TR EMERITUS

By Barry Porter from South China Morning Post, 1998 CHIA Thye Poh, a willowy, softly spoken, 57-year-old bachelor, leads a quiet, simple life these days in a spartan third-storey flat on one of Singapore's sprawling suburban public housing estates, dutifully looking after his elderly parents, both in their 80s. He rarely goes out or sees anyone. He is poor-sighted, suffers from prostate and lung problems, a weak bladder and earns a meagre living of just a few hundred Singapore dollars a week working as a freelance translator from home. Yet, for the past three decades, this very same man has been branded by the government a violent communist revolutionary and a threat to national security. On Friday, after 32 years of stubbornly protesting his innocence, Mr Chia was finally restored his full rights as a Singapore citizen. Mr Chia spent 22 years, six months, two weeks and four days in jail, mostly in solitary confinement, until 1989 - becoming the world's second longest serving prisoner-of-conscience after South Africa's Nelson Mandela. The 9 1/2 years after his release were spent under severe restrictions. "The best years of my life were taken away just like that without a charge or trial," says Mr Chia, having had his right to talk to the press finally restored. Tears swell in his eyes as he contemplates his lost chance of marrying and raising a family. "I'm getting old." Mr Chia was detained on October 29, 1966 under Singapore's Internal Security Act (ISA), the same draconian law remnant from British colonial days in Malaya, used recently in Malaysia to controversially detain former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim. For 19 years, the government gave no explanation for Mr Chia's detention. When one finally came in 1985, Mr Chia was accused of having led a call for the revival of armed struggle. At the time of his detention, Mr Chia had been a raw and ready 25-year-old novice member of parliament for the Barisan Sosialia (Socialist Front) opposition party. He entered full-time politics almost by default. Having graduated in physics, he worked for a short time as a secondary school teacher, before returning to Nanyang University as a graduate assistant. His ambition was to travel abroad to study a masters in physics. February 2, 1963, was the day that changed his life. The Singapore government, headed by a then more youthful Lee Kwan Yew, carried out the arrest of about 100 political activists fearful of a communist insurgency. Elections were due to be held in September that year, so Mr Chia became one of a number of socialist-minded graduates who came forward to replace those arrested as candidates. Mr Chia insists his views were not communist, but anti-colonialist. He wanted to fight for a "fair, just independence" from Britain. However, he shot to fame when banned permanently from entering Malaysia after allegedly making a speech at a conference held by the pro-communist Perak division of the Labour Party of Malaysia on April 24, 1966. Shortly before his arrest later that year, Mr Chia and other Barisan MPs quit the Singapore parliament to allegedly organise street demonstrations, strikes and protest meetings in the republic, seen as further evidence of his alleged communist tendencies. Mr Chia recalls things differently. He claims he ran into trouble with the authorities after Singapore's then Prime Minister Mr Lee and his ruling People's Action Party (PAP) suddenly announced Singapore's split from the Malaya Federation in 1965. "The separation was never discussed in parliament. There was no referendum. We protested and asked for a convening of parliament," Mr Chia recalls. To drive their point home, Mr Chia says he and a small number of other like-minded MP's staged a boycott. At the same time, the Vietnam War was raging and Mr Chia says he was among the peace campaigners calling for an end to the heavy American bombing of Indo-China. "We wanted peace. If the war escalated, it probably would have spilled over to the rest of the region." He insists to this day he was a peace campaigner, not an insurgent for the Vietnamese communists or Red China. When Nelson Mandela was finally released from jail in 1989 after much international outcry, the world spotlight turned temporarily on Mr Chia, who until then had been comparatively a forgotten man. After several months of foreign pressure, the Singapore authorities part-relented. But rather than granting his freedom like Mr Mandela, he was placed under internal exile on Sentosa Island where he spent the next 3.5 years leading a Kafka-esque lifestyle. He was forced to live in a one-room former guardhouse on the small island just south of the city and placed under severe restrictions. He was made to pay rent and buy and prepare his own food in the pretence that he was a free man. He had no money, so the government offered him a job as assistant curator of Sentosa Fort, a position he turned down because as a grade two civil servant he would not have been able to talk to the media without official approval. "It would have been another muzzle," Mr Chia says. Instead, he negotiated a position as a freelance translator for the Sentosa Development Corporation (SDC), a position he still holds. "At that time, Sentosa was not inhabited," Mr Chia recalls. "There were only some youth hostels. There were no hotels." While Mr Chia sat in his one-room guardhouse the SDC built a giant Disney-style