent against the US dollar since the June 19 announcement.
The prospect of having to shell out more for higher wages is forcing manufacturers to think of relocating to Bangladesh, India, Indonesia and Vietnam, where wages remain relatively low.
Analyst Bruce Tsao from Capital Securities in Taipei said dramatic wage hikes in the mainland are 'adding more woe to labour-intensive industries in China already troubled by low profit margins'.
Analyst Bruce Tsao from Capital Securities in Taipei said dramatic wage hikes in the mainland are 'adding more woe to labour-intensive industries in China already troubled by low profit margins'.
'Such factories may not move out of China soon, but the trend is inevitable in the long term,' he said.
Taiwan's Feng Tay Group, which supplies about one-sixth of Nike sports shoes, said it was planning to boost production in India as its Chinese manufacturing base shrank.
The company made 51 million pairs of shoes last year, 20 per cent in five Chinese plants. 'The ratio will keep falling in the years ahead,' said company spokesman Amy Chen, adding however that its Chinese plants would 'remain our production base of high-priced products'.
'We'll keep expanding our capacity in India over the next five years, considering its competitive edges like ample supplies of quality workers, relatively low wages and concessions offered by the government.'
Bangladesh, which has the lowest minimum wage in the world at just US$25 (S$35) a month, could also be poised to reap the benefits, as long as it can resolve its own chronic labour disputes and fix its crumbling infrastructure, experts say.
'Bangladesh has a huge opportunity to capitalise on rising costs in China,' said Mr Ifty Islam, an investment banker at Dhaka-based Asian Tiger Capital.
'But it is difficult to get more foreign firms to come if we can't prevent labour unrest,' he said.
China is not only facing the challenges of higher wages, but also that of growing labour unrest.
Production at a Japanese-owned electronics factory in northern China was suspended from Tuesday to Saturday as 3,000 workers went on strike over pay and benefits. It marked the latest in a spate of labour unrest to hit foreign-run firms in China, highlighting growing discontent among millions of workers over low salaries and poor conditions.
China is not only facing the challenges of higher wages, but also that of growing labour unrest.
Production at a Japanese-owned electronics factory in northern China was suspended from Tuesday to Saturday as 3,000 workers went on strike over pay and benefits. It marked the latest in a spate of labour unrest to hit foreign-run firms in China, highlighting growing discontent among millions of workers over low salaries and poor conditions.
The official China Daily has warned of 'an end to cheap labour in China'.
Over the weekend, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said China's economic situation was good but the domestic and international economic environment was 'complicated'. He warned China's ma- croeconomic control policy is facing more difficulties with the global financial crisis and the unpredictability of the global recovery.
Separately, a deputy Chinese central bank governor, Ms Hu Xiaolian, stressed on Saturday the importance of avoiding excessive volatility in the currency.
'Speculative and flock-driven fluctuations are a big blow to confidence,' Ms Hu told a forum in Shanghai.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS, XINHUA
[Comment: The problems of economics are complex and inter-related. You keep wages low to encourage investment in manufacturing. But as the economy improves, the workers are no longer satisfied with low wages and demand higher wages. But if higher wages does not come with higher skills, there are other countries with workers who are willing to work for less, and the factories go where the labour is cheapest. Then what would China do? They need to skill-up. Then they find they are competing at the next level. But the next level of jobs have to be attracted to come in. Until there is enough jobs, they workers go off to foreign lands in search of better jobs. And compete with the indigenous labour force in those foreign lands. Like Singapore. And the workers in Singapore find their wages depressed because of the cheap imports and wonder if they should be protected. But if we protect our jobs by keeping the foreigners out, then the manufacturers will move to where production costs is cheapest. If imported labour keeps us cheap and competitive, then Singaporeans will still have jobs alongside the foreigners. But if we have no imported labour, and we demand higher wages for low-end jobs, the jobs will move offshore.
The wage supplement that the govt gives to the low wage worker has been called a subsidy to the employers. In a sense it is welfare - except we get commercial operators to hire Singaporeans cheap, then we top up the wages. It is not much different than paying employers to employ workers.]
The wage supplement that the govt gives to the low wage worker has been called a subsidy to the employers. In a sense it is welfare - except we get commercial operators to hire Singaporeans cheap, then we top up the wages. It is not much different than paying employers to employ workers.]
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Turning obstacles into opportunities
Jun 23, 2010
Patrick Daniel, Editor-in-Chief of Singapore Press Holdings' English and Malay Newspapers, opened the 19th AMIC Annual Conference on Monday. We carry an excerpt of his speech.
By Patrick Daniel
IN MY 25 years in the newspaper business, this is without doubt the most challenging period. The days of easy growth are gone. We are now confronting an almost existential threat. Will newspapers as we know them be around 10 years from now? All I can say is: I hope so. But my honest answer is: I do not know.
Two things are happening that are shaking the media business to its core. The first is technological changes. These have been rapid and unpredictable.
The second is the changes in people's habits, in particular their media consumption habits. We now have a multi-tasking younger generation, with short attention spans. Most are digital natives and consumers of social media. They are also more networked than any previous generation.
In fact, a recent article in the McKinsey Quarterly, entitled A Glimmer Of Hope For Newspapers, found that news consumption in Britain - as measured by time spent - rose by 20 per cent between 2006 and 2009, and the increase was driven almost entirely by people under the age of 35. For me, this is more than a glimmer of hope.
Some years back, I discussed these trends with an MIT media professor. He was a social scientist and his view was that there's not much point tracking technology changes because you can never tell which will endure. It was far more useful, he felt, to track people's changing habits - how they spend their time and how they live their daily lives.
In reality, the two are intertwined of course. It's the powerful combination of technology changes and people's changing habits that makes this such a fraught period for the media business.
For publishers, the bottom line of all this is the impact on revenues and on our business models. I get depressed reading about the state of American newspapers. Classified advertising has all but disappeared, while display ads have declined at double-digit rates. At the same time, circulation sales have plummeted as more and more readers get their news online or on mobile devices. The changes have been too swift, and newspaper managements have been too slow on the draw. This is not a criticism of managements, just a description. Part of the problem with incumbents is that they have too much at stake and often their preferred mode is to wait and see.
The financials are actually quite straight-forward. If you're in a business that's operating on a 15 per cent margin, and if revenues suddenly shrink by 35 per cent and there's nothing you can do to boost it, you have to cut costs by 20 per cent to stay above water. Many media companies have done this, but many have not been able to and have gone under.
Fortunately, papers in Asia have not suffered the same fate - yet. But the same trends will inevitably hit us too. The challenge for us is: how to be among the survivors.
