[China & SEA]The Significance of Confucianism for Singapore

Fan Lei, Researcher, Chahar Institute and Director, Singapore Studies Centre, Shandong University of Political Science and Law

The    original    article    is    here.

Confucianism is a tangled presence for Singapore. As a traditional ethic derived from the history and culture of a particular ethnic group, Confucianism bears a clear Chinese imprint and was once the rage during the Confucian revival movement of the 1980s. It had a strong influence not only in Singapore, but also in the world's Chinese community and the international community as a  whole, and Singapore at that time almost became the spokesman for Asian values, even to the extent that Lee Kuan Yew was elected as the Honorary President of the International Confucian Union many years later. However, the role of Confucianism in the governance of the Singaporean community needs to be seen in perspective.

In a multi-ethnic Singapore, it is difficult to channel a value code or ethical system that is originally at the community level to the national level through government action, and expect the public of different communities  to accept it. However, for the newly independent Singapore in the 1970s, the PAP was challenged by the encroachment of Western culture, the loss of roots in the local culture and the lack of a unified national value system. What Singapore needed at that time was a value system that could systematically address these challenges, and Confucianism entered the official vision at first.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a revival of Confucianism in Singapore was initiated by the Chinese intellectual elite who had moved south. It was only in the 1970s and 1980s that a new Confucian revival movement was able to develop within the framework of Asian values and gradually become part of the  national value system, as the PAP government reflected on the lack of a realistic cultural policy and national value system.

However, the PAP government is also aware that if it promotes the culture and values of a particular ethnic group from an official perspective, it will inevitably lead to the fear of assimilation and generalisation, and cause discontent and opposition from other ethnic groups. Therefore, on the one hand, the government  has been influencing public opinion to lead a major social debate, emphasising that Confucianism, as part of the human value system, is as universal as the teachings of religions such as Christianity and Islam, and is not a narrow value with a national or ethnic label. On the other hand, it invited eight prominent figures of Neo-Confucianism, including Yu Yingsi, Du Weiming, Xiong Jie, Tang Degang and Xu Jonas, to visit Singapore to formulate a plan for the revival of Confucianism that would suit the needs of Singaporean society at the time. Thus, Singapore was promoted "as a seed of a global civilisation sprinkled across this diverse world."

To this end, the government first introduced Confucian ethics as one of the six optional subjects in school education, and then gradually extended it to the community level through practice in  schools, so as to avoid the panic and discontent of other communities that would be caused by its massive extension throughout society. At the same time, society should be led to understand that Confucianism, unlike other religious systems such as Christianity and Islam, is only an ethical system and a code of conduct for life, and is not antagonistic to or a threat to other religious teachings. Of course,  the government's aim in promoting the Confucian ethics curriculum is not just to make it a curriculum, but to incorporate the essence of Confucian culture into the national value system, so that it can become an effective normative system that crosses ethnic boundaries and dissolves ethnic tensions.

However, Confucianism and Confucian ethics could not be fully embedded in the value DNA of Singaporeans of all ethnic groups, and the government had to try to replace it with more neutral and comprehensive values at the national level. Eventually, Confucian ethics and other religious ethics such as Christianity and Islam faded from Singapore's liberal education system as they could not be shaken off in the short term because of the inherent ethnic historical

memory. The government then dug deeper into the common attributes of the cultures, religions and historical traditions and norms of the various ethnic groups, based on the principle of  seeking common ground while preserving differences, and shaped the nation's value system with neutral and integrated norms, which led to the construction of 'Asian values' and the 1991 Shared Values This led to the construction of 'Asian values' and the 1991 White Paper on Shared Values.

While many scholars see "Asian values" and "shared values" as a sublimation and embodiment of Confucianism, a look at Lee Kuan Yew's attitude might lead to a different conclusion. In his memoirs, Lee Kuan Yew seems to have had little sympathy for the concept of 'Asian values', stating clearly that he would try to 'avoid using the term Asian values' because of the 'diverse interpretations of Asian values'. He was not a big fan of the concept of Asian values. He believed that Asian values encompassed a wide range of areas such as Hinduism, Islam Buddhism and Confucianism, and could not be narrowly equated with Confucianism. Even the 'shared values' that have been identified as Singapore's national value system are only a collection of traditional values and ethical commonalities among the various ethnic groups in Singapore, including the Chinese, who still retain their own traditional values under the shared value system.

It can be said that the value system of Confucianism in Singapore's communal governance was only a brick in the wall that the PAP government, represented by Lee Kuan Yew, chose to shape and construct a system of "shared values" at a particular time, and after completing its historical mission, it became one of the cornerstones of the system.