-Trung Quốc - Singapore - Chuyên chế: China misreads Singapore model (Straits Times 1-5-11) -- Báo này nói rằng Singapire không chuyên chế như Trung Quốc(và Việt Nam!) lầm tưởng! Một khác biệt to lớn: Không như Trung Quốc, Singapore có nhiều đảng đối lập. Bài có nhiều ý lạ, đáng đọc◄
China misreads Singapore model
General Election shows that S'pore is more democratic than Beijing had assumed
Peh Shing Huei, China Bureau Chief
AS THE Chinese Communist Party (CCP) prepares to celebrate the 90th anniversary of its founding on July 1, questions have been asked, again, about the future of the world's longest-ruling political party.
That the party requires political reform is in no doubt. Even top party leaders like Premier Wen Jiabao have spoken about this repeatedly.
But there has been a lack of consensus on how to pursue the changes while ensuring the survival and rule of the CCP.
The debate, and the options the party has considered, was given a rare public airing recently through General Liu Yuan, son of former president Liu Shaoqi and a member of the party's central committee.
He urged China to embrace its military heritage and reject foreign political models. 'The American, Japanese and Soviet systems, we have eaten them raw and skinned them alive, copying them entirely,' he wrote in a preface to a book of essays compiled by a left-leaning intellectual friend.
'The Yugoslavian, Singaporean and Hungarian models, we have treated them like quick-fix cures. Shock therapy, colour revolutions, crumbling and changing flags, these, too, have been recommended to us like magic turtle soups.'
As Gen Liu said, the party flirted with various models briefly. However, only one caught its fancy: Singapore's.
Former paramount leader Deng Xiaoping was among the first to look Singapore's way, in a manner of speaking. In 1992, he cited Singapore as a well-managed country that China must learn from and surpass.
This led to thousands of Chinese officials heading to Singapore to discover the secrets of the island-nation's success.
As recently as 2007, Politburo member Wang Yang, who is also party secretary of Guangdong province, again urged cadres to learn from Singapore.
It is easy to see why Singapore's political model, as well as its economic model, appeals to China. From the Chinese perspective, Singapore has certain alluring features - a clean city, developed economy, incorrupt government and, best of all, a one-party system without Western-style democracy.
'Party cadres are practical. They want to see what works. And they think Singapore speaks their language,' freelance writer Huang Shuo said on the semi-official China.org last month.
That language is economic development without political reform - at least not of the substantive variety, requiring democratisation with devolution of real political authority and the possibility of peaceful transfers of power.
But after the Republic's recent watershed General Election, which surfaced the complexities of the country's political system, even the Singapore political model is likely to give the CCP pause.
After all, Singapore has held nationwide regular elections without fail since 1955. The elections are keenly contested, opposition parties' rallies are packed, the people are free to vote for the party of their choice and the opposition does pick up parliamentary seats.
As the influential Nanfengchuang magazine reported in its cover story titled The Misunderstood Singapore after the May 7 General Election: 'Singapore has democracy, and it is quite a superior form of democracy.'
Beijing's misplaced view that Singapore has a one-party system is a 'Singapore dream' that is also a myth, it added. Thus, it should be clear to Chinese officials and people that Singapore is not what they assumed it to be, and that the differences between the two political systems are far wider than most had assumed.
The Republic has features the Chinese government has ignored or misread, said Beijing-based analyst Li Fan, who was in Singapore to observe the election.
'The Chinese government has ignored an important aspect of the 'Singapore model', with Singaporeans enjoying basic civil rights and the right to form political parties and societies, including opposition parties,' he said.
'The Chinese don't understand that Singapore has so many opposition parties, where China has none. Singaporeans have the right of conscience. Although it cannot be denied that the Singapore government still wields strict control over the media, its laws are not as the Chinese government sees it - only controlling the citizens. (Its laws) also severely restrict its own officials.'
The fact that the opposition Workers' Party in Singapore could win a Group Representation Constituency and snag a total of six seats in Parliament is testament to strict election rules which made it hard for the incumbent to play dirty, he added.
Such rule of law is missing in China. In fact, while the Singapore system embraces a greater plurality of voices, China has gone the opposite way.
Since February's mysterious calls for a 'jasmine revolution' in China's major cities, Beijing has locked up activists, harassed foreign journalists and censored the Internet on a scale unseen in decades.
If Chinese officials thought they were learning the Singapore way, their hardline actions suggest they may have signed up for the wrong tutorials.
Unless the CCP is willing to loosen its grip on power, allow greater accountability and even take tentative steps towards regular and free elections (communist Vietnam is having direct elections for its National Assembly - reports of which are banned in China), the gap between Beijing and Singapore will only widen. Comparisons between the two will become increasingly tenuous.
For the CCP, which has been in power for 62 out of its 90 years, it would mean a renewed search for a model, domestic or foreign, to anchor its hopes of continued rule.
shpeh@sph.com.sg
