China could become a world-class civilisation to rival the West – if it returns to the Singapore model

Asia has never had an equivalent of the Western civilisation, in terms of global influence. China has a chance to build such a civilisation, though it has strayed from the path set by Deng Xiaoping after his visit to Singapore

Billy Huang

Published: 10:00am, 26 May 2019

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At the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilisations, in Beijing on May 15, President Xi Jinping emphasised that “no civilisation is superior to others”. In the first place, it would be quite a challenge to compare Asia’s diverse civilisations. But for the sake of argument, let’s consider India and China, both countries with long histories and deep traditions, through the prism of women’s rights, for starters.

In India, there was once the practice of sati, whereby a widow immolated herself on her husband’s funeral pyre. Although the custom was not widely practised, it was prevalent among upper-caste Hindus until 1829, when the British rulers of India outlawed it following a debate begun by colonial officials. So, for some Indian women, would British civilisation be superior to Hindu tradition?

In China, the extremely painful practice of foot-binding persisted for about a thousand years, until the early 20th century. While sati was about preserving the chastity of Indian widows, generations of Chinese girls endured the deformation of their feet to be more marriageable. The bound feet were called three-inch golden lotuses, with connotations of elegance and feminine appeal.

Whatever the merits of Xi’s position on civilisations, China should still be given some credit for restarting the conversation about Western and Eastern civilisations. Back in 1996, Japanese philosopher Masakazu Yamazaki argued that there has never been such a thing as an Asian civilisation, that is, an Eastern equivalent of the Judeo-Christian, Western civilisation that transcends nationality and is dominant in Europe and the Americas. Instead, Asia has individual national and ethnic cultures incapable of encompassing the entire region.

Fundamentally, Asia lacks “the dual structure of rule and language in the West”, said Yamazaki, and “the seeds of modernisation in Asia would fail to sprout but would lie dormant until the encounter with the West”.

Chinese pianist Lang Lang performs at the Asian culture carnival as part of the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilisations, in Beijing on May 15. Photo: Xinhua

In the 20th century, East Asia – except China and North Korea – made great strides in modernisation, inspired by the Western model of democracy, rule of law, market economy and globalisation. With English as an official language and fully fledged democracy, India was supposed to play a pivotal role in engaging the West as a world-class economy and civilisation. However, India has squandered its lead because of the caste system that contributes to the uneven distribution of wealth, religious and ethnic conflict, and American-style partisan politics.

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India is getting nowhere. But China, with the size of its economy and potential, is in the best position to take a leading role in the creation of an Asian civilisation to interact with, or even challenge, the dominant Western civilisation.

Why and how? The latest United Nations Human Development Report is illuminating in this regard. The report is centred around a human development index meant to “emphasise that people and their capabilities should be the ultimate criteria for assessing the development of a country, not economic growth alone”. Specifically, it measures countries’ achievement in three key areas of human development: having a long and healthy life; being knowledgeable, and; having a decent standard of living.

According to the 2018 index, the top 10 populations are in Norway, Switzerland, Australia, Ireland, Germany, Iceland, Hong Kong, Sweden, Singapore and the Netherlands. The US, China and India were ranked 13th, 86th and 130th respectively. The strong showings of Hong Kong and Singapore, which both have ethnic Chinese-majority populations, suggest the Chinese are of a calibre to build a great civilisation covering at least East Asia, where Confucianism has been a shared value system spanning Japan, Korea, Vietnam and Singapore.

Furthermore, let’s look at Singapore and China under the microscope. The Asian values championed by Lee Kuan Yew – whereby the rights of the community supersede those of the individual – are rooted in Confucianism and traditional Chinese values. While navigating the financial crisis of 2008, for example, Singapore’s ministers and civil servants took pay cuts.

Asian values have been touted as a solution to problems in the West like drugs, guns, vagrancy and ethnic hatred. But Asian values alone did not vault Singapore to the UN’s top 10. The differentiator between Singapore and China is the rule of law. Consider The Analects of Confucius , in which there is a discussion about a moral dilemma: if a father steals a sheep, should a son bear witness to it? Confucius answers: “The father conceals the misconduct of the son, and the son conceals the misconduct of the father. Uprightness is to be found in this.”

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How would Lee deal with a similar situation? During a parliamentary debate in Singapore in 1995, he said: “ … when the government, including me, takes a matter to court or when the government is taken by private individuals to court, then the court must adjudicate upon the issues strictly on their merits and in accordance with the law. … Our reputation for the rule of law has been and is a valuable economic asset, part of our capital, although an intangible one.”

After meeting Lee in 1978, Deng Xiaoping became obsessed with the Singapore model of “managed democracy”, rule of law and traditional Chinese values. Hordes of Chinese apparatchiks headed to Singapore every year to be trained in governance. However, the initiative has stalled due to the political and ideological strife in China.

As a hybrid of authoritarian capitalism and Leninist elitism where a “superman” and powerful factions are placed above the people, China is too antithetical to both the rule of law and Asian values to lead the creation of a new Asian civilisation, unless it accomplishes the mission set forth by Deng to learn from Singapore. Craptacular events like the recent dialogue on civilisations will not add to China’s legitimacy. So, India still has a chance.

Billy Huang has served media outlets in Beijing, Hong Kong, Singapore and the United States for more than 20 years. [email protected]

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