China's Military After Taiwan

China's Military After Taiwan
by Ellis Joffe

Posted March 18, 2009

The recently concluded session of the National People’s Congress brought news of another double-digit boost to China’s official defense budget. While the 14.9% increase is a little less than the 17.6% rise in 2008, it is still substantial, especially in view of the looming economic difficulties and improving relations with Taiwan. Although the official line is that the money will go mainly for raising the living standard of troops, Premier Wen Jiabao in his speech highlighted the need for the continued buildup of the armed forces, which will presumably absorb much of the increase.

This fits with the existing trend of more than a decade, as the Chinese armed forces have been undergoing an intensive buildup that has substantially increased their combat capabilities. Although these capabilities had plummeted drastically during the Maoist period, no concerted modernization drive--primarily to acquire new weapons--was launched until after the Taiwan crisis of 1995/96, because the Chinese had perceived no strategic military threat to their security.

Joffe4

This perception changed dramatically when the dispatch of two American carrier groups to the vicinity of Taiwan forced a humiliating Chinese retreat from missile firing exercises that had been designed to put pressure on Taiwan. This crisis convinced the Chinese that the U.S. would intervene if they attacked Taiwan and confronted them with a new and urgent strategic threat that became the impetus for a major force buildup and a focus for its direction.

This threat, stemming from China’s determination to block Taiwan’s moves toward separation, had been the catalyst for China’s efforts to build up its armed forces. Their focus was defensive: to acquire a capability needed to invade Taiwan and to deter the U.S. from intervening; failing that, to delay the advance of U.S. forces by protecting the maritime approaches to the Taiwan Straits and China.

However, relations between China and Taiwan have improved greatly following the election of Ma Ying-jeou as Taiwan president in March 2008. Although the unification issue remains unresolved, Mr. Ma has rejected his predecessor’s policy of pursuing de facto independence from China.

This dramatic change has removed the specter of war from the Taiwan Strait. It has also removed the primary rationale behind China's decade-long rapid military buildup and the vast investment of funds that it required. However, no letup in this effort should be expected.

The reason is that other factors beside Taiwan have become operative, and these will continue to drive the buildup. The first is the strategic defense of China, which has become an acute issue, paradoxically, as a direct result of the Taiwan tensions. After a decade of gradual post-Mao military modernization, the Chinese greatly accelerated war preparations in the mid-1990s, prompted by the dispatch of two U.S. carrier groups to the vicinity of Taiwan.

However, these preparations have been viewed as increasingly threatening by the U.S. which, in turn, has adopted a “hedging” strategy aimed at strengthening American military power in the Pacific. The Chinese, for their part, have looked upon this as a threat to their security, requiring continuous enhancement of their military posture. It also requires the Chinese to be constantly on alert against what they view as U.S. probing of their defenses, as demonstrated by the recent incident in which Chinese vessels harassed a U.S. Navy surveillance ship.

The second factor derives from the military’s mission of providing support for China’s nationalistically inspired great power aspirations: to obtain for China the international respect, recognition, and ranking that has been accorded to great powers. Although China’s global status received a tremendous boost from its economic surge, China still lacks the military capabilities that are also essential for great power status.

The Chinese are well aware that until now these capabilities have been beyond their reach. Although they possess a minimal but credible nuclear deterrent, they still do not have the conventional forces needed to project military power in wartime for extended periods at a distance from China's borders, and they have only begun to acquire the capabilities necessary for protecting the maritime approaches to China. For this reason, China’s leaders have not viewed their military power as relevant to China’s global aspirations.

This situation is changing. China’s new global standing combined with its Taiwan-driven military progress has convinced the Chinese that they can begin narrowing the gap between their economic standing as a great power and their military capabilities and to begin playing a military role on the international stage.

More important is the desire to assert China’s regional pre-eminence. Whereas China’s global aspirations are long term and require currently unattainable levels of military power, its regional objectives impinge directly on national security and require achievable military backing.