We in Singapore Press Holdings are determined not just to be among the survivors, but to continue to thrive. SPH has been fortunate to be able to maintain operating margins in excess of 30 per cent for our newspaper operations. When I last checked, we had the highest operating margin among newspaper companies in the world. Part of the reason, of course, is that we're dominant in Singapore. But an equally important reason is that we're among the most efficient at newspaper production and distribution. Our overall daily returns of unsold newspapers, for example, are at the 5 per cent level when the international industry norm until recently was some 20 per cent. We also run our presses intensively but keep tight rein on newsprint wastage on the production floor.
Our challenge is how to stay in this position. When you've scaled the heights, it's so easy to slide down a steep slope. Doing nothing doesn't guarantee that you can keep your perch.
I tell my colleagues this is not a time for faint hearts. For while the threats loom large, there are also opportunities for the stout-hearted. In the inevitable shake-out that's coming, you can leapfrog from No. 30 into the Top 10. Or even from No. 10 into the Top 3. In the past, this was not imaginable. But now, it's an exciting prospect.
Another upside is that the recent changes have opened up all manner of entrepreneurial opportunities. These have been seized by the large technology giants like Google and Apple, on the one hand, and the small start-ups, on the other. Regrettably, most mainstream media companies have sat on their hands. At SPH, we've been fortunate in that our board agreed to commit $150 million to invest in the online and mobile space with the aim of being a leading new-media player. We've made progress but the results will show only in the medium term.
From what I've said thus far, the issues confronting the mainstream media might seem simple. In truth, they are complex - at least far more complex than what we're used to. But this calls for managements to make the right decisions on the challenges we have to confront.
# The first challenge is how to engage the young. This is, of course, a sub-set of the broader challenge of maintaining our readership. But the young - those below 30 - are a special challenge.
It's clear from our data that the young have migrated away from print products and are true digital natives. But at SPH we are not giving up on Gen Y or even Gen Z. We have a good schools programme and we connect well with students in primary and secondary schools. Keeping this up is already a big task, but an even bigger one is keeping them after they leave school and go on to institutions of higher learning. By then, they rely almost exclusively on online and social media for their news. What we need is a good strategy to engage them on the platforms of their choice. I'm sure that if we put our minds to it, we will find a way.
I should add that fortunately for us, at the other end of the spectrum, older readers - those above 45 - have been loyal subscribers. Thankfully, they're living longer. So, thanks to this group alone, newspapers may be around for longer than many of us think.
# The second challenge is: How do you maintain quality journalism when budgets and resources are being cut? For instance, aside from the wire agencies, very few newspapers now have overseas bureaus manned by their own staff. Even the leading global names have long cut back on their overseas staff. SPH is one of the few media groups that still maintain a network of overseas bureaus which we consider our crown jewels.
I'm not saying there should not be budget cuts. If or when revenues fall, it's inevitable that costs must come down. But the challenge is how to maintain quality notwithstanding budget cuts. Editors and managements must think of new ways of doing things that bring costs down without too much loss of quality. Going forward, quality is what will endure and distinguish us amid the cacophony out there.
# Next is the advertising challenge: Will the overall advertising pie grow? Where will ad dollars go? Can we stem the flow of ad dollars from print and TV to online? The list of questions is long. But the answers will determine whether mainstream media survive, thrive or die.
What we do know now is that the higher the Internet penetration in a country, the higher the share of online advertising. But even in the US, the online share is under 15 per cent. The highest are the Scandinavian countries where it's about 20-25 per cent. In Singapore, total online advertising is paltry - less than 5 per cent - while print products take the lion's share - 50+ per cent. How these shares change over time will determine which products thrive and whether online will make a significant dent on print revenues.
# The fourth challenge is how to find the right business models for new platforms. After almost two decades, there's still no business model for our online news offerings. I belong to the camp that believes that newspapers made a fatal mistake giving away their content for free.
SPH went online in 1995. In 2003, we put The Straits Times and Business Times behind paywalls. We took a lot of flak. Most newspapers yielded to the free culture on the Net. But we took the view that it didn't make sense to charge for the print edition, which pays the wages of our journalists, but give away the online version free. Only now is there a growing consensus on putting content behind paywalls. How newspapers design their paywalls, and the response of users, will be key issues that we all need to track.
A related issue is the iPad challenge. Apple's iPad will be a game changer.
The 70-30 revenue split with Apple (with Apple taking 30 per cent) is an equitable formula. For Apple, it's a fair reward for the tremendous eco-system it has built. I remember in the early days, our telephone companies wanted 70 per cent for being just passive carriers. We said, thanks but no thanks. I hope newspapers groups won't become greedy and want all 100 per cent.
But there are issues that need to be addressed - like ownership of subscriber data. There is also a danger of Apple becoming a predatory giant and skewing the rules in its favour. This is why I believe technology companies need to be regulated. It doesn't make sense that media and telecoms companies are regulated, while the technology giants aren't.
# The final challenge is building brands and creating brand value. Media companies need to build trust, credibility and a reputation for professionalism.
The McKinsey study I cited earlier found that consumers trust newspapers more than any other medium. And surprisingly too, 66 per cent described newspaper advertising as 'informative and confidence inspiring' compared to 44 per cent for TV and 12 per cent for the Web.
As the author of the study, Mr Philip Nattermann, a McKinsey principal in London, put it: 'This suggests that newspapers have further scope to go beyond news, to drive reader interest and advertising revenues at the same time.' So don't write us off just yet.
As an aside, I would say that trust will be important for another reason. So many societies are becoming increasingly partisan and polarised. Never have I seen the United States so partisan as it is today. Whether it's health care or defence policy, it's as if the twain can never meet. The same is true nearer home - red shirts versus yellow shirts; even pro-PAP and anti-PAP. World views have grown so partisan, so far apart.
I believe newspapers need not themselves become partisan. This does not mean we sit on the fence. We must have the courage to support whichever position deserves supporting and argue against wrong-headed positions. But we have to do so objectively and maintain the trust that most readers have in our professionalism.
Patrick Daniel, Editor-in-Chief of Singapore Press Holdings' English and Malay Newspapers, opened the 19th AMIC Annual Conference on Monday. We carry an excerpt of his speech.
By Patrick Daniel
IN MY 25 years in the newspaper business, this is without doubt the most challenging period. The days of easy growth are gone. We are now confronting an almost existential threat. Will newspapers as we know them be around 10 years from now? All I can say is: I hope so. But my honest answer is: I do not know.
Two things are happening that are shaking the media business to its core. The first is technological changes. These have been rapid and unpredictable.
The second is the changes in people's habits, in particular their media consumption habits. We now have a multi-tasking younger generation, with short attention spans. Most are digital natives and consumers of social media. They are also more networked than any previous generation.
