The PAP has always defended its much maligned immigration
policies on the grounds that Singapore needs to compete with other
countries for talents in an increasing globalized world.
Immigrant nations such as United States, Australia, New
Zealand and Canada are often quoted as examples for Singapore to
emulate.
The common argument is that these countries have grown and
prospered largely as a result of maintaining an open-door policy to
immigrants and that Singapore will lose out if it does not follow
suit.
There is a clear
difference between growing one’s population via immigration and
replacing one’s native population by importation
which the PAP seems unable or unwilling to understand.
Let us compare the PAP’s immigration policy with that of the
United States and Australia.
Though the United States and Australia have been accepting
immigrants from Europe, Asia and elsewhere over the years, they
have not lost their core national characteristic: they are mainly
white protestant societies with English as their lingua franca.
Furthermore, foreigners constitute only 12 percent of
United States’ population and 25 pecent of Australia’s according to
their census last year.
Foreigners now constitute
36 percent of Singapore’s population. The exact
percentage of citizens born overseas remains a mystery. It will not
be a surprise if more than 40 percent of the people living in
Singapore now are born overseas.
With such a significant proportion of foreigners in Singapore,
it is inevitable that
Singaporeans are finding themselves strangers in their own
countries which is exacerbated by the island’s small
size.
United States and Australia both have large landmass to
accommodate immigrants from all over the world as they are
sufficient localities for them to congregate without disturbing the
racial composition on a national scale.
For example, Melbourne itself has suburbs for the Vietnamese,
Malaysians and Koreans, but the rest of the city remains largely
white.
While the United States is cosmopolitan in major cities
like New York and Los Angeles, it retains its defining national
traits in the mid-western and central states such as Utah, Colorado
and Nevada.
This is not possible in Singapore simply because we are too
small and when too many people are crammed together in a
constrained space, the demographic changes will become none the
more obvious.
As English is a common language used by the three major races in
Singapore, common sense dictates that the immigrants should have
some basic command of the language in order to interact with native
Singaporeans.
In fact, prospective migrants have to pass an international
English test such as IELTS before they can work in Australia and
New Zealand.
Over the years, Singapore has accepted many China immigrants who
cannot speak the English language at all. How can we hope to
integrate them into the rest of society?
Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean said in a NUS ministerial
forum last week that there are so many foreigners in Singapore
lately “simply that there are many more people who want to live and
work here.” (Straits Times, 6 April 2010)
He cannot be more wrong.
First class world talents
are not flocking to take up Singapore citizenship. It is Singapore
who is giving out its citizenships like toilet papers to
undeserving foreigners who cannot make it in their own
countries.
In a Gallup poll done in July last year among college students
in China, their top three emigration destinations are United
States, South Korea and France. Singapore is not even featured in
the top three despite the cosy ties it enjoys with China.
What we are getting are economic migrants from China and not
their top brains which is hardly surprising.
Top-notch global talents move for various reasons such as a
higher quality of life, better career opportunities and political
liberties. Economic considerations are of less importance.
Singapore is definitely not an ideal place for immigrants to
settle in judging from its dismal ranking of 70th on the quality of
life scale conducted yearly by respected Irish magazine Living
International.
The Economist Unit ranked Singapore as the 53th best place in
the world to live in, way behind Australia, Canada and New
Zealand.
In the 1990s, Singapore has seen an influx of immigrants from
Taiwan and Hong Kong especially before the handover of Hong Kong to
China in 1997, but the flow of migrants has dried up from these two
places now, prompting the PAP to turn its sight to China
instead.
Based on anecdotal evidence, the Taiwanese, Hong Kongers as well
as mainland Chinese from the affluent cities of Shenzhen and
Guangzhou preferred to emigrate to Australia, Canada and New
Zealand rather than Singapore.
There are hardly any China nationals from Shenzhen, Beijing and
Shanghai in Singapore compared to the large number of non-English
speaking immigrants from the poorer inland provinces like Henan,
Hubei, Liaoning and Shanxi.
Australia and New Zealand have strict labor laws which restrict
the inflow of foreign migrant workers to only sectors where there
is a chronic shortage of native workers.
Due to Singapore’s
inability to attract first world talents to its shores, the PAP has
no choice but to open the floodgates to second class and even third
class foreigners who are struggling to make a living back
home.
These foreigners are allowed to come to Singapore on work, S, E
and EPEC passes to find work after which they are invited to take
up Singapore PR and eventually citizenship.
The ridiculous part is there is no minimal period of residency
required unlike in other developed countries.
Foreigners are able to obtain Singapore PRs in as short a period
as two months and citizenship within a year.
The Home Affairs Ministry
admitted that two out of every three PR applicants are successful
some of whom are construction workers, masseurs, cleaners and even
freelance prostitutes.
Does the PAP consider these new immigrants as “talents” too?
To put it bluntly, the PAP has no immigration policy to speak
of. It is basically taking the easy way out by opening the
floodgates to foreigners without any proper screening or
control.
Singaporeans are already feeling the negative repercussions of
the PAP’s recklessness: they have to compete with foreigners for
jobs, the place is becoming more congested and certain parts of
Singapore resemble more like China and India.
A recent Wall Street
Journal editorial revealed that the relentless influx of foreigners
into Singapore has depressed the wages of ordinary Singaporeans,
increased the cost of living and led to an overall decline in the
standard of living.
The Labor Report 2009 released by the Manpower Ministry shows
that the real earnings of Singaporeans has decreased by as much as
8.2 percent last year even as inflation rate continues to
increase.
No governments in any democratic states in the world will
survive such a disastrous, ill-conceived and misguided policy to
increase population by mass relocating and importing foreigners
from elsewhere at the expense of the natives.
Only in a one-party totalitarian state like Singapore can the
ruling party afford to cling on to power and still earns millions
of dollars in salaries in spite of the damage it has done.
In fact, PAP ministers are expected to receive a hefty 8.8
percent pay hike this year when the rest of Singapore
is suffering from their economic mismanagement of the
nation.
What has the PAP ministers done to deserve a pay rise? On the
contrary, they should have their pay cut by 90 percent for
their abject failure to uplift the lives of
ordinary Singaporeans!
It is high time that Singaporeans exercise their rights as
citizens of Singapore by voting the pro-foreigner PAP or FAP
(Foreigner Action Party) out of office. We are voting for a
government to take care of our interests first and NOT the
foreigners!
