Transcription
So I will begin by just, you know, instead of introducing the minister, one of my most fun facts about the minister is he entered politics in 1988. And as an example of how he's been there, done that, and seen that, in 1988, Ronald Reagan was still president, the Berlin Wall was still around, and, uh, the Soviet Union was still about three years, uh, in existence. So he really has seen that, been there, done that. Uh, we hope the conversation today will bring out a lot of that. So, minister, thank you again. Uh, let me start our conversation maybe a little bit domestically, if you don't mind, and then we will take the conversation globally and geopolitically.
Um, I think your government has quite often said and expected that politics in Singapore is going to get more and more contested, uh, at least domestically. And at the same time, as the world gets more fractured in a way, uh, the perception of our foreign policy and foreign policy discussions in themselves will also get, uh, more and more contested. You see this happening everywhere else in the world, and in a cycle of sort of contestation and potentially even polarization between domestic politics and its any country's foreign policy. Do you see that happening in Singapore, and is that something that concerns you?
>> Well, I will start by saying this. Uh, foreign policy or foreign issues having an impact in domestic politics, whether in Singapore or elsewhere, is not new. What's new is that the world is much more interconnected. We immediately know what's going on elsewhere, and a huge multiplicity of viewpoints, each catering to narrow segments, and, um, a fair bit of misinformation as well. I mean, you take any conflict around the world, that half are facts, half are, you know, put out by one or the other side or third parties to try and influence viewpoints. So you get all of that. And so that's one part of it: more interconnected, more information, perhaps even overload, fair bit of it is misleading. Then there is a second part, which is again not new, but the means have been, uh, if you can say, uh, been, you know, accelerated, uh, in the sense that foreign governments have always tried to intervene, not just in Singapore, but, you know, each other's affairs. Because if you can influence another country to your viewpoint, it's much easier for your foreign policy. But today, what they can do is they can target your populations. They can identify the fault lines within your populations. What if you take Singapore? What are the fault lines? Race is one, religion is another. And, uh, the Russians have a word for it. They actually have developed a doctrine which is that I can weaken you without having to fight you in conventional weapons. So the conventional war comes much later. Before that, I weaken your society to such an extent that perhaps you won't even go into war with me. And they, you know, and they are not the only ones. Everyone tries to play along the various fault lines. They can be based on regions, class, race, religion. So you, and we are, you know, so connected. Our population is literate. Our population is also very much online, highly connected. So you get both, uh, access to information and misinformation. And you do see the international info wars, not necessarily targeted at Singapore, but playing out within Singapore. And yes, therefore, we do see people within Singapore taking, uh, different viewpoints depending on, uh, their own perspectives. Again, I'm saying nothing new, but sometimes it's based on race, sometimes it's based on religion. Uh, surveys show us that, uh, that's happening. And it's of concern to everyone, particularly a small country like Singapore, where we don't have a long shared history. We don't have a substantive interlinking, interlinking between each of us. And what we have, we have built over 60 years, and it can be easily undone within a short time frame by conflicts around the region, conflicts around the world. You see that? But, you know, one example of it is the number of people, even in the last two years, since October of 2023, we have been picking up, I think we have picked up six people under the Internal Security Act who wanted to go off and fight in the Middle East because they've been so influenced. Now, if you can't fight in the Middle East, or you feel that you can't go to the Middle East, you might turn your attentions to Singapore. And that has happened in other countries. Each time ISD has been effective, they have picked them up before they can do any harm. But you see New Zealand, you see Australia, people walk into cafes, they knife people, they shoot people. These things are becoming only too common.
In the last week, Manchester, since you mentioned the Middle East, and obviously things in, uh, Israel and Hamas are moving very quickly, so we'll see what happens there. But looking back over the last two years, since October 7th, two years ago, what has surprised you most about, uh, how the conflict there has taken on so much domestic sort of, uh, resonance, or was it no surprise for you at all?
Well, you know, you start off with, it is a serious humanitarian issue, right? You've got 60, 70,000 people having been killed, uh, defenseless. Uh, Israel, as an prime minister and various other ministers have said, seems to be clearly in breach of, uh, various international conventions and rules, and possibly in breach of, uh, international law as well. Experts have described it, what is going on as, uh, nothing short of genocide. You know, there's been, whatever you describe it, what is happening is unacceptable. But that's the state of the world today, because who enforces international law? You can only enforce international law if there are a group of countries which are willing to come together and enforce international law. So the international order that we knew in the 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s is in a way unraveling. And today, it's pretty much, if you have the means to do something, you can do it, and not many people are going to stop you or will be willing to stop you. Which is why for small countries, this international situation is pretty, uh, serious and dangerous.