In fact, a recent article in the McKinsey Quarterly, entitled A Glimmer Of Hope For Newspapers, found that news consumption in Britain - as measured by time spent - rose by 20 per cent between 2006 and 2009, and the increase was driven almost entirely by people under the age of 35. For me, this is more than a glimmer of hope.
Some years back, I discussed these trends with an MIT media professor. He was a social scientist and his view was that there's not much point tracking technology changes because you can never tell which will endure. It was far more useful, he felt, to track people's changing habits - how they spend their time and how they live their daily lives.
In reality, the two are intertwined of course. It's the powerful combination of technology changes and people's changing habits that makes this such a fraught period for the media business.
For publishers, the bottom line of all this is the impact on revenues and on our business models. I get depressed reading about the state of American newspapers. Classified advertising has all but disappeared, while display ads have declined at double-digit rates. At the same time, circulation sales have plummeted as more and more readers get their news online or on mobile devices. The changes have been too swift, and newspaper managements have been too slow on the draw. This is not a criticism of managements, just a description. Part of the problem with incumbents is that they have too much at stake and often their preferred mode is to wait and see.
The financials are actually quite straight-forward. If you're in a business that's operating on a 15 per cent margin, and if revenues suddenly shrink by 35 per cent and there's nothing you can do to boost it, you have to cut costs by 20 per cent to stay above water. Many media companies have done this, but many have not been able to and have gone under.
Fortunately, papers in Asia have not suffered the same fate - yet. But the same trends will inevitably hit us too. The challenge for us is: how to be among the survivors.
We in Singapore Press Holdings are determined not just to be among the survivors, but to continue to thrive. SPH has been fortunate to be able to maintain operating margins in excess of 30 per cent for our newspaper operations. When I last checked, we had the highest operating margin among newspaper companies in the world. Part of the reason, of course, is that we're dominant in Singapore. But an equally important reason is that we're among the most efficient at newspaper production and distribution. Our overall daily returns of unsold newspapers, for example, are at the 5 per cent level when the international industry norm until recently was some 20 per cent. We also run our presses intensively but keep tight rein on newsprint wastage on the production floor.
Our challenge is how to stay in this position. When you've scaled the heights, it's so easy to slide down a steep slope. Doing nothing doesn't guarantee that you can keep your perch.
I tell my colleagues this is not a time for faint hearts. For while the threats loom large, there are also opportunities for the stout-hearted. In the inevitable shake-out that's coming, you can leapfrog from No. 30 into the Top 10. Or even from No. 10 into the Top 3. In the past, this was not imaginable. But now, it's an exciting prospect.
Another upside is that the recent changes have opened up all manner of entrepreneurial opportunities. These have been seized by the large technology giants like Google and Apple, on the one hand, and the small start-ups, on the other. Regrettably, most mainstream media companies have sat on their hands. At SPH, we've been fortunate in that our board agreed to commit $150 million to invest in the online and mobile space with the aim of being a leading new-media player. We've made progress but the results will show only in the medium term.
From what I've said thus far, the issues confronting the mainstream media might seem simple. In truth, they are complex - at least far more complex than what we're used to. But this calls for managements to make the right decisions on the challenges we have to confront.
# The first challenge is how to engage the young. This is, of course, a sub-set of the broader challenge of maintaining our readership. But the young - those below 30 - are a special challenge.
It's clear from our data that the young have migrated away from print products and are true digital natives. But at SPH we are not giving up on Gen Y or even Gen Z. We have a good schools programme and we connect well with students in primary and secondary schools. Keeping this up is already a big task, but an even bigger one is keeping them after they leave school and go on to institutions of higher learning. By then, they rely almost exclusively on online and social media for their news. What we need is a good strategy to engage them on the platforms of their choice. I'm sure that if we put our minds to it, we will find a way.
I should add that fortunately for us, at the other end of the spectrum, older readers - those above 45 - have been loyal subscribers. Thankfully, they're living longer. So, thanks to this group alone, newspapers may be around for longer than many of us think.
# The second challenge is: How do you maintain quality journalism when budgets and resources are being cut? For instance, aside from the wire agencies, very few newspapers now have overseas bureaus manned by their own staff. Even the leading global names have long cut back on their overseas staff. SPH is one of the few media groups that still maintain a network of overseas bureaus which we consider our crown jewels.
I'm not saying there should not be budget cuts. If or when revenues fall, it's inevitable that costs must come down. But the challenge is how to maintain quality notwithstanding budget cuts. Editors and managements must think of new ways of doing things that bring costs down without too much loss of quality. Going forward, quality is what will endure and distinguish us amid the cacophony out there.
# Next is the advertising challenge: Will the overall advertising pie grow? Where will ad dollars go? Can we stem the flow of ad dollars from print and TV to online? The list of questions is long. But the answers will determine whether mainstream media survive, thrive or die.
What we do know now is that the higher the Internet penetration in a country, the higher the share of online advertising. But even in the US, the online share is under 15 per cent. The highest are the Scandinavian countries where it's about 20-25 per cent. In Singapore, total online advertising is paltry - less than 5 per cent - while print products take the lion's share - 50+ per cent. How these shares change over time will determine which products thrive and whether online will make a significant dent on print revenues.
# The fourth challenge is how to find the right business models for new platforms. After almost two decades, there's still no business model for our online news offerings. I belong to the camp that believes that newspapers made a fatal mistake giving away their content for free.
SPH went online in 1995. In 2003, we put The Straits Times and Business Times behind paywalls. We took a lot of flak. Most newspapers yielded to the free culture on the Net. But we took the view that it didn't make sense to charge for the print edition, which pays the wages of our journalists, but give away the online version free. Only now is there a growing consensus on putting content behind paywalls. How newspapers design their paywalls, and the response of users, will be key issues that we all need to track.
A related issue is the iPad challenge. Apple's iPad will be a game changer.
The 70-30 revenue split with Apple (with Apple taking 30 per cent) is an equitable formula. For Apple, it's a fair reward for the tremendous eco-system it has built. I remember in the early days, our telephone companies wanted 70 per cent for being just passive carriers. We said, thanks but no thanks. I hope newspapers groups won't become greedy and want all 100 per cent.
But there are issues that need to be addressed - like ownership of subscriber data. There is also a danger of Apple becoming a predatory giant and skewing the rules in its favour. This is why I believe technology companies need to be regulated. It doesn't make sense that media and telecoms companies are regulated, while the technology giants aren't.
# The final challenge is building brands and creating brand value. Media companies need to build trust, credibility and a reputation for professionalism.
The McKinsey study I cited earlier found that consumers trust newspapers more than any other medium. And surprisingly too, 66 per cent described newspaper advertising as 'informative and confidence inspiring' compared to 44 per cent for TV and 12 per cent for the Web.