These objectives are to counteract the presence of a potentially unfriendly power in its neighborhood--most immediately, the United States, but also India, Japan and Russia over the long haul. Critical to these objectives is the development of military capabilities that will enable the Chinese to respond to what they might view as a threat to their growing continental and maritime regional interests--primarily sea lines of communication.

The final factor is the sheer force of momentum. The military buildup has set in motion a wide range of long-term programs backed by powerful interests--such as the military-industrial complex--which cannot be easily terminated. There is no reason to assume, moreover, that China’s leaders will want to terminate them, since they and the generals share nationalistically inspired global and regional aspirations. Most important, China’s leaders need the support of their generals and, barring a severe economic crisis, continuous military modernization is a price they will readily pay out of both conviction and self-interest.

These are basic long-term factors that are not likely to change and they will drive the modernization effort for decades. After Hu Jintao became chairman of the Central Military Committee in 2004, new objectives were introduced to underpin this effort and to make it more relevant to current needs. Touted as new “historical missions” and “diversified military tasks,” these objectives clearly reflect Hu’s desire to put his own imprint on the military and to bolster his position among the generals. After the rapprochement with Taiwan, they also provide an additional rationale for China’s continued military buildup.

While Taiwan remains the Chinese army’s main mission, the new “military objectives other than war” include anti-terrorist operations, maritime security, rescue missions, and peace-keeping duties. To carry out them out, it is necessary to divert resources and energies from “core military capabilities.” How much to divert has apparently become a contentious issue among China’s generals.

The most forceful proponents of such objectives are presumably the admirals. Since 2000, the navy has commissioned five nuclear-powered and 22 conventionally powered submarines, in addition to 10 destroyers and six frigates, and nearly 30 amphibious ships. In a Taiwan scenario, the role of the navy would be central: to transport assault troops to Taiwan, and, more importantly, to deny access to U.S. aircraft carriers and warships.

Now the Chinese admirals apparently want to move beyond defensive perimeters and to position the navy as the prime military supporter of China's aspiration to gain recognition as a great power. This was an angle highlighted by Chinese comments on the dispatch of Chinese warships off the Somalia coast to participate in international efforts to protect shipping from pirates.

More important have been renewed reports that the navy is embarking on a program to build aircraft carriers--an issue that has been unresolved for years. If the Chinese go ahead, it is clear that the mission of their aircraft carriers will not be to defend China against the U.S. or to protect sea lanes in wartime. The mission, at immense cost, will be to augment China’s dominant political and military presence in the region and to bolster its international prestige.

The preoccupation with new missions--demands have also been made to upgrade the People’s Armed Police for security purposes and military units for rescue missions--has aroused dissatisfaction in the military, probably among conservative ground force generals. Criticism has been directed at the damage to combat training caused by performance of other tasks; at the inability of the military to effectively carry out both traditional and non-traditional functions; and at inadequate attention to the military’s basic mission of coping with threats to the nation’s sovereignty and vital interests.

There have been no demands to abandon the new tasks, only to focus more on combat preparations. At several recent sessions of the top military policy-making body, the Central Military Commission, such a compromise has apparently been reached. However, if the navy is allowed to go ahead with grandiose development plans, the question is how long it will hold.

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NTU Prof dispels rumours

March 19, 2009

NTU Prof dispels rumours

		Prof Chan said he was bewildered by nasty speculation over his character and sexual inclination in the aftermath of the stabbing attack. --PHOTO: INTERNET

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The Nanyang Technological University professor who was stabbed by a final year student earlier this month has broken his silence to respond to vicious talk on the Internet.

In an exclusive interview with The New Paper, Associate Professor Chan Kap Lup, 45, who teaches in NTU's School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, said he was bewildered by nasty speculation over his character and sexual inclination in the aftermath of the stabbing attack by Indonesian student David Hartanto Widjaja, 21, who later fell to his death on that shocking March 2 morning.

Some netizens have suggested on sites such as SgForums.com that Prof Chan was attacked because he wanted to give the student a poor grade for his final year project. Some others even went so far as to imply Mr Widjaja and Prof Chan had a homosexual relationship, said the TNP report on Thursday.