Coming back to the Middle East, in that situation, regardless of your race or language or religion, you're going to be upset about what's happening. And Singapore is upset. But even within Singapore, we can see proportionately, if you're Malay Muslim, you are very much more affected by what's happening in the Middle East compared with the Chinese and the Indians. The proportions are very different, by several orders of magnitude. But, um, we have always known that, uh, the racial and religious, uh, contours of Singapore are such that they can become potential fault lines. Which is why the government has always been emphasizing that, you know, we are not, uh, arrived at our, the ideals set out in our pledge. I give you a different example. Ukraine, Russia. If you, when we did surveys, we saw a significant number of the Chinese population, particularly older Chinese, disproportionately compared to the other races, taking the view that it was Ukraine which was at fault for the war, and some even believing that Ukraine invaded Russia than the other way around. So you believe based on what your sources of information are, and if you get your information on WeChat, that's your, that's the basis on which you come to your conclusions. So it was quite different. Indians, Malays took one view of the Ukraine war, as Chinese majority took one view, but a significant number, particularly Chinese educated older, took a different view. And that again, tells you, what does it tell you? Tells you that, uh, our population, just like any other population in the world, is really going to react to partly out of, um, based on what they hear, what they read, but often it's also based on religious and racial linkages. Ethnicity, it comes from the gut. These are deep-seated human emotions. They're not going to be, uh, sort of diluted significantly by 60 years of nation building.
And I want to say, not just because this is a PH forum. You talk about the problems. What are the antidotes? The antidotes, first of course, the nation building exercises, the week in, week out, the thousands of events that take place that bring all our people together. That's why we have been able to hold together despite all these stresses of the international system. If you look at Singapore, within Singapore, we look very different compared with most of the other parts of the world, including cities in the West. Why? The common, uh, building of bonds across trust, people day in, day out, and government policies and trust in government. Very often, cynicism and the level of cynicism and, uh, the willingness to believe in conspiracy theories and international events affecting locally depends on how much trust or lack of trust people have in government. So the government can do its job. Housing, education, healthcare, gets all the basics right. A large majority of people will be willing to trust the government. So the Edelman Trust Barometer tells you. But, you know, there is another important part, the means of communication, media, mainstream media. Uh, we have always taken the view that, you know, if you take two extremes, one, if you become like the world, proud of simply repeating whatever the government says, nobody will take you seriously. You have to be credible. On the other hand, you take the extreme Western model where your primary aim is simply to attack the government because that's how you get eyeballs, then you are not part of the nation building. But if you are an independent, credible, neutral medium for reflecting viewpoints, both what the government says, the opposition says, and what the people say back to the government. And in a large measure, despite the cynicism exhibited by Western media towards us, you have achieved it. And the fact that Singapore media is credible helps tremendously in the way we build trust with the people. And again, you look at the international trust barometers, um, your media, CNA, much better regarded than the Western media is regarded by their own people, because you play that role. So there are many institutions in Singapore that have been built over the years that we got to make sure remain credible. And those are the antidotes. Without that, we won't be where we are.
Uh, I must say thank you very much for that. I did not expect that to come out during your resp. And, you know, it's born on you go and look at the trust barometer. You look at Western media, about 20 odd percent, I think now it's probably 15% trust them. You look at the trust in PH media, and what does that do? I mean, you know, people receive stuff on their phones and so on, but thankfully you are now becoming more online. They also go back and check. You look at this, uh, uh, slide that I put out. Speaks a story. It's very important. Is there a slide that you all can see? I can see what's in front of me. Okay. >> It's behind somewhere I think. >> Okay. >> I don't know. Yeah.
Now, I wanted to to jump on that point where you spoke about, indeed, the varying views that the domestic population may have on the issue like Russia, Ukraine, on the issue of, uh, Israel, uh, Gaza. So that's precisely the point. As you get a population which is, for right or for wrong, misinformation or or true information, getting more diverse in their viewpoints, does that in a way, in the longer term, also constrain the ability of the government to conduct its foreign policy? Because you now have to juggle two balls in the air a little bit more acutely than you may have done in the past. Is that something that you are aware of or, yes, >> seeking to mitigate at some point?