As the author of the study, Mr Philip Nattermann, a McKinsey principal in London, put it: 'This suggests that newspapers have further scope to go beyond news, to drive reader interest and advertising revenues at the same time.' So don't write us off just yet.
As an aside, I would say that trust will be important for another reason. So many societies are becoming increasingly partisan and polarised. Never have I seen the United States so partisan as it is today. Whether it's health care or defence policy, it's as if the twain can never meet. The same is true nearer home - red shirts versus yellow shirts; even pro-PAP and anti-PAP. World views have grown so partisan, so far apart.
I believe newspapers need not themselves become partisan. This does not mean we sit on the fence. We must have the courage to support whichever position deserves supporting and argue against wrong-headed positions. But we have to do so objectively and maintain the trust that most readers have in our professionalism.
Friday, June 18, 2010
What would Churchill and de Gaulle do now?
Jun 18, 2010
By Timothy Garton Ash
IN LONDON today, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister David Cameron will join war veterans from their countries to celebrate the 70th anniversary of Charles de Gaulle's historic radio appeal to the French to go on fighting against Hitler.
On the same day that de Gaulle broadcast his message from London on the BBC, June 18, 1940, Winston Churchill delivered his 'finest hour' speech to the House of Commons, declaring that the Battle of France was over and the Battle of Britain about to begin.
Summer 1940. Churchill and de Gaulle. Here is the moment, here the men, that have shaped Britain and France ever since. All British foreign policy since 1940 is footnotes to Churchill; all French foreign policy, footnotes to de Gaulle.
The myths of Churchillism and Gaullism, initiated by the two orator-writer-statesmen, never cease to grow, like mighty oaks. The myths of all other post-war British and French politicians, even of Mrs Margaret Thatcher, are mere saplings in their shade.
The question is: What should we make of this legacy now? What does it mean to be Churchillian or Gaullist today? Is it not time for Britain to go beyond Churchillism and France beyond Gaullism? If so, to what? Together or apart?
In London, outside de Gaulle's wartime headquarters at 4 Carlton Gardens and in a grand muster at the Royal Hospital in Chelsea, today will be cast as the joyful celebration of a wartime comradeship in arms. Unmentioned, I suspect, will be the fact, which Jonathan Fenby records in his new biography The General, that the British Cabinet initially decided de Gaulle's proposed broadcast would be 'undesirable'. The ban had to be reversed by Churchill, who had been absent from the Cabinet meeting to prepare his 'finest hour' speech.
Unmentioned too, or skimmed over, will be the tragic British decision to sink the French fleet at Mers-el-Kebir a few weeks later, to prevent it falling into German hands. Lightly passed over also will be the volcanic rows between Churchill and de Gaulle, which led to the story that Churchill said the heaviest cross he had to bear during the war was the Cross of Lorraine - the symbol of de Gaulle's Free French.
Unmentioned or skimmed over - and rightly so! For the larger story of those years is one of a great shared struggle. Furious though the arguments were between the two wartime leaders, if sometimes given a comic turn by Churchill's macaronic French - si vous m'obstaclerez, je vous liquiderai! he once admonished the general, 'if you obstacle me, I will liquidate you!' - Churchill knew that he would have done exactly the same had he been in de Gaulle's shoes.
Anyway, both were themselves past masters of sweeping inconvenient facts under a gloriously embroidered carpet of inspiring myth. Churchill's myth was the sempiternal comradeship of the English-Speaking Peoples; de Gaulle's, that of the one, true, eternally resisting France, beside which the collaborationist reality of Vichy and occupied France was a mere aberration.
Both knew exactly what they were doing in creating these myths. 'I raised the corpse of France with my arms, making the world think it was alive,' Andre Malraux recorded the general saying at the end of his life.
In a subtle new book called Le Mythe Gaullien, Oxford historian Sudhir Hazareesingh uses some of the many letters sent to the general by ordinary citizens to show just how deeply his example and myth penetrated the popular psyche. Exactly the same could be said of Churchill and Churchillism.
The two statesmen-bards told their peoples stories about who they were - and because they believed them, the British and the French became, in some measure, the peoples Churchill and de Gaulle invented.
The trouble, however, is that the national myths led in different directions. The contrasting lessons drawn by Churchill and de Gaulle from the trauma of 1940, and what followed, have formed the two countries' foreign policies to this day.
Simply put, Churchill concluded that Britain could no longer rely on France and must secure its own survival, security and, so far as possible, continued greatness, through a special relationship with the US. De Gaulle concluded that French greatness must be restored through a fierce independence from the US and Britain, and by finding partners on the European continent.
Shortly before the D-Day landings, Churchill told de Gaulle that every time Britain had to 'decide between Europe and the open sea, it is always the open sea that we shall choose. Every time I have to decide between you and Roosevelt, I shall always choose Roosevelt'.
De Gaulle never forgot this, and cited Britain's chronic preference for the transatlantic relationship as one of his reasons for saying 'non' to Britain's application for membership of what was then the European Economic Community. Instead, de Gaulle forged France's special relationship with Germany.
There have been departures from this pattern, under Edward Heath and Georges Pompidou, for example, or in the early years of Tony Blair. But when push came to shove - over Iraq, for example - London and Paris reverted to (stereo)type.
Mr Blair blamed treacherous France so he could march with the US into Iraq. Mr Jacques Chirac blasted away at 'the Anglo-Saxons'. In the Iraq crisis, Mr Blair and Mr Chirac behaved like appalling parodies of Churchill and de Gaulle. It was the reduction to the absurd of Churchillism and Gaullism.
To his credit, Mr Sarkozy, has decisively gone beyond the Gaullist default position in relation to the US. The question now is whether Mr Cameron can go beyond the crypto-Churchillian, euro sceptic default position of always siding with the United States as opposed to the European Union. And whether, together, they can develop what both countries urgently need - a new, Churchillo-gaullist or Gaullo-churchillian strategy.
This would consist of building up an EU which speaks with a stronger, more united voice in the world - but as a strategic partner with, not a jealous rival of, the US. Germany, in its current, sullen, nationally defensive mood, will not lead that charge. Only Europe's two former world powers, with their continued habits of thinking and acting globally, can provide the impetus - though obviously they cannot achieve the result on their own.
One is told that the British and French governments are looking for areas of strategic cooperation, especially in defence and security policy. It would be a good start if - 70 years after the British Cabinet proposed a complete union between the two countries - the two nations could at least tell each other where their nuclear submarines are, so they don't bump into each other by accident, as happened only last year.
It is also vital that Franco-British defence cooperation is understood as a contribution to a wider European effort and not, as British Defence Secretary Liam Fox seems to want, an alternative to it.
