Singapore - a model for Hong Kong?

This may be a reason why Singapore's Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew's views on the future of Hong Kong has been so much sought after. Significantly, Hong Kong's leader Tung Chee Hwa's role model is Mr Lee and Singapore the model society. Is the aim for Hong Kong to become Singapore II?

Singapore cannot sustain the way it has been run for much longer. The government knows it and Singaporeans know it. Unfortunately, the people are afraid to speak up.

Fear has always been the main ingredient in Singapore's formula. Fear is a wonderful tool for regulating and trimming behaviour. It is, however, desperately inadequate as a motivational force. Fear breeds conformity and conformity cannot ignite creativity. This translates into serious consequences for the economy.

With the need to boost productivity and become innovative, the authoritarian-style of the PAP looks increasingly archaic. Singaporeans are neither willing nor able to compete internationally.

In Singapore almost everyone is an employee of a multinational firm or a government-linked company. While indigenous Hong Kong entrepreneurs and businesspeople play a major role in the city's economy, Singapore's domestic sector is overwhelmingly dominated by the government.

From ship-repair to supermarkets to property development to child-care to insurance, the Singapore government has a business hand in it. Singapore does not beckon the young entrepreneur. Hong Kong, on the other hand, has never been want of people striking out and striking big.

At US$20,000 GDP per capita, there is no question that Singapore has excelled financially. But who gets rich?

The government's coffers are bloated with country's reserves at more than US$70 billion and growing. Unmentioned is the fact that two-thirds of Singaporeans earn US$1000 or less.

This is despite the island becoming one of the most expensive cities in the world. Meanwhile cabinet ministers draw an annual salary of about US$800,000. Income disparity continues to widen.

As Singapore's economic miracle looks increasingly ordinary, PAP leaders are coming round to the fact that its style can work no longer. Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong admitted recently, albeit belatedly, "This is what Research and Development and innovation are about - people who pursue their interests and ideas with a passion, people who are prepared to be different from others..."

There is even talk about Singapore becoming the Boston of the East. But even as such uplifting words are said, the government continues to stifle freedoms of speech and publication.

Sweet irony, perhaps? Not really - at least not in the minds of the Singapore government. The PAP has always believed that it can run concerted campaigns exhorting, even hectoring, the people into one form of behaviour or another always with the objective of increasing economic production.

From falling in love to investing in shares, from how and what we should speak to how many children we should have, from how we spell our names to what time we should arrive for dinners, from how to keep our toilets clean to why we cannot chew gum, etc., Singaporeans' lives are managed in minuscule detail. Public behaviour is shaped by an incessant contingent of reward and punishment schedules: monetary incentives for having more babies if you are a university graduate and fines if you don't flush the toilet.

Such extrinsically motivated forms of behaviour are ideal if initiative and innovation are not desired. What drives entrepreneurial and creative thinking, however, is a true sense of love and devotion for what one is doing, that is, intrinsic motivation.

Again, Mr Goh Chok Tong is showing signs of understanding this. "[Singaporeans] must cultivate a sense of pride in our work and a passion for what we do. Many Americans have this quality. They have an intense interest and passion for whatever field they are in, which drives them to true expertise and to push the frontiers of their field. This quality has made them world leaders in many new technologies and disciplines."

What the prime minister doesn't realise is that Singaporeans are almost exclusively driven by extrinsically motivating factors: fear of failure and avoidance of trouble with the government.

What follows from this is not "intense interest and passion" but abject apathy and, worse, self-censorship. Creativity and self-censorship are natural enemies.

Of course, not every Singaporean feels totally helpless. Many are willing to act on their discontent and many have - they emigrate. In a recent survey, every one in five Singaporeans are looking to leave the country.

This is inspite of the clean, rich and efficient garden city that the island republic is. This figure is similar to that of Hong Kong which has the uncertainty of a communist China breathing down its neck.

From the man-in-the-street, to the academic and even among opposition politicians, fear pervades. A civil society is non-existent. There is a profound sense of alienation of the people from society.

What keeps Singapore going is the attraction, or rather distraction, of the all-important GDP growth. This is the glue that holds the society together. If and when the economy begins to sputter, which signs are already indicating, what is going to be the socially-cohesive factor for Singapore?

Singapore's phenomenal success in constructing housing estates, shopping centres and office buildings have led the governing technocratic politicians to the delusion that culture and social values can be similarly constructed. Control over the Internet, media, and the arts has reached levels of pettiness unimaginable in countries which thrive on the human spirit.

Hong Kong, on the other hand, already have the fundamentals for continued economic expansion which, quietly but doubtlessly, Singapore knows it must follow. Hong Kongers are committed to keeping the society thriving economically.

At the same time, political parties, non-government organisations and even the civil service continue to advocate a distinct culture of dynamism and vibrancy which are vital signs for a healthy and robust Hong Kong. Apart from geography, Hong Kong and Singapore are as different as day and night.

In trying to emulate Singapore, the danger is that Hong Kong will be turned from day into night.

The writer is secretary general of the Singapore Democratic Party.