by Rachel Chang
URBANISATION is the biggest challenge the Chinese Communist
Party (CCP) faces today because it pulls apart the social glue that
has held societies together, said Foreign Minister George Yeo on
Tuesday.
This is partly why China's leaders are interested in Singapore's
political system, as the People's Action Party is the one dominant
political party in Asia that has not fallen from power due to the
forces of urbanisation.
In China, Confucianism has bound the sprawling country since
ancient times, but it requires 'a certain accepted set of
hierarchical social relationships which are all dissolving now in
the modern world'.
The new realities of an urbanised state - 'small families, the
anonymity of city environments, everybody on mobile phones and the
Internet, growing social mobility' - could be the CCP's Achilles'
heel, said Mr Yeo in his closing address at the FutureChina Global
Forum.
Calling the PAP 'probably the most successful urban political
party in Asia', he said urbanisation was the top issue for
political parties across the continent.
The challenge is how Asian political parties can reinvent
themselves in the face of a shrinking rural power base.