Prof Chan, who is married with two young children, told TNP: 'My goodness, there's no such thing. Don't believe everything you read on the Internet, because people can write whatever they want.

'I never read these Internet forums because the postings can't be taken seriously - anyone can write anything.'

Refuting allegations on the poor grading, Prof Chan, who was Mr Widjaja's project supervisor, said with a laugh, that his role was to help students do well.

'We are not to fail the students and that's why I'm laughing at the suggestion that I wanted to give David a poor grade. Ask any professor if they wish to help their students do well and their answers are the same.'

The don, who suffered injuries on his back and right hand, was discharged from the National University Hospital on March 4 and is on medical leave for a few weeks.

Prof Chan added that all students 'have the same experiences of meeting deadlines and coping with other modules', but would not say if Mr Widjaja was slack with his project. 'If David had any problems with his project, he certainly didn't tell me. It's very sad he ended up like that,' he said.

He declined to talk more about the stabbing, saying he had given a police statement.

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Good coverage on Ting Wen today.

Good coverage on Ting Wen today. But please, Sir, can we have some more?

Let me start this post by giving credit where credit is due.

And today, credit is due to The Straits Times for giving swimmer Quah Ting Wen the sort of coverage she deserves for her triple national record-breaking feat at the recently concluded 40th National Age-Group Championships.

As a passionate fan of local sports, you can imagine my joy this morning when bleary-eyed, I stumbled to my dining table with my morning coffee, and saw on the front page of the morning broadsheet the photograph of Ting Wen with a broad smile on her face.

And the front page treatment was followed up by a good report on the 16-year-old Raffles Junior College student’s hat-trick feat.

In fact, the report went further than just a straight report on Ting Wen breaking the national 100m freestyle record, how it was her third record in three days, and how it was so unexpected because she had only resumed training at the start of the year and had treated the Age-Group Championships.

It also examined her potential to be a future Asian Games champion based on the timings she clocked. The prognosis: almost there. Two of her three timings would have won her a silver and a bronze at the last Asiad.

In other words, Ting Wen is beyond becoming Singapore’s next Joscelin Yeo, who essentially shone brightest at SEA Games level. No siree, Ting Wen is on the road to becoming the next Junie Sng, the only local-born female swimmer to have ever won gold at the Asian Games. (Want to know more about Junie Sng, the queen of Singapore swimming back in the 1970s? Click here.)

Prettygood job lah, ST, I thought, as I read - and re-read - the reports.

I guess one of the reasons why I was so pleasantly surprised and delighted by today’s reports on Ting Wen is because I feel we don’t get enough of such write-ups about our local athletes on a regular basis.

To be fair, one cannot say that there isn’t adequate coverage of local sports in the papers.

But in recent times, it seems to be all about official events, pronouncements by governmental and top local sports officials, and even about sporting events that people feel little affinity with.

I remember looking on with amazement at the amount of space devoted to the recent Singapore leg of the Volvo Ocean race.

I don’t remember a single word of any of the reports because I didn’t read any of them.

Why? Because I feel no affinity or attachment to the race.

Likewise, I usually barely glance at all the stories about making Singapore a top sporting hub, about organisational plans for the 2010 Youth Olympics and about carnival-like events aimed at drumming up awareness about the YOG.

Ditto the recent deluge of reports on the wedding preparations of our top table tennis player. Yucks.

I feel that our local sports coverage could do with more such write-ups and features on our local athletes: their personalities, their achievements and their moments of agony in defeat, and for the young, fledgling ones in particular, their development and potential for greater things.

Cynics may be tempted to ask: but what is so great about some of our local athletes that is worth highlighting about?

After all, some of them can’t even win medals at the SEA Games, whose standards competition are the lowest among all the multi-sports competitions that Singapore takes part in.

My reply: Are you a national athlete? And are you anywhere near SEA Games standards yourself?

If not, then why mak it your first instinct to knock these athletes?