In a world of unprecedented global challenges and rising non-Western great powers such as China, and with the existential crisis of the euro zone, Europe now faces a kind of civil 1940.
The question to ask of Churchill and de Gaulle is not: What did they do then? It is: What would they do now?
The writer is professor of European Studies at Oxford University and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.
By Timothy Garton Ash
IN LONDON today, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister David Cameron will join war veterans from their countries to celebrate the 70th anniversary of Charles de Gaulle's historic radio appeal to the French to go on fighting against Hitler.
On the same day that de Gaulle broadcast his message from London on the BBC, June 18, 1940, Winston Churchill delivered his 'finest hour' speech to the House of Commons, declaring that the Battle of France was over and the Battle of Britain about to begin.
Summer 1940. Churchill and de Gaulle. Here is the moment, here the men, that have shaped Britain and France ever since. All British foreign policy since 1940 is footnotes to Churchill; all French foreign policy, footnotes to de Gaulle.
The myths of Churchillism and Gaullism, initiated by the two orator-writer-statesmen, never cease to grow, like mighty oaks. The myths of all other post-war British and French politicians, even of Mrs Margaret Thatcher, are mere saplings in their shade.
The question is: What should we make of this legacy now? What does it mean to be Churchillian or Gaullist today? Is it not time for Britain to go beyond Churchillism and France beyond Gaullism? If so, to what? Together or apart?
In London, outside de Gaulle's wartime headquarters at 4 Carlton Gardens and in a grand muster at the Royal Hospital in Chelsea, today will be cast as the joyful celebration of a wartime comradeship in arms. Unmentioned, I suspect, will be the fact, which Jonathan Fenby records in his new biography The General, that the British Cabinet initially decided de Gaulle's proposed broadcast would be 'undesirable'. The ban had to be reversed by Churchill, who had been absent from the Cabinet meeting to prepare his 'finest hour' speech.
Unmentioned too, or skimmed over, will be the tragic British decision to sink the French fleet at Mers-el-Kebir a few weeks later, to prevent it falling into German hands. Lightly passed over also will be the volcanic rows between Churchill and de Gaulle, which led to the story that Churchill said the heaviest cross he had to bear during the war was the Cross of Lorraine - the symbol of de Gaulle's Free French.
Unmentioned or skimmed over - and rightly so! For the larger story of those years is one of a great shared struggle. Furious though the arguments were between the two wartime leaders, if sometimes given a comic turn by Churchill's macaronic French - si vous m'obstaclerez, je vous liquiderai! he once admonished the general, 'if you obstacle me, I will liquidate you!' - Churchill knew that he would have done exactly the same had he been in de Gaulle's shoes.
Anyway, both were themselves past masters of sweeping inconvenient facts under a gloriously embroidered carpet of inspiring myth. Churchill's myth was the sempiternal comradeship of the English-Speaking Peoples; de Gaulle's, that of the one, true, eternally resisting France, beside which the collaborationist reality of Vichy and occupied France was a mere aberration.
Both knew exactly what they were doing in creating these myths. 'I raised the corpse of France with my arms, making the world think it was alive,' Andre Malraux recorded the general saying at the end of his life.
In a subtle new book called Le Mythe Gaullien, Oxford historian Sudhir Hazareesingh uses some of the many letters sent to the general by ordinary citizens to show just how deeply his example and myth penetrated the popular psyche. Exactly the same could be said of Churchill and Churchillism.
The two statesmen-bards told their peoples stories about who they were - and because they believed them, the British and the French became, in some measure, the peoples Churchill and de Gaulle invented.
The trouble, however, is that the national myths led in different directions. The contrasting lessons drawn by Churchill and de Gaulle from the trauma of 1940, and what followed, have formed the two countries' foreign policies to this day.
Simply put, Churchill concluded that Britain could no longer rely on France and must secure its own survival, security and, so far as possible, continued greatness, through a special relationship with the US. De Gaulle concluded that French greatness must be restored through a fierce independence from the US and Britain, and by finding partners on the European continent.
Shortly before the D-Day landings, Churchill told de Gaulle that every time Britain had to 'decide between Europe and the open sea, it is always the open sea that we shall choose. Every time I have to decide between you and Roosevelt, I shall always choose Roosevelt'.
De Gaulle never forgot this, and cited Britain's chronic preference for the transatlantic relationship as one of his reasons for saying 'non' to Britain's application for membership of what was then the European Economic Community. Instead, de Gaulle forged France's special relationship with Germany.
There have been departures from this pattern, under Edward Heath and Georges Pompidou, for example, or in the early years of Tony Blair. But when push came to shove - over Iraq, for example - London and Paris reverted to (stereo)type.
Mr Blair blamed treacherous France so he could march with the US into Iraq. Mr Jacques Chirac blasted away at 'the Anglo-Saxons'. In the Iraq crisis, Mr Blair and Mr Chirac behaved like appalling parodies of Churchill and de Gaulle. It was the reduction to the absurd of Churchillism and Gaullism.
To his credit, Mr Sarkozy, has decisively gone beyond the Gaullist default position in relation to the US. The question now is whether Mr Cameron can go beyond the crypto-Churchillian, euro sceptic default position of always siding with the United States as opposed to the European Union. And whether, together, they can develop what both countries urgently need - a new, Churchillo-gaullist or Gaullo-churchillian strategy.
This would consist of building up an EU which speaks with a stronger, more united voice in the world - but as a strategic partner with, not a jealous rival of, the US. Germany, in its current, sullen, nationally defensive mood, will not lead that charge. Only Europe's two former world powers, with their continued habits of thinking and acting globally, can provide the impetus - though obviously they cannot achieve the result on their own.
One is told that the British and French governments are looking for areas of strategic cooperation, especially in defence and security policy. It would be a good start if - 70 years after the British Cabinet proposed a complete union between the two countries - the two nations could at least tell each other where their nuclear submarines are, so they don't bump into each other by accident, as happened only last year.
It is also vital that Franco-British defence cooperation is understood as a contribution to a wider European effort and not, as British Defence Secretary Liam Fox seems to want, an alternative to it.
In a world of unprecedented global challenges and rising non-Western great powers such as China, and with the existential crisis of the euro zone, Europe now faces a kind of civil 1940.
The question to ask of Churchill and de Gaulle is not: What did they do then? It is: What would they do now?
The writer is professor of European Studies at Oxford University and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Thai turmoil: Lessons for S'pore
Jun 16, 2010
THINK-TANK
By Kishore Mahbubani
AS I watched the dramatic developments in Thailand over the past year or two, I often asked myself what Singaporeans thought as they watched these developments.