In that sense, the challenge presented by that, those that scenario in foreign policy is no different from the challenges presented in domestic policy in everything. Now, many people are experts because you get different viewpoints. Whether it's, you take healthcare, housing, any of the issues, or foreign policy, you have multiplicity of viewpoints, right? If you're, if you don't want to believe what the government is saying, you go somewhere, you might find something that appeals to you better. And so everyone is an expert, everyone has a viewpoint. And, uh, it does make the government's task, uh, more difficult. And again, a different way of reflecting it, going back to trust, is you look at the collapse of trust in institutions across the world. What, what used to be the institutions that people looked up to? Government, the civil service, the church, I mean, I use the word church in a broad term, the professions, you know, professional bodies. Uh, so if a group of doctors come out, the medical association comes out and says vaccines are good, you know, they, they do these things for you, people generally accept. Today, but today, everyone is entitled to challenge. I mean, there are lots of people who actually believe that vaccines are bad and so on. Every, so something as basic as vaccines, vaccinating, you now have huge arguments. Not yet in Singapore, but you have huge arguments. You would have thought that is a matter of science, objective. How can you argue about it? But even that, you can argue, and it becomes political, driven by the internet. So you can imagine every other issue which is not so scientifically objective, foreign policy, judgment calls, do you build more houses, less houses, you know, how do you do the trade-offs in transport budget, you can have huge amount of arguments. So it does make for a much more difficult environment for policymaking. And a lot of governments around the world simply are not delivering. They are not able to deliver because whichever way they want to move, they are blocked. There will always be a lobby group that will be against that particular, uh, move. And only those who are specifically affected by the policy will organize. The broad group which is going to benefit from the policy will not organize. I mean, you want to build a road in this place, the people who are living there will organize and oppose you. The thousands of motorists every day who are going to benefit from, you don't even know they're going to benefit. They are not going to organize. This is the era of policymaking that we live in. Again, I think we have to be thankful that in Singapore, we have largely managed this in a way where if the government says we have to do this, most people agree. And policymaking in Singapore, in that sense, is slightly easier. But that's because of a, a confluence of factors that I think are unique to Singapore.
>> Well, we, we're all obviously thankful for that. But that the reality, I suppose, is that it will get more complicated domestically. But at the same time, going back to geopolitics, at, at the same time, the wider environment is also getting more complicated, um, as you alluded to. And, you know, one of the most sort of repeated axioms that that that frames Singapore's foreign policy is that, you know, we, we will never choose sides. Um, do you fear that at some point in time, it will may not even be a question of whether you choose sides? What if you, you are on nobody's side where the chips fall, and you find that, you know, you, you are nobody's side, uh, because you didn't choose sides? Uh, is that a scenario that that comes to mind, because it does to me? >> Right. >> You know, every forum that I go to, I get asked this now. So obviously, it's a very hot question. So over time, I've prepared a set of slides. >> Okay. See, this is where the slides come in. So >> You didn't mention, but I suppose you're not talking about choosing between Chad and Ethiopia. Uh, so, you know, US, China, this is a question that keeps coming up. Actually, it the question looks very sensible. You know, surely you should at some point, uh, choose one side. You can't forever be in the middle. I will start out by saying the passive choice is to choose. The activist choice, if the government is activist and thinking about it, is actually to see how we do not have to choose sides, but be friends with both. And let me start by saying, uh, you need to first of all understand where Singapore is in trade and economic terms and security terms. That will tell you what your choices are. So let me start with our relationship with the US. Can I have the slides, please? Okay. You look at US, it's our top FDI source. It's invested close to $500 billion. There are more than 6,000 firms, US firms in Singapore. And the US is far, far ahead of everyone else. And that's UK, Japan, mainland China, Ireland. Okay. So 6,000 US firms, $500 billion. Imagine the number of jobs and the economic value added for our economy. Only a fool will say you cut off with the US. And that's just on the economic terms. Let's move on. Meanwhile, China, it's our top trading partner. Ahead of Malaysia, ahead of the US, right? Our imports exceeded ex with the US. Our imports from US exceed our exports to the US. But despite that, we get a 10% penalty, and we are supposed to be thankful for that. But China has been our largest trading partner for the last 12 years. The bilateral trade is more than $100 billion. So do you cut off with China? Can you afford to? It's like asking which eye is more important, unless you're already blind in one, you know. So move on. So, and you look at military security, our economic security is tied to the US and China. Our military security is tied to the US. Move on. I mean, this is just a picture of tell that tells you what we get. And I tell this to Chinese ambassadors. I tell these to American ambassadors. Look, I don't think either US or China has a particular interest in, uh, taking over Singapore. And sometimes I say, more than half jokingly, and they are welcome to take and deal with our population, because, you know, the regular issues we deal with are, minister, can my bus stop be moved 200 meters nearer to me? If the Chinese want to come and deal with it, they are welcome. Or, you know, I just decided to get married, can I have my flat end of this year? Those are the kinds of issues that we deal with. So they have no interest in taking over us. Our threats are not the US and China. Our threats are much nearer security. And, uh, our guarantee against those threats, our ability to remain sovereign depends on getting access to the weapon systems that the US and the West provides us with. So you take this picture, what would you sacrifice? Would we see an immediate alternative to the weapon systems that we have received? The architecture is not so clear. And even if you did, economically, is there a need at this point to choose? Is, um, and would you want to give up the either the trading ties with one or the huge amount of investments you have with the other? It doesn't make any sense. Second, from their perspective, US and China, what is Singapore's value proposition? If you're like Indonesia, you have huge amounts of oil and gas and coal and nickel and, you know, minerals and so on. It makes sense for them to want the country to be totally aligned to them. But what does Singapore have to offer? Nothing. I mean, we have no land, no resources, nothing. We bring a lot of people to them, but neither country is really in need of our additional 5 million or three and a half million. So our value proposition is actually that of an honest broker. We