And isn’t the passion they have for their sports, the belief in themselves, their personal motivations, the long hours and hard work that they put into their training, and the personal sacrifices that they make worth a second look?

Of course, one isn’t asking for blind coverage in such instances.

If the athlete isn’t good enough even at SEA Games level, then by all means, acknowledge that gap, or address it by finding out what it is that is causing that athlete to fall short.

I guess that is also why school sports is given such short shrift by the newspapers in recent years.

Apart from covering the national finals, there isn’t really very much written about the athletes themselves.

But nobody reads school sports, I can hear the cynics say. I beg to differ.

Write a profile piece on a school athlete and I will bet you that you will have 1,000 people from that school reading the report the next day.

I will also bet you that that report will subsequently find pride of place in one of the school’s notice boards so that it can be preserved for posterity and read by new incoming students.

Ditto for the minor sports. You hardly hear or read anything about aspiring cyclists, judokas, taekwondo and wushu exponents or even boxers.

Nobody cares about these sports, you say? Once again, I have to ask in return: can one be so sure? Can one be so certain that there are no compelling stories to be found in these sports?

Has there, honestly, been a devoted and concerted effort to find out more?

Back to the report on Ting Wen today. It was a good read but alas, I am also under no illusions here.

Such write-ups are just going to make very - and I stress VERY - occasional appearanes in the sports pages of our newspapers.

Still, as the Hokkien saying goes “Boh herh, hae mah hor” (Attempt at direct translation: No fish but at least there are some prawns).

Even then, I would rate today’s coverage as an 8/10.

Reason: there was no space given to the likes of Rainer Ng, Shana Lim Amanda Lim, Lionel Khoo, Issac Joseph Schooling et cetera et cetera, who broke more than a handful of national under-17 and Under-14 records altogether.

It would have been nice to have been able to read a little something of these swimmers and their achievements ( you can find out their achievements here) because the National Age-Group Championships were not just about Ting Wen alone.

Now that would have made it a perfect 10 morning for me today.

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Great job, Singapore Botanic Gardens!

Manager
Singapore Botanic Gardens
1 Cluny Road
Singapore 259569

Dear Sir/Madam,

RE: GREAT JOB, BOTANIC GARDENS!

I was pleasantly surprised when I came across a report in Reuters that the Singapore Botanic Gardens was planning to name an orchid after the Prime Minister of Burma. It is not often that a leader in the Burmese Junta is given the credit he deserves for creating a light for all the world to see, i.e. a New Light for Burma. I was sorely disappointed that I could not find a similar report in our local newspapers – apparently, they have lost sight of our national interest in emphasizing our attempts to build cordial ties with our neighbours. Such a measure will indeed boost the regional solidarity of ASEAN, especially against scurrilous attacks by western journalists and politicians who seek to damage our reputation to promote their narrow agenda. Therefore, I wish to praise the Singapore Botanic Gardens for its great magnanimity to premier Thein and the Government he represents.

Indeed, Mr Thein Sein and his predecessors deserve much overdue credit for their far-sighted policies and exemplary government that have given their country a standard of deprivation unsurpassed by any other in the world, except perhaps North Korea. For all their criticisms of Burma’s governance, no western country could ever achieve such a stellar record. Even Singapore, developed though we are, have not developed to that extent, although some members of the opposition – particularly the SDP - believe that we are inching closer to achieving it.

With regards to His Excellency Premier Thein, he was exemplary for promoting a culture of self-reliance during the recent cyclone Nargis disaster. After all, it is better to die from hunger than to sacrifice one’s pride by accepting aid from countries who do not respect your local culture. Needy Singaporeans and their friends should take the cue from the Burmese, and not depend so much on the government for handouts. Now, that is real National Pride. (Even the Chinese cannot beat this.)