Did they think: 'Thank God we are not like Thailand. Such political instability could never characterise Singapore.' Or did they think: 'We should watch out. What happened in Thailand could also happen here.'
[I think Singaporeans who thought about it were thinking: dammit! I wanted to go shopping/for massage/for holiday in Bangkok!"]
Unless an opinion poll were taken here, we will never know the answer. In my view, it would be unwise for Singaporeans to dismiss the events in Thailand. There may yet be lessons in them for us.
Superficially, Thailand and Singapore could not be more different. Thailand is an ancient kingdom. It has a more ethnically and religiously coherent polity, with the exception of its southern provinces. It has also been blessed with a monarchy that has for several decades provided it with social stability.
By contrast, Singapore is a truly modern republic with little of the history that Thailand has. We have had a Westminster-style parliamentary government since independence. In short, there is little in common, superficially, between Thailand and Singapore.
However, we do share one attribute in common: For a long time, Thailand was perceived to be the most stable society in South-east Asia. It was the only South-east Asian state to escape colonial rule. This took great political wisdom on the part of the Bangkok establishment. And after South-east Asia was decolonised, Thailand remained stable despite the military coups that came and went.
From time to time there was unrest in the southern provinces, but the heartland of Thai society remained stable. The reverence that both the Bangkok establishment and Thai peasants had for King Bhumibol Adulyadej served as a stabilising force. After a failed coup in 1991, Thailand had a pro-democracy uprising that led to several peaceful transfers of power, making it one of the first countries in South-east Asia to experience this.
Thailand was seen to have safely crossed a political threshold to achieve modern political stability. Through all this, the Thai economy continued to grow, attracting valuable long-term foreign investments. Remarkably enough, though Thailand went through a wrenching economic and financial crisis during the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, it remained stable. Thais accepted peacefully great economic deprivation. Contrast this with the social and political upheavals that Greece is experiencing today.
So what went wrong in Thailand? The full story is too long to be told here. And the roles, for good or bad, of key personalities, like former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, have to be recorded in full too. But while the full story is complex, the systemic or structural explanation may be quite simple.
For decades, despite all the political ups and downs, the Bangkok establishment had dominated the political system of the country and assumed that this was its birthright. This establishment never understood that Thaksin had used all the instruments of democratic electioneering to wake up a rural electorate that had been politically quiescent.
Once this political genie was let out of the bottle, it could not be put back in. The old socio-political contract between the Bangkok establishment and the rural masses broke down. In its place, a new socio-political contract needs to emerge. This is what Thailand is struggling to achieve now. And it does not help that King Bhumibol's health is poor at this moment of great political need.
Like the Thailand of the past, Singapore, too, is perceived to have one of the most stable political systems in South-east Asia. The question for Singapore is: Will such political stability continue naturally? Or will it require, like Thailand, new socio-political contracts as society changes with modernisation and growth?
As a student of politics, I have come to believe that political stability is not a natural development. It requires great effort and often great political wisdom - especially the wisdom to make changes ahead of time.
And Singapore suffers from unique political vulnerabilities: It is the world's only city-state with a very diverse ethnic population. It also has the most globalised economy in the world, making it vulnerable to external shocks.
I have no doubt that in 2015, we will celebrate 50 happy years of independence and peace and prosperity. There are no imminent dangers at our doorstep. But we must also think beyond 2015 and of how Singapore would fare if it is subjected to new strains and stresses.
Can a socio-political contract that did well in the first 50 years of our independence serve us equally well in the next 50 years? And will our HDB heartland continue to accept this old contract? Or will it at some point demand more? Who knows?
And why do I ask such uncomfortable questions? Because the very first minister I worked with was a great man called S. Rajaratnam. He told me: 'Kishore, we must think the unthinkable.' And political instability is now unthinkable in Singapore.
All these thoughts about potential political instability have also come swirling into my head because I have just finished reading Meira Chand's brilliant new novel, A Different Sky. It is a gripping read. It captures well all the stresses and strains that Singapore experienced in the turbulent period from 1927 to 1956.
Although I was alive for only eight of those years, the novel nonetheless surfaced in my mind a rush of childhood memories I had forgotten: gangsters ripping one another apart with broken beer bottles in Joo Chiat Road; me creeping inside a monsoon drain in violation of a curfew imposed because of ethnic riots so I could buy bread from a bakery; watching a Malay neighbour return home with blood on his shirt after being beaten up by a Chinese mob.
Chand never lived in Singapore during this period. Despite this, she has successfully resurrected memories of a turbulent period I had long forgotten. This is why I believe her novel - which will be launched by President S R Nathan on July 8 - should be read by all junior college students in Singapore.
I say this despite the sex in the novel. Come to think of it, given Singapore's procreation problems, I should say 'because' of the sex in the novel. No, it is not a steamy read. But it does not flinch from describing brutal realities. Scenes of torture are always difficult to describe. But Chand has succeeded. My stomach turned with each scene.
She did not intend to write a didactic novel. This is not a book about good and evil. It provides a vivid description of the messy world that Singapore experienced for more than three decades from 1927.
We have not experienced political messiness for almost 50 years now. So the obvious question we need to ask is: How will we handle it if political messiness returns again to Singapore, as it has to Thailand?
The writer is the dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. Think-Tank is a weekly column rotated among eight leading figures in Singapore's tertiary and research institutions.
THINK-TANK
By Kishore Mahbubani
AS I watched the dramatic developments in Thailand over the past year or two, I often asked myself what Singaporeans thought as they watched these developments.
Did they think: 'Thank God we are not like Thailand. Such political instability could never characterise Singapore.' Or did they think: 'We should watch out. What happened in Thailand could also happen here.'
[I think Singaporeans who thought about it were thinking: dammit! I wanted to go shopping/for massage/for holiday in Bangkok!"]
Unless an opinion poll were taken here, we will never know the answer. In my view, it would be unwise for Singaporeans to dismiss the events in Thailand. There may yet be lessons in them for us.
Superficially, Thailand and Singapore could not be more different. Thailand is an ancient kingdom. It has a more ethnically and religiously coherent polity, with the exception of its southern provinces. It has also been blessed with a monarchy that has for several decades provided it with social stability.
By contrast, Singapore is a truly modern republic with little of the history that Thailand has. We have had a Westminster-style parliamentary government since independence. In short, there is little in common, superficially, between Thailand and Singapore.
However, we do share one attribute in common: For a long time, Thailand was perceived to be the most stable society in South-east Asia. It was the only South-east Asian state to escape colonial rule. This took great political wisdom on the part of the Bangkok establishment. And after South-east Asia was decolonised, Thailand remained stable despite the military coups that came and went.