have a voice. Our voice carries weight in ASEAN. Our voice carries weight in the United Nations. We are the leader of the Forum of Small States. Uh, we have a very activist foreign policy. And when Singapore speaks, despite our size, people not necessarily listen, but they pay some regard to what we say. Now, if we become a client state of one or the other, of what value is that to them? People will just stop paying any heed to us. I mean, you're a client state, why would anybody listen to you? So what value do we bring to the table as a client state? So from their perspective as well, it makes no sense right now for them to ask us to choose. Thirdly, today, I mean, you read it in the newspapers. I don't know if the Americans are here, but, uh, the Americans say to the allies, I don't care if you are an ally or not. I just look at the trade figures. So it doesn't make a difference whether you are an ally of the United States or not. The New York Times frequently says that the allies treat get treated worse than opponents. So why does it make sense to become an ally at this point in time? I'm just saying that half jokingly. But the essential point is the US is saying, I want to look at the trade relationships. I don't particularly care if I have a treaty with you. So we have to take a similar approach. If you look at it, um, from a second perspective, when will they want you to choose? At a time when essentially relations have broken down and they are near to war. Then they will tell everybody, you are either on my side or you're against. But, you know, these are two superpowers. Mutual assured destruction for themselves and the rest of the world. You have to hope that common sense will prevail and they won't get there. And if they get there, we're all done for anyway. So until then, it's less lazy and more, uh, difficult to actually take the activist Singapore foreign policy that we do, which is issue by issue, item by item, deal with both, but have to be nimble and keep thinking about it.
So here's the, I mean, you've made a very strong case there, uh, from that, that perspective. But I wonder whether sometimes there's also another perspective, which again goes back to, uh, domestic politics. And, you know, the saying that all politics is local, although not 100% uh, applicable here. In that, as you say, the, the world order that Singapore and Singaporeans have have grown up with since 1965 is a very clearly US-led global order, which in many ways is unraveling. So I, I wonder whether in your interactions on the ground, you have on the one hand, people who may be disillusioned by what's happening, disillusioned therefore by the US. On the other hand, you have a China which is emerging, politically more and more relevant, economically, as the slides show, more and more powerful and relevant to us. And also there's a, there's a demographic and cultural, uh, sort of proximity as well. So if you have that kind of dynamic on the ground, do you hear pressures as well, not just from the two parties asking us to choose, but domestically, people saying, hey, maybe it is time that we do. Well, there are two parts to the question. How is our population viewing, I think, US and viewing China? And second, what should the government do? In your question, it's implied that the government therefore has got to, you know, flow with the population viewpoint on that. My view is slightly different. I think the government has got to say, first of all, I mean, we are elected to lead. Representative democracy doesn't simply mean we repeat back to the people whatever they want to hear. Sometimes you have to say things which they don't want to hear, but you've got to explain why, and why it is in Singapore's interest that we have to say these things, and why we have to take this position. But you have to be sensible enough because, uh, you need to bring your population along with you, and you've got to understand where the population stands. But if you simply do whatever you think the majority would like, we will go down the way that the West has gone. But having said that, I again have some slides on this on how our population is being US and China. It's interesting to see. If you look at IPS study, in 2020 and 2023, you look at US, the nature of US's influence in Singapore. In 2014, you had nearly 80% who were positive towards the US. 2020, it had come down to 57%. In 2023, it's one in two. The, and I don't think it will surprise you, but this is an objective, uh, data that probably reinforces what many people suspect. And it's across the board. It's not just the Chinese population, it's across the board. And in a way, the Malays are also somewhat ne more negative towards the US compared to China, because of the Middle East, Gaza situation specifically. Then, meanwhile, if you look at China, it started out in 2014 at 72% and then went up to 77%. But it's now come down. So I haven't worked out why it's come come down in 2023, but it is higher than the US. Um, it is probably, you know, this is more reason in the last five, six years, the views of China, the positive views of China have overtaken the positive views of the US. Whereas if you go back 10, 20 years ago, I think there would be no contest. A lot of us are English educated, many are educated in the US, and you didn't know much about China. But the fact that China has, in probably 40 years, well, 40 years, 45 years, brought 900 million people out of poverty, something which has never been achieved in human history in this short a period. That in these same 40 years, it has become its infrastructure. I mean, if you go from Shanghai to Beijing, and then you try taking the train from New York to Washington, you know the difference. Um, people see the infrastructure, they see the technology, they see the science. So despite the rhetoric around the world in Western media, people can see for themselves which country is moving much faster economically, technologically, scientifically, whether or not you agree with the political system. So I think the viewpoints on China are becoming more positive. Second important group, some of whom will be here, are people who have a substantial business interest with China, who either do business in China or who have trading with China. And obviously, they are likely to become much more positive and view things from China's perspect view international events from China's perspective. So we have, uh, we have to be careful about this. We have to continuously tell people, yes, you know, it's all of this is not inaccurate, but at the same time, remember that your primary identity is that of Singaporean. And, uh, there will be issues when we don't see eye to eye with the US, and there will be issues when we don't see eye to eye with China. And on those, the government can either cave in, or it can seek to persuade the population. If your sovereignty means something more than just a place in the United Nations and a flag, then an honest government will have to try and persuade the population that, uh, look, on this issue, uh, Singapore's viewpoints and interests are different from China's viewpoints and interests. We had that during TX, a lot of businessmen came up to ministers and said, why are we anti-China? And say, no, we are not anti-China, but, you know, sometimes our interests are different. And if the teres are detained in Hong Kong, we have to deal with it. We don't have, you know, we, we are Singapore. We are a different country. We are not an appendage of China or the United States or any other country. So that is, uh, that's not an easy task, but if you are clear-eyed, you have to try and continue to do that.