The west also fails to recognize Premier Thein’s government for its zealous protection of secularism, a cherished western concept. The junta’s achievements eclipse even ours. We launched Operation Coldstore 1987 against a perceived threat of a marxist conspiracy within the Catholic church, but we were only able to arrest 11 believers, and only one was a priest. In contrast, last year the junta was able to burn down entire buddhist monasteries and kill at least tens of, if not hundreds of, monks. Our security forces in 1987 were not as efficient in eradicating the threat of religious leaders trying to influence government policy. They could learn a thing or two from the Burmese forces.

I would like to highlight especially that the Internal Security Department (ISD) should take a leaf from their Burmese counterparts. I feel ashamed to consider that a terrorist leader like Mas Selamat could escape from a window at a top-secret high-security WRDC, whereas the junta is able to keep their most-notorious terrorist – west-supported Aung San Suu Kyi – from escaping whilst under house arrest. Surely a house has more avenues for exit than a high-security prison?

Premier Thein’s government also understands the principle that to preserve political stability, one must crush all protests. Our government once understood that principle perfectly. Sadly, recently our leaders’ will has been bent to allow for something as egregious as a Speakers’ Corner. Don’t our leaders realize that speeches made by demagogues like Tan Kin Lian will harm the delicate social fabric of our country? Perhaps, the ruling People’s Action Party’s youth wing should pay a visit to Burma after it has toured the Forbidden City. The Burmese are the epitome of strong government, and we should admire them for it.

Reporters San Frontieres (RSF) – the institution which wrongly gave us the rank of 144th for Press Freedom – praises the Burmese government for its readiness in confronting the challenges of the information age. According to RSF, the junta utilizes the most efficient method of controlling the perils of the web – barring Burmese from internet access. Perhaps, MICA should follow its footsteps and bar access to all blogs critical of the government, therefore ensuring that no misleading information is available to people that will divert them from supporting our most excellent enlightened Government.

Lest I forget, Premier Thein ought to be commended for his illustrious economic management skills. Compared to Temasek and GIC’s disastrous investments recently, there have been no losses reported by Burma’s investments in heroin plantations and human trafficking rings. I suppose that the junta is more business-savvy than our sovereign wealth funds.

To be fair, Premier Thein Sein should not be taking the credit alone. After all, it was his predecessors who succeeded in transforming their country from a key colonial outpost of the west into a country that no westerner wants to go to at all. This way, they built an independent, self-sustaining economy, which even Singapore does not have, because we rely too much on MNCs for our growth.

It is for all the above reasons – and more that I cannot think of right now – that I wish to commend the Singapore Botanic Gardens for organizing a special orchid naming ceremony for Premier Thein Sein, to accord him the proper respect he deserves.

You and your staff have managed to see past the tinted colourings of western eyes to properly recognize the achievements and contribution of one of our neighbours - to the peace, prosperity and progress of our world - who has been stigmatized repeatedly by the West.

Once again, good job, Singapore Botanic Gardens!

Sincerely,

Ralph

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The death of the Post-Intelligencer

The death of the Post-Intelligencer


It’s pure coincidence that I happen to be in Seattle today when the news hits the city, and the rest of the planet, like a sledgehammer:



SEATTLE - The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, which has chronicled the news of the city since logs slid down its steep streets to the harbor and miners caroused in its bars before heading north to Alaska’s gold fields, will print its final edition Tuesday.

Hearst Corp., which owns the 146-year-old P-I, said Monday that it failed to find a buyer for the newspaper, which it put up for a 60-day sale in January after years of losing money. Now the P-I will shift entirely to the Web.

"Tonight will be the final run, so let’s do it right," publisher Roger Oglesby told the newsroom.

Hearst’s decision to abandon the print product in favor of an Internet-only version is the first for a large American newspaper, raising questions about whether the company can make money in a medium where others have come up short.

Read more here:

http://tech.yahoo.com/news/ap/20090316/ap_on_hi_te/seattle_p_i



There have been talks about this shift for weeks by Hearst, but the move came fast and swift. The newsroom size will be pared down from 181 to 40.

In Asia, newspapers have yet to face this sort of dire situation, but it might be a matter of time. One reason is that most advertisers in Asia have yet to migrate their advertising to online and still rely heavily on traditional media to send their messages to the public. Also, broadband penetration is low in many Asian countries, so the people still rely on traditional media for their news.

