I will admit to a prejudice. I tend to believe, a priori, the people running Singapore are more likely to be right than wrong, more likely to be right than others. Since achieving independence from Malaysia, they have an awfully good track record.
Now comes a RealClearPolitics piece by George Yeo - the former foreign minister of Singapore and himself ethnically Straits Chinese - who argues that China is unlikely to become a colonial power because the mainland Chinese are inwardly focused and don’t wish to become close to other cultures, something becoming a regional hegemon would require.
Since independence, Singapore has been multi-ethnic and seems content to be so. Its founders were Straits Chinese, members of the Peranakan Chinese diaspora who can be found across Southeast Asia, Indonesia, and the Philippines. They tend to be a successful minority wherever found (except in Singapore where they dominate) and seem content to be so.
What is unclear is whether Yeo is describing a culture he views as unlike his own or whether he views himself as reporting from “inside the dragon.” Whether in short Yeo speaks as Straits Chinese or as ethnic Chinese. One suspects it is the former.
I suppose an analogy would be when an anglophone Canadian writes about the United Kingdom, does he write as a Canadian or as someone whose relatively recent ancestors were Brits? You’d guess “Canadian” and you’d often (but not always) be correct.
Perhaps Yeo thinks we should know where he stands. However, since he writes with apparent authority about the culturally driven intentions of the PRC, in this instance a clarification would not have been redundant.