>> Thank you, minister. Um, to just to prepare the audience, I'm going to ask the minister one more question, and then I'll open up to the floor. So be prepared for your questions. Um, I'm going to now circle back to some of the things that you said earlier on, and maybe ask a question more clearly in your Minister for Home Affairs capacity. Um, you know, how last year in in the UK, and in various parts of Europe as well, you've seen, uh, protest riots, driven in large part by far-right, uh, players and, uh, agitators, some might say, in, in their societies. And some of it also driven by, uh, purposeful disinformation or misinformation, at the very least. Um, I'm sure you and your ministries and agencies were watching that very carefully. What was your sense as you saw that unfold?
Now, Jamie, this is again something that I've been asked before several times. And to me, it brings across, I mean, the difference again between an activist government like Singapore, which intervenes and in frameworks many things, and a different approach in some parts of Europe, UK. But, you know, if I answered this question, you may not have time for audience participation. So what I would suggest is, if you have time, we take questions from the audience. >> Okay. >> And then maybe in the last five minutes or so, we come back to this, and I'll answer, but I may run beyond the one hour. >> Yeah. >> Okay. On on that note, um, please raise your hands, uh, and then identify yourself, uh, once the mic comes to you. >> One here, right in the middle of table 39. >> Uh, good morning, minister. Thank you so much for the enlightening speech. Um, just wondering, what is the issue, top issue that keeps you awake at night? And now that Singapore is 6.11 million population, has it further compounded the issue? Thank you.
You know, I have a slightly different view, uh, on how to interpret those figures. The government is, in my view, too purist in putting it out as 6.11. Because what are most Singaporeans concerned about? They are concerned not about foreign workers. They are concerned about how many Singapore citizens there are, and how many permanent residents sharing your facilities. So if you look at that, what is our citizen population? 3.2 million. It's always been around there. What's our permanent resident population? When the white paper came out 10, 11 years ago, it was about 3.6. It's now about 3.56. So it's actually come down a bit, but you can say it's flat. Citizen population might have gone up by about 100,000 or so in the last 10 years. So if you look at it like that, your citizen and PR population was somewhere around 3.7 last time, and it's about 3.8 now. No change. What has changed? What has changed is what many of you here, business owners, want. The number of foreign workers is shooting the through the roof. Every time I see the manpower minister, Tan See Leng, he stressed, he said, our numbers are the highest ever. Highest ever. You go into the constituency, all members say, we don't have enough. But it's the highest number ever. So from 3.8 to 6.11, it's what, another 1.3? What makes up that 1.3? About nearly just under a million foreign workers in various sectors, plus your 200 odd thousand domestic workers, who wants to give that up? Then your student population, very, you're talking about tens of thousands, and, um, some e-pass holders and so on. But the biggest chunk of this growth is foreign workers. Foreign workers who are working in your restaurants, in your cafes, in your manufacturing sector, in your shipping sector, and probably, I suspect, a fair number of people who are serving you today. Uh, we will collapse without them. And the more of them, the more the economy grows. So you Singaporeans have to be told this in a way that they understand. And I think most people will understand. The biggest problem you can have is no growth. If you can have growth, you can manage the other issues. And, but we do have to find a way of managing the foreign worker growth population. But you look at the major projects that are on T5, PSA is doing something major. All the MRT and road works, huge. And then PM has talked about Southern Waterfront project. HDB has talked about accelerating your HDB building. Who is going to do all this? So just as we try and squeeze, everyone is demanding, naturally, for more workers. So you give me an answer. What we do.