But the switch from analogue to online by vendors is accelerating, and the big question is whether the Asian newspapers are even able to imagine switching to a fully-online platform.

It’s a bit of a “who blinks first” situation: Newspaper owners claim that there is no business model online that will provide the same revenues that they are earning today. But if they don’t come up with any viable business model soon, the advertisers will not wait and switch mediums instead. What’s for sure is that ad revenue share for print has contracted and may never go up.

This past few months have already seen Singaporean journalists experience pay cuts, frozen bonuses, hiring freezes, and forced unpaid leave. It’s extremely painful (I went through something like this in 2002 when I first started full time work in SPH) for any media professional because many of them pour everything they have into their jobs. But for all the effort that they give, they are now being told that they are costing too much to maintain, so cuts have to be made.

In my time as a journo, which wasn’t so long ago, most young rookies in the newsroom didn’t really know how the newspaper business worked until they went for the internal orientation that brought all divisions together. Many didn’t even know where the marketing division resided within the same building.

Their job, as far as they were taught, was to bring in the best stories and rightly so. But they didn’t understand that in Singapore, it was advertisements that opened up more pages so their stories could find space to be published. Circulation revenue alone is not enough to drive profit in a small country.

Today, you’ll see journalists interacting with ad sales people more. This would have been taboo in the past, but even then, there are those who feel that this is happening too late. From 2003-2007, I got involved with the marketing side of things as I sought to commercialize my tech section within TNP. One time, I was criticized by one senior editor for “pandering to advertisers” and asked to switch to the marketing division instead. All because I said some personality columns were better replaced with special project pages since the former were so dully written. Never tell an editor his pages are boring!

Well, today the same editor is being tasked with bringing in more ad revenue.

I don’t claim to have foreseen this perfect storm of economic depression and accelerating change of media use. Nobody could have done so. At that time, and until recently, I simply assumed that editorial and sales had to work closer together to deal with the Internet and the shift in advertising mix.

And older journalists would often say “Oh newspapers will continue to co-exist with new media, just like radio did after television was invented!”. Like what we learnt in mass communication classes at NTU.

But the quick death of the print edition of the Post-Intelligencer will leave many media folks reeling. The assumption that printed newspapers would continue to exist is still an assumption, and the collapse of the financial institutions has shown us that anything is possible during these surreal times. People might say, what do you care, Ian, you’ve crossed over to the PR side. But I started my career as a journo, and I still live and breathe like one every day (much to the puzzlement of non-media folks).

I don’t have answers to the gigantic problem, but I do know what I want as a media junkie in my daily read. If you’re a media owner, please hear me out here without prejudice.

1. I desire to read great writing and stories. Journalism is much harder than it looks. But today, read the glut of stories online and you realise that too many journos only know how to report well, not write well. For too long, mass market journalism has fallen into a rut where getting the story was more important than telling it well. Well, in the Internet age, the story reaches people so quickly, the only thing that matters is how it moves people. Journalism is an art, not a science.

2. I want to read local news. Yes, being hyper-local works. Because when news syndication means global news is mass distributed, there’s no reason why I want to read the World pages in a newspaper when I’ve already read it the night before. But hyper-local doesn’t mean reading dull stories about the Gahmen lah, or some auntie getting her money stolen in a lift.

3. I want journalists I desire to follow and respect. I asked a friend recently: “Name me one journalist you cannot pass a week without reading because his writing is either so good or his stories so impactful.” He named a local humor columnist, but couldn’t remember what was the last story he wrote. Till today, I can remember specific columns by Lee Han Shih and Christopher Tan for their impact on me. You don’t have to be controversial to be a great journo, you just need to make a valid point and make it stick/resonate.

4. Stop giving space to useless fluff. That means whiny columnists who keep retreading the path of how lonely it is to be without a man, or writers who engage in incredible navel gazing. In case you didn’t know, there are MILLIONS of bloggers doing that right now. And they have very little readers.