From time to time there was unrest in the southern provinces, but the heartland of Thai society remained stable. The reverence that both the Bangkok establishment and Thai peasants had for King Bhumibol Adulyadej served as a stabilising force. After a failed coup in 1991, Thailand had a pro-democracy uprising that led to several peaceful transfers of power, making it one of the first countries in South-east Asia to experience this.
Thailand was seen to have safely crossed a political threshold to achieve modern political stability. Through all this, the Thai economy continued to grow, attracting valuable long-term foreign investments. Remarkably enough, though Thailand went through a wrenching economic and financial crisis during the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, it remained stable. Thais accepted peacefully great economic deprivation. Contrast this with the social and political upheavals that Greece is experiencing today.
So what went wrong in Thailand? The full story is too long to be told here. And the roles, for good or bad, of key personalities, like former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, have to be recorded in full too. But while the full story is complex, the systemic or structural explanation may be quite simple.
For decades, despite all the political ups and downs, the Bangkok establishment had dominated the political system of the country and assumed that this was its birthright. This establishment never understood that Thaksin had used all the instruments of democratic electioneering to wake up a rural electorate that had been politically quiescent.
Once this political genie was let out of the bottle, it could not be put back in. The old socio-political contract between the Bangkok establishment and the rural masses broke down. In its place, a new socio-political contract needs to emerge. This is what Thailand is struggling to achieve now. And it does not help that King Bhumibol's health is poor at this moment of great political need.
Like the Thailand of the past, Singapore, too, is perceived to have one of the most stable political systems in South-east Asia. The question for Singapore is: Will such political stability continue naturally? Or will it require, like Thailand, new socio-political contracts as society changes with modernisation and growth?
As a student of politics, I have come to believe that political stability is not a natural development. It requires great effort and often great political wisdom - especially the wisdom to make changes ahead of time.
And Singapore suffers from unique political vulnerabilities: It is the world's only city-state with a very diverse ethnic population. It also has the most globalised economy in the world, making it vulnerable to external shocks.
I have no doubt that in 2015, we will celebrate 50 happy years of independence and peace and prosperity. There are no imminent dangers at our doorstep. But we must also think beyond 2015 and of how Singapore would fare if it is subjected to new strains and stresses.
Can a socio-political contract that did well in the first 50 years of our independence serve us equally well in the next 50 years? And will our HDB heartland continue to accept this old contract? Or will it at some point demand more? Who knows?
And why do I ask such uncomfortable questions? Because the very first minister I worked with was a great man called S. Rajaratnam. He told me: 'Kishore, we must think the unthinkable.' And political instability is now unthinkable in Singapore.
All these thoughts about potential political instability have also come swirling into my head because I have just finished reading Meira Chand's brilliant new novel, A Different Sky. It is a gripping read. It captures well all the stresses and strains that Singapore experienced in the turbulent period from 1927 to 1956.
Although I was alive for only eight of those years, the novel nonetheless surfaced in my mind a rush of childhood memories I had forgotten: gangsters ripping one another apart with broken beer bottles in Joo Chiat Road; me creeping inside a monsoon drain in violation of a curfew imposed because of ethnic riots so I could buy bread from a bakery; watching a Malay neighbour return home with blood on his shirt after being beaten up by a Chinese mob.
Chand never lived in Singapore during this period. Despite this, she has successfully resurrected memories of a turbulent period I had long forgotten. This is why I believe her novel - which will be launched by President S R Nathan on July 8 - should be read by all junior college students in Singapore.
I say this despite the sex in the novel. Come to think of it, given Singapore's procreation problems, I should say 'because' of the sex in the novel. No, it is not a steamy read. But it does not flinch from describing brutal realities. Scenes of torture are always difficult to describe. But Chand has succeeded. My stomach turned with each scene.
She did not intend to write a didactic novel. This is not a book about good and evil. It provides a vivid description of the messy world that Singapore experienced for more than three decades from 1927.
We have not experienced political messiness for almost 50 years now. So the obvious question we need to ask is: How will we handle it if political messiness returns again to Singapore, as it has to Thailand?
The writer is the dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. Think-Tank is a weekly column rotated among eight leading figures in Singapore's tertiary and research institutions.
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Why $106b isn't enough to keep China stable
Jun 11, 2010
To stem social unrest, Beijing should learn to watch less, listen more
By Ching Cheong
WHAT price social stability? For China, it is spending 514 billion yuan (S$106 billion) this year to maintain cohesion in society. This amount is nearly 9 per cent more than that spent last year.
Beijing has upped this expenditure annually in recent years but so has the number of incidents of social unrest and other conflicts.
To break out of this vicious circle, China needs to change tack, according to a report by the Tsinghua University Social Development Programme released in April.
The report suggests that the Chinese government should revamp the political system to give more room for expression to those disenfranchised by the country's rapid economic development.
The report is perhaps the first public acknowledgement that setting aside bigger sums of money for the purpose of maintaining social stability has not been effective.
The huge sum is spent solely on maintaining a security apparatus to keep people under surveillance and discourage travel to Beijing to lodge complaints.
Tellingly, none of this money to maintain social stability is earmarked for income distribution efforts - suggesting that for China, cohesion is viewed more as an issue of monitoring and suppressing dissent than one of proactive measures to bridge social inequalities.
Despite the rising budget, Chinese society is not any more cohesive - in fact, society seems less stable, going by the more than 90,000 'mass incidents'.
The report noted that this annual expenditure had been increasing at a rate faster than that for national defence. As a result, the annual budgetary appropriation for internal stability is almost the same as that for external security.
For example, the budgetary allotment for social stability went up by 16 per cent last year compared with 14.9 per cent for defence. The increases this year are 8.9per cent and 7.5 per cent respectively, which translate into 514 billion yuan and 516.6 billion yuan.
For the first time in 60 years, the burden of preserving social stability is equal to that of maintaining external security.
In manpower terms, China's military has two million troops. In contrast, a 20-million-strong police force, a one-million-strong military police force and another four million security agents - known as guobao in Chinese - are responsible for maintaining the peace.
The guobao is a recently created semi-police force responsible for monitoring citizens and for tipping off the authorities on possible social unrest.
A Xinhua news agency report last year showed that a small county such as Kai Lu in Inner Mongolia, which has only 400,000 residents, maintained a 12,000-strong network of informants.
Not counting a quarter of its population who are below 18 years of age, it means that for every 25 adults, there is at least one informant monitoring their activities and behaviour.
The presence of such 'people monitors' is no secret. Public Security Minister Meng Jianzhu revealed two years ago that to guarantee absolute security for the Beijing Olympics and the Shanghai World Expo, a six-layer security net covering every aspect of the public spaces was set up and maintained.