>> Okay, you get the 39 now. >> Uh, thank you, minister. >> Sorry, I should say, I said my, I think Singapore government is too purist. I tried suggesting at that time, actually, we should say our population is 5.8 million, and this is how we project it will be, and the rest all foreign workers. But, you know, my cabinet is made up of people who say, we must be totally precise on the total numbers. But I say, we need to identify what Singaporeans are concerned with. Say that's a second level explanation. So there it is. You know, government is totally transparent about these things.
>> Thank you, minister, for your insight. I'm Dylan Low from NTU. Uh, wanted to ask you a question on foreign influence and interference, which you already dealt with a bit. Uh, just like to probe a bit further. It's been a few years since FICA was passed. Um, just like to ask, how do you see the threat evolving? Are there new ways in which state actors, non-state actors are trying to do foreign interference or influence? And relatedly, do you think the current toolkit of the government is enough, uh, to deal with these threats? Thank you.
>> Well, there are a number of different threats to this. First of all, the nature of the problem is huge in the sense that the ability to use the internet through a variety of means. And there are countries which can put thousands of people, either directly or through private sector, to attack you, to mislead, to use the environment to try and intervene in your elections. We've seen that happen a lot in Europe, in US. We haven't seen a lot happening in Asia, but we have seen some. So the threat is real, the interference is real. If you look at, uh, the intelligence reports that are issued in France, in US, in Sweden, in Norway, in the Baltic states, in Germany, they all document. I mean, you look at these headlines. Now, I'm not saying that, you know, these are true, but you can see country after country, serious people making these allegations and statements. So, in my mind, in my view, it's real. They haven't been so focused on Singapore yet. But we never wait for the problem to land at our doorstep. Which is why we passed FICA ahead of time. We don't wait for these things to happen. We, we move ahead. And last year, we intervened twice. There were 10 websites that were multiplying specific viewpoints we believed or a, a foreign viewpoint. And we intervened to be, and we said that, uh, this no can do, and we shut them down. And we did that once in, I think, August or June or August, and the second time in October last year, we intervened. Now, FICA gives us a lot of powers to do this. And one of the advantages that I see of such legislation is that when people know you can do these things, they are much more careful. The problem is managed even before it's, uh, it becomes a problem. So we have the powers, but I don't want you to go away thinking that those powers are enough for us to deal with the nature of the problem, because the internet and the American platforms, which inadvertently lend themselves to all of this, say that all of this is allowed under the rubric of free speech. In my view, the public square needs to be protected. Free speech doesn't mean that, you know, it's, uh, industrial falsehoods are industrialized. You need to keep it, uh, within a framework. It can be unreasonable speech. It can be different viewpoints, but there isn't much scope for falsehoods in there, because there, there's mislead. And you cannot have an honest debate when your facts are different from mine. How do we have a debate? So you see the consequences elsewhere. So it's a serious problem. We have some powers. I don't overestimate our powers. We have so far avoided major trouble because people haven't been that interested in us.
>> What happened in Bangladesh last year? >> Yeah. >> Uh, Indonesia this year. >> Yeah. >> And, uh, Nepal, uh, and I'm talking about the speed at which, uh, uh, events, uh, uh, took place. Uh, what are the lessons, uh, that you, as, uh, you know, minister for security, drove from these, and what should we be watching out for?
You go back to Sri Lanka. The president was elected at with 52% of the vote, and it was considered a landslide because the next person had 42%. So it was a clear 10% margin. There was no question he had the majority. Got to buy Raja Paka, president. Then COVID hits. There were protests. To me, there were many questions, many odd questions about what happened. You had these protesters protesting. They seemed very organized. The leaders, they had the list of houses which needed to be torched. So they went around in the evenings and torching those houses. And, um, they were, the Western media classified them as democracy protesters. And, um, you had the UK and US ambassadors tweeting regularly. Can we have those slides? Do we have them here? Um, this is, you look at the BBC, Sri Lanka crowd breaks Rajapaksa's grip on power. So, you know, these are thugs and vandals who are in there. If people break into the Istana and do all of this, that is supposed to be because they are democratic. The Western media move on. Uh, you look at what, uh, and when there was a response by the security forces, you had the British and American ambassadors saying that these people are expressing their opinion and using their voice, and you must prioritize peace and you must not attack them. This is hypocrisy at the highest levels. And, to me, the, now M. Gota Rajapaksa and the Rajapaksa family is known to be close to China. He also had a very strong grip on power. My own takeaway is that some governments in the world don't like, uh, very independent, uh, smaller countries, which particularly may swing to China. If you look at, and many, much of this protest had similarities with what happened in Hong Kong. Hong Kong was the original example. So if I can show you in Hong Kong, you know, these, this guy, pro-democracy activist. Why? Because he rams glass doors, defaces and tears down, tears down portraits, smashes furniture. So he's a democracy activist. Move on. This is what they were doing, right? Democracy activist. Move on. They were trained again. And what we saw is that, you know, a crowd of 50,000 comes, 200 chaps in there are provocateurs, they throw things, police are outside, they have to respond. And when they respond, innocent people get hurt. But that's the whole purpose of these demonstrations and protests. You get innocents hurt, you get it into the