Making the rounds in Singapore is this snippet from a local talk show that discusses Singapore, in the context of Ma Ying-jeou's praises of the city-state's government as efficient. This blog gives a synopsis.Rough Synopsis:
1. Ma Ying Jiu made a comment comparing Singapore to Taiwan. His opinion that Singapore was more efficient, un-corrupt and economically stronger than Taiwan. The speakers here are rebutting his comment.
2. Panel brought up arguments (like Lucky Tan said), already brought up in The Straits Times a long long time ago. That the PM was also Finiance minister, that his brother Yang was on the board of Singtel and some bank, that his wife heads Temasek holdings. Thus questioning the point on corruption.
3. Brought up also on how media is state-owned. It's officially not.
4. Also questioned the nature of Singapore's democracy. That we are overly dependent on the Lees' for our nation's future (not true. Goh was PM for some time). That our efficiency was because of our single-party government.
Generally arguments that most people are familar with but not bringing it up coz its not time for our elections.
Another is here -- shut up Taiwan, you're not a country. And this guy says with a heart of parody:
Popular Singapore blogger Mr. Brown also linked to it, but with few comments.
Now if you ask any Taiwanese which party willl win their next elections, they will say they don't know. Every weekend they have protests for/against reunification with China, nobody seems to be able to decide on this issue and no body seems to be afraid of the authorities. There 15 newspapers and 7 24-hr news stations in Taiwan each expressing a different viewpoint causing much confusion among the Taiwanese. It is clear that Singapore has a system that is far more advanced than the Taiwanese and they do well if they listen to the KMT's presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou plan to emulate Singapore - they should consolidate their newspapers and TV stations, have more predictable elections that is won by the KMT and focus on economic growth. I'm sure the Taiwanese will be happier people if they have a more advanced system of govt in place like Singapore. They wouldn't be wasting their time protesting on the streets and will have more time at the shopping mall. A media that provides high quality filtered and harmonised information will help them to relieve of the burden of pondering over issues. It will take them 40 years to get to where Singapore is today and they better start soon or we will move even further ahead of them.
[Taiwan] [Singapore] [democracy]
2 comments:
i think it is just not fair to compare singapore to most countries in the world, Singapore is very unique in its size and history. it's always easier to rule a city state than a larger island. taiwan's politics is chaotic right now only because it is merely an extension to the civil war that never took place. Instead, the civil war was replaced by peaceful election to overthrow KMT, except KMT is still a big player in the political scene, and so the civil war continues until one side is completely taken out. In the mean time you get chaotic political arena fighting over ideologies that normally would've been decided by real guns in a war.
what to expect? KMT will lose in the future if not 2008 and eventually realign itself to a pro-taiwanese position, otherwise as younger taiwanese grow up identifying themselve more and more as Taiwanese, not Chinese and Taiwanese or Chinese, KMT is bound to lose support. First thing to do: change its party name to Taiwan instead of China.
"Liberty is generally established in the midst of storms; it is perfected by civil discord; and its benefits cannot be appreciated until it is already old."
Alexis de Tocqueville writing about the young America.
Give me Taiwan any day over the authoritarian crap that passes for a representative government in Singapore.
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