These six layers included, in addition to regular police patrolling at street level and audio-visual monitoring systems in open spaces, elaborate surveillance systems in the neighbourhood, the community, the workplace as well as cyberspace.
On top of this elaborate surveillance system, government heads at the grassroots level were told to observe two hard-and-fast rules: 'Zero outbreak' (of mass events) and 'one outbreak vetos all' (of their promotion prospects).
Put under such pressure, local governments were forced to employ draconian measures to prevent any outbreak of mass events and to stop people from reporting complaints. Yet such measures simply made things worse, hence the vicious circle.
The Tsinghua report does not indicate how serious internal rife is. The last time there was an official figure was in 2005 when the Public Security Ministry admitted that there were about 87,000 cases of mass events that year.
Since then, no other official figures have been released. But judging from the rapid increase in budgetary allotment, it would be safe to surmise that the number of mass events has been on the rise.
Professor Yu Jianrong, research fellow of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said recently that a source told him that since 2007, the annual number of mass events stood at about 90,000.
The Tsinghua report says most social conflicts involved expropriation of peasants' land, forced eviction of city dwellers to make way for urban development, migrant workers not getting paid, as well as infringement on labour rights.
The report adds that most of these issues were non-political to begin with, but improper handling by the officials turned them into thorny political issues that undermine the government's legitimacy and image. The situation also causes a severe drain on public money.
The report says that in the rust belt in north-eastern China which is especially prone to labour unrest, the cost of preserving internal stability could run as high as 15 per cent of the provincial government's annual expenditure.
'The greatest mistake is to treat people's defence of their legitimate rights as a threat to social stability,' the report said.
'Numerous studies show that what's lacking in all the mass events is an effective mechanism to allow expression of people's rights. If there is no fundamental solution to social injustice, and draconian measures are used to stifle people's expression in the name of stability, this could only result in greater conflicts and lead to greater social instability,' it added.
Thus, the Tsinghua report calls for revamping the political system to give the disgruntled more freedom of expression.
Such a revamp could start with setting up a mechanism that allows anyone with a grievance to vent his unhappiness or to seek redress for his problem.
chingcheong@gmail.com
To stem social unrest, Beijing should learn to watch less, listen more
By Ching Cheong
WHAT price social stability? For China, it is spending 514 billion yuan (S$106 billion) this year to maintain cohesion in society. This amount is nearly 9 per cent more than that spent last year.
Beijing has upped this expenditure annually in recent years but so has the number of incidents of social unrest and other conflicts.
To break out of this vicious circle, China needs to change tack, according to a report by the Tsinghua University Social Development Programme released in April.
The report suggests that the Chinese government should revamp the political system to give more room for expression to those disenfranchised by the country's rapid economic development.
The report is perhaps the first public acknowledgement that setting aside bigger sums of money for the purpose of maintaining social stability has not been effective.
The huge sum is spent solely on maintaining a security apparatus to keep people under surveillance and discourage travel to Beijing to lodge complaints.
Tellingly, none of this money to maintain social stability is earmarked for income distribution efforts - suggesting that for China, cohesion is viewed more as an issue of monitoring and suppressing dissent than one of proactive measures to bridge social inequalities.
Despite the rising budget, Chinese society is not any more cohesive - in fact, society seems less stable, going by the more than 90,000 'mass incidents'.
The report noted that this annual expenditure had been increasing at a rate faster than that for national defence. As a result, the annual budgetary appropriation for internal stability is almost the same as that for external security.
For example, the budgetary allotment for social stability went up by 16 per cent last year compared with 14.9 per cent for defence. The increases this year are 8.9per cent and 7.5 per cent respectively, which translate into 514 billion yuan and 516.6 billion yuan.
For the first time in 60 years, the burden of preserving social stability is equal to that of maintaining external security.
In manpower terms, China's military has two million troops. In contrast, a 20-million-strong police force, a one-million-strong military police force and another four million security agents - known as guobao in Chinese - are responsible for maintaining the peace.
The guobao is a recently created semi-police force responsible for monitoring citizens and for tipping off the authorities on possible social unrest.
A Xinhua news agency report last year showed that a small county such as Kai Lu in Inner Mongolia, which has only 400,000 residents, maintained a 12,000-strong network of informants.
Not counting a quarter of its population who are below 18 years of age, it means that for every 25 adults, there is at least one informant monitoring their activities and behaviour.
The presence of such 'people monitors' is no secret. Public Security Minister Meng Jianzhu revealed two years ago that to guarantee absolute security for the Beijing Olympics and the Shanghai World Expo, a six-layer security net covering every aspect of the public spaces was set up and maintained.
These six layers included, in addition to regular police patrolling at street level and audio-visual monitoring systems in open spaces, elaborate surveillance systems in the neighbourhood, the community, the workplace as well as cyberspace.
On top of this elaborate surveillance system, government heads at the grassroots level were told to observe two hard-and-fast rules: 'Zero outbreak' (of mass events) and 'one outbreak vetos all' (of their promotion prospects).
Put under such pressure, local governments were forced to employ draconian measures to prevent any outbreak of mass events and to stop people from reporting complaints. Yet such measures simply made things worse, hence the vicious circle.
The Tsinghua report does not indicate how serious internal rife is. The last time there was an official figure was in 2005 when the Public Security Ministry admitted that there were about 87,000 cases of mass events that year.
Since then, no other official figures have been released. But judging from the rapid increase in budgetary allotment, it would be safe to surmise that the number of mass events has been on the rise.
Professor Yu Jianrong, research fellow of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said recently that a source told him that since 2007, the annual number of mass events stood at about 90,000.
The Tsinghua report says most social conflicts involved expropriation of peasants' land, forced eviction of city dwellers to make way for urban development, migrant workers not getting paid, as well as infringement on labour rights.
The report adds that most of these issues were non-political to begin with, but improper handling by the officials turned them into thorny political issues that undermine the government's legitimacy and image. The situation also causes a severe drain on public money.
The report says that in the rust belt in north-eastern China which is especially prone to labour unrest, the cost of preserving internal stability could run as high as 15 per cent of the provincial government's annual expenditure.
'The greatest mistake is to treat people's defence of their legitimate rights as a threat to social stability,' the report said.
'Numerous studies show that what's lacking in all the mass events is an effective mechanism to allow expression of people's rights. If there is no fundamental solution to social injustice, and draconian measures are used to stifle people's expression in the name of stability, this could only result in greater conflicts and lead to greater social instability,' it added.
Thus, the Tsinghua report calls for revamping the political system to give the disgruntled more freedom of expression.
Such a revamp could start with setting up a mechanism that allows anyone with a grievance to vent his unhappiness or to seek redress for his problem.
chingcheong@gmail.com
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