media, get everyone angry, it's police brutality. And they were taken, they received funding from foreign NGOs, those which is a code name for various intelligence agencies. Move on. And then you look at what the Washington Post and everyone else says. Cracked on. It's always the police who break their rules. Police are the, the ones who are brutal. Never the democracy protesters. Move on. This tells you the hypocrisy at its highest. On the left is the protesters at Capitol Hill. When it happens in Washington, it's violence, and UK political leaders condemn it. The same newspaper carries a different headline. Jeremy Hunt backs Hong Kong citizens' right to protest when they were attacking the Hong Kong legislature, right? And these people tell us what our media ought to be like. So the media, the, in very often part of the foreign policy, uh, the ambassadors, the NGOs, it's today very easy to use platforms to create riots. What you need about 200 people, go there, create some violence, and there are enough disenchanted people who will join you. Pay people some money, you get thousands on the street. Bangladesh, certainly in Hong Kong, in the Chinese government's view, is that it's Western-backed co-intervened. And the Chinese government took the opportunity to say, no more gatherings. And then they changed the laws, and they arrested everybody. And now there are no more protests. If there was a real, you know, movement for democracy, you won't have what you have today. Sri Lanka again, it was a short period of time, crowds mobilized, government change. So you can be democratically elected, but change can be organized in this way. Bangladesh, okay, we may not all agree with the way, uh, Sheikh Hasina took power, but Bangladesh saw growth at about 6, 7% per year for pretty much about 14 years. Then you had COVID, got into trouble. What did you have? You have a few students, groups, NGOs, financed, same modus operandi again. Western governments coming in to say, you shouldn't intervene. And they add one more weapon nowadays, which is they go to the, in Sri Lanka, they were talking directly to the senior military commanders and police officers and said, you better not intervene. Now, in Singapore, if any of them dared to meet our people and said that, we would have turfed them up. I mean, you, as an ambassador of a foreign government, dare to come to my police officers and generals and tell them that they ought not to intervene, they take instructions from the government, not from you. They were doing this directly, and they were even going in at brigade levels and talking. And second thing they did was they said, if you intervened, we'll impose sanctions on you and your children who are studying in the US or UK. So you have to be very clear-eyed about, uh, countries and their motivations. We are all friends, but do they like the fact that the Singapore government is independent and is able to enforce its viewpoints with a vid them? People prefer a more plant government. So today, Bangladesh, they say democracy, let's see when the elections are held, what happens. Sri Lanka lost a few years through turmoil, but hopefully, you know, you have to hope that these countries recover. So I am skeptical about a fair bit. But in Singapore, the lessons we take away are, once 5,000, 10,000 people come together, and if you have saboteurs in there, it's going to be very difficult to deal with. So the starting point is, you don't allow illegal protests. You want to protest, there are designated spaces, you go there. Second, your intel has got to be good, and you got to move in very early if there are saboteurs. Don't allow. Third, if NGOs are receiving money under FICA, you deal with it. Fourth, if foreign ambassadors trying to intervene, turf them out.
>> So, we're running out of time a little bit, minister, but you do owe me. >> Let's go back to that question. Yeah. >> So maybe it's a good segue, and and your magic deck of slides may answer some of the questions. >> Yeah. I I I have that in some slides too. So let me answer. Let's look at UK. What happened? >> Yeah. >> You see, you had anti-immigration protests, right? 3,000 riot officers, 110,000 protesters. Uh, in a way, look, this is, in my view, this is a personal view, not the government of Singapore view. It goes back to something I said earlier. Every country has to be sensible about immigration. Your heart has got to be in the right place. You have to care for people who are suffering around the world. But no single country, not even the US, can take all of the world's people who want to get into the US because they have to be housed, fed, clothed out of taxpayer money. Culture is different. Their attitudes are different. And it completely undermines the legal immigration system. So what, but many of these governments, the far left has taken over the immigration policy and doesn't allow these sorts of arguments. Whoever wants to come in can come in. After a while, people, however generous they are, when they don't have jobs in England, and they don't have money, and they see these immigrants being housed in the local hotel, albeit apparently not in very good conditions, but, you know, they, for them, these are immigrants who are coming from somewhere, and they are in a hotel, and they are being fed by my money, while you don't give me enough. How do you think it plays? So I think governments across Europe have lost the debate on immigration because the left, far left, has taken over. Our approach has been, look, I take you in if you're going to add value. If not, you can't come. Sorry, very simple. And I, like many other ministers, have been the recipient of a large number of lectures from European ambassadors on how we should take in more people. And I've always said to them, I am 720 kilometers. If you are so concerned, you are much bigger. I will take them, but you take them from me. The conversation usually ends there. But, um, let's move on. What happened? And then you had the Manchester synagogue attack. Move on. Uh, move on. It goes back to last year, you know, the UK riots. Move on. There were three young children in a kindergarten who were killed, and rumors were spread, misinformation, deliberate misinformation, that this was a Muslim and an immigrant. And then you, that set a fire, and, you know, all across UK, anti-immigrant protests, hotels being torched where the immigrants were, and all these, uh, sorts of, you heard some of the rhetoric. Why?