5. I’d pay for good and timely content. But that content must be made free after a day or two because it needs to be archived by the search engines to remain relevant forever. Media who lock up their content to non-subscribers do not have a permanent place on the Internet. Many media owners believe that by holding information tight to their chests, they can continue to extract revenue out of it.

6. Listen to the young ones. Let’s face it – if you aren’t blogging regularly, or reading blogs, if you don’t Facebook, if you don’t use instant messaging, and if you ask why is Wikipedia trustworthy, you don’t know the Internet. Young journos may not have the business experience to run an online publications, but media owners ignore their feedback at their own risk. Some of the best online publications I’ve seen are run by young journalists, and they’re kept in line by senior editors who may not understand the technology, but give their full trust to the junior crew to navigate through the mess that is the Internet.

A newspaper always thrives on utter passion, change, verve and talent. And as many have seen in the past decade, astute business management. As I mourn the Post-Intelligencer, I hope the other newspapers quickly figure out what to do because once they disappear, I highly doubt they will be replaced by any other media as respectable or credible.

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You’ve been warned:if newspapers Die …

You’ve been warned:if newspapers Die … Companies will see sales slump, citizens will make important decisions in the dark

You might think that’s was an originally created headline. No, it isn’t. It was published on TodayOnline, I kid you not.

Let’s see one fantastically reliable and credible quote.

The truly vital role newspapers fill, though, is informing readers about the day’s events and details of key issues. Even though it’s easy to find out what’s happening by reading headlines on a phone or watching television, few media other than newspapers reliably provide the “why” that leads to understanding the issues.

That’s right. Without the newspapers, we wouldn’t know Minister Mentor God Lee Kuan Yew makes accurate predictions like “golden period” etc. Of course, without the Straits Times, we wouldn’t know our government rocks their socks off right?I mean, hell we have a fantastic government, we are living in utopia. Without ST, I bet you wouldn’t know that.

Also, without ST, i also bet you wouldn’t know playing computer games will lead to suicide. I guess that’s what the title meant by “citizens making important decisions in the dark”. Without the ST, parents will allow their kids to play World of Warcraft and other dangerous online games, that will lead to the virtual reality manifesting in real life, and our kids will start dropping like flies, literally. Thanks to the ST, such a catastrophe has been avoided. The list can go on forever, I can’t possibly list down all the good work the ST does.

Helping me make important choices in the light is definitely something ST does wonderfully.Because of the constant reminders of how great our government is, I will be casting my vote for PAP monkeys in the next elections. perhaps cross out the PAP candidate and draw a monkey/dog there, and tick at the box. I wonder will this be counted as voting for the PAP?

Oh did i remind you not to click and read that article? It devoted 2 pages out of 4 telling us about the pros of advertising in the newspapers and the great benefits, rather than discussing the objective of newspapers, which I thought is reporting the truth.

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Innovation: Singapore Is No. 1

Innovation: Singapore Is No. 1, Well Ahead of the U.S.

Singapore's emphasis on science education and a highly talented workforce puts it well ahead of the U.S. in a new global ranking of innovation leaders

By Bruce Einhorn

For anyone interested in working in an innovative environment, the U.S. has long been the top destination. The U.S. has the culture to support innovation: the best universities, the biggest venture capital funds, the most supportive financial markets. American companies from Silicon Valley are among the world's most inspiring success stories for entrepreneurs in China china, India india, and other emerging markets, with startup business leaders looking for inspiration to the likes of Hewlett Packard (HPQ), Intel (INTC), Apple (AAPL), and Google (GOOG).

According to a new report by Boston Consulting Group, though, the center of innovation nnovation is not in the U.S. BCG, working with the Manufacturing Institute of the Washington-based National Association of Manufacturers, last week released a survey of 110 countries worldwide looking at the ones with government policies and corporate performance most encouraging to innovation. The U.S. came in No. 8, ahead of Japan (No. 9) and Germany (No. 19) but well behind the two leaders, both of them so-called tiger economies from Asia: Singapore at No. 1 and South Korea at No. 2. (For more on how BCG conducted the survey, and the ranking of the top-performing countries, see the accompanying slide show.)