Did this happen? Move on. And this is a country that at one stage controlled two-thirds of the globe. So they are not stupid people. They are highly competent. Many of us have been to the UK. Some of us have studied there. They are very, very smart people. Yeah. Move on.
First, I think today's political system in the UK doesn't allow it to deal with basic issues. Public safety, 330,000 vehicle crimes. Uh, no suspect is caught. 0% of reported car thefts were solved. Housing shortage, healthcare issues. So trust in government goes down. When a government stops being able to deliver what people want, trust goes down. That's a starting point. Move on.
You compare with us. Law and order. Com. 95% of women feel safe walking home alone at night. Now that's a very precious, uh, human right, you know. So don't get, uh, confused by arguments on human rights. This is the most important human right. Move on.
Uh, don't deal with our income. Go to the UK and the. Yeah. So what causes these sorts of riots? You know, you have weekly law enforcement. You have racial and religious. Look at the blue thing. Racial, religious hate speech under the guise of free speech. You can say anything you want about Muslims. You can burn the Quran. You can say anything you want about Christians. And then, of course, falsehoods. And then you have foreign interference which fuels it and poor immigration control. Below that are the governing factors. At the bottom, purple, the socio-economic factors that I briefly outlined and then an ideology that allows all of this. So you have that as your framework for government and then your actual civil service and legal framework is in blue. You get lawlessness, you get riots, you get racial attacks, religious attacks, you get cynicism, loss of trust. And this is not just the UK. It's across Europe and the US. Move on.
Now you compare it with our approach. Move on. And I'm doing this more to tell you why it is important. I mean, if you're investing or doing whatever you're doing, you have to look at the quality of governance and what are the outcomes and stability. Without that, everything else is, uh, won't be effective. So, first of all, on protest, we have a simple rule. Public Order Act. No protest. People say it's against human rights. I say, well, if you want to run around Orchard Road, 300 of you, creating a lot of disunity for the other users of Orchard Road and the shops, why should you go to Hong Lim Park and do it? If you think people are interested, more people will come. So I don't allow illegal protest. Second, racial and religious speech. We have the Penal Code, the Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act and the Racial Harmony Act. If anybody says anything about somebody else on the basis of race or religion, ISD will visit them and will tell them, don't do it again. You do it again, you'll be arrested. If you burn the Quran or the Bible or any other holy book in the name of free speech, you will be behind bars. You can praise your own race, religion. You cannot run down somebody else. Move on.
Falsehoods. We have POFMA. So, you know, in my view, it's not an argument about free speech. It's an argument about keeping the public square free from falsehoods so that we can have real speech. Move on. And 80% of the respondents now choose to believe the government's clarification while the rest of the world is struggling with, uh, falsehoods here. If somebody issues a falsehood, for example, on vaccines, people believe they don't believe that if you go to Toa Payoh, you will get killed by vaccines. Move on.
And then foreign interference. For our ideology is that we have been able to get the buy-in from the population to put this framework of legislation to deal with all of this. And then above that, you see our law enforcement agencies are empowered. The results: no riots, no racial attacks, no lawlessness. So you compare, you side by side with the UK. You look at the UK example. You look at the Singapore example. This is a result of active governance. Now, I say this, I can tell you I'm personally responsible as an architect of all of that legislation and there is a reason for it because there is an end goal. But we come on the shoulders of giants. The philosophy behind the no protest, Penal Code, POFMA is only relevant because of the internet, recently foreign interference. The underlying philosophy, though expressed in this legislation, was already in previous legislation and previous philosophies and governance principles started from Mr. Lee Kuan Yew. So he was very clearsighted with Dr. Goh to put all of this in. All we needed to do was to upgrade it and maintain it to make it fit for purpose today. So that's the difference between an activist government and a government on the left which is really taken over by ideology. We don't let ideology stand in the way. So that's the difference.
Jimmy: You know, Minister, we have run out of time by quite a bit.
Minister: Yeah. And and I started the conversation by saying I tried to be a little bit, I would try to be a little bit lighthearted, lighthearted. Uh, but I suppose there's no one better than yourself to bring us down a little bit, down to earth, uh, with some hard truths. Um, ladies and gentlemen, unfortunately, uh, we have run out of time, but, uh, if you could all just give the minister a round of applause for your time.