What accounts for the relatively lackluster performance of the U.S. compared to the Asian tigers? James P. Andrew, the leader of BCG's global innovation practice and co-author of the report, says "the quality of the workforce" in the U.S. is the biggest problem that many respondents had. As part of the survey, BCG questioned some 800 high-level executives at U.S. companies, and many put concerns about human resources at the top of the list of concerns. "Are we developing the skills at the high school level?" asks Andrew, explaining the responses researchers often encountered. "Are we making it easy for the best and brightest to study and stay in the U.S.?"
Lagging U.S. Workforce

The questions are becoming more urgent now as debate heats up surrounding U.S. immigration policy. American multinationals have been among the most vocal in calling for the government to allow highly-skilled people from other countries to work in the U.S. However, data released last month showed that many of the 65,000 H-1B visas went to Indian outsourcing companies that have used the program to send low-cost engineers from India to the U.S. With the U.S. economy worsening and the unemployment rate rising, lawmakers in Washington are calling for more restrictions on H-1B visas. That's leading to a potential backlash in India, where anger at the U.S.is growing at the same time a growing number of Asian graduates of U.S. schools are returning to India and China.

The top-performing country in BCG's list, Singapore, has long focused on trying to attract foreign workers—and encourage locals to go abroad in order to boost their skills. It has little choice: The city-state has a population of just 4 million, and without importing top talent it would be hard-pressed to achieve bureaucrats' outsized plans to make Singapore a hub for the electronics, semiconductor, pharmaceutical, and biotech industries. For instance, every year Singapore gives 100 scholarships to science and engineering students, funding their doctorate programs in foreign universities. "In order to do well, you need people trained abroad," says Beh Kian Teik, director of biomedical sciences at the Singapore government's Economic Development Board. The $650 million program, launched in 2000, is now seeing its first PhDs return to Singapore, where they work in government research labs or local universities for several years.
Singapore's Excellent Science Education

Government commitment to education is one reason many large drugmakers have made Singapore a base for their manufacturing and research. In January, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) announced plans to invest $65 million to expand its Singapore operations. Schering-Plough (SGP) is opening a center to conduct research and clinical trials in the country, and Novartis has made Singapore the center for company researchers investigating treatments for malaria, tuberculosis, and dengue fever. "Science education is very good here," says Thierry Diagana, project manager for Novartis' malaria research team. "There's a nice constant flow of young graduates."

The global recession threatens to halt the flow of talent. The Singapore economy, which relies heavily on exports, is suffering badly. The country's gross domestic product is likely to fall 4.9% this year, according to a government survey of economists released on Mar. 16, and the unemployment rate is likely to double from that of a year ago, to 4.4%. Credit Suisse (CS) predicted last month that Singapore would see an outflow of foreign workers, with the population declining by 160,000. The pharma and biotech industries, two of the few industries expected to create jobs in the city-state, are now facing renewed uncertainty following the announcement of several large mergers, including Merck's (MRK) proposed acquisition of Schering-Plough.

Still, BCG's Andrew believes governments and companies are not going to retreat on their commitment to innovation. The crisis, he argues, makes it even more apparent that there's no turning back. "There is always somebody out there who can make the same thing cheaper," he says. In hard times, he adds, "the imperative is to become more innovative, not less." For companies, that means "doing anything humanly possible to avoid scaling back on innovation budgets," says Andrew. "Governments are going to be in much the same situation. If you want to attract and position companies in your countries, you have to continue to do the things that make you an attractive destination."

Reports about an exodus of foreign workers from Singapore don't worry Andrew. With the economy contracting, many low-skilled workers are leaving, he says, but that doesn't mean Singapore's attractiveness as an innovation hub is declining. "If I'm losing my PhDs, scientists, technologists, that's one thing," he says. "For other types of foreign workers, that's something different."

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