theme park around him. He was allowed to move freely within the island and receive visitors, but millions of day-trippers came-and-went over the years unaware they were missing out on the star attraction. In 1990 and 1992, his restrictions were gradually relaxed to allow him to visit the Singapore mainland daily and subsequently reside with his parents. He believes intervention by former German chancellor Helmut Schmidt may have helped. In November last year, his restrictions were relaxed further to allow him to travel abroad, change his address or look for a new job without prior written permission from the director of the Internal Security Department. He subsequently left for a year in Germany with Singapore government approval on the invitation of the Hamburg Foundation for Persons Persecuted for Political Reasons, where he studied democratic politics and German. He returned to Singapore in August this year to undergo a prostate operation. But until last Friday, he still needed written approval to make public statements, address public meetings or take part in any political activity, at home or overseas. Of course, if he had applied, this would have been automatically refused. He could not make contact with any political activists or former political detainees. He could not even belong to any organisation, not even a chess club. Chandra Muzaffar, a political science professor at the University of Malaya, says: "It is a damning indictment on the Singapore Government to have held a chap for all those years and then when finally releasing him issue all those restrictions. It was such an inhuman thing to do to incarcerate him for so long." Mr Chia resents comparisons to Nelson Mandela. He points out that Mr Mandela, who became South Africa's president, had belonged to a banned party, had mass following, was charged in court and given a life sentence. "He got out of prison and became a free man straight away," he says. "I should have been set free long, long ago. From the very beginning if they had found I had done anything wrong they should have charged me in court and offered me a chance to defend myself." The Singapore government has justified its marathon stranglehold on Mr Chia with his refusal to renounce violence. Asked why he never took this option, Mr Chia says: "To renounce violence is to imply you advocated violence before. If I had signed that statement I would not have lived in peace." At the same time, while in jail, Mr Chia bizarrely never sought to appear before the advisory board set up under the ISA to challenge the reasons for his detention. Home Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng explained to parliament in July that trials of Communist Party members used to be impossible because the party intimidated and liquidated witnesses who gave evidence in court. While in detention, his captors are said to have taunted Mr Chia by driving him around the city-state showing him how fast Singapore was developing. Just sign this little piece of paper, they said, and you can be part of these exciting new developments. When he refused, Mr Chia claims he was told he could rot in jail. "I told them, 'yeah it is clean and green,' but they should let me out so I can talk to people to ask them what they thought first and let them comment." It is unclear what triggered the sudden lifting of Mr Chia's restraining orders last week. The sceptics suggest it could be because Singapore is due to host a human rights convention in a month's time when Mr Chia's plight was due to be raised. Bruce Gale, Political and Economic Risk Consultancy (Perc) manager for Southeast Asia, has another theory. "Malaysia and Indonesia are not on best of terms with Singapore. So Singapore has to rely more and more on the United States [for military protection]. The US is being very vocal in Malaysia [about human rights and the ISA]. What the Singaporeans are effectively saying is we are not like that. We do not detain people without trial anymore. This is a gesture of goodwill. Not that the Americans asked for it." Mr Chia insists no deal was struck. In fact, he says he informed the Internal Security Department officer who notified him of the lifting of his restriction orders he was still interested in politics. The government responded by issuing a statement on Friday warning that if Mr Chia should engage in activities prejudicial to Singapore's security he would be dealt with firmly under the law. While keen to re-involve himself in politics, Mr Chia says he needs time to re-familiarise himself with life, people and issues. "Things will have to go on slowly," he says. "After 32 years in prison and under detention, things have changed. I have to see what I can contribute after so many years." He accepts he has to cope with premature old age and sees himself more as a follower than leader of any political party. "I am not an ambitious man. I live a very simple life. You get used to it after so many years." His eyesight is impaired from many years in a darkened cell. His lung problem, now stabilised, stems from the same time. As we chat, he frequently gets muddled, referring to recent events as having taken place in 1966, the year he was detained. Joshua Jeyaretnam, leader of Singapore's small parliamentary opposition movement, says: "He is hardly a violent revolutionary. He is a soft-spoken man and doesn't look like a fighter." Mr Chia's Barisan party merged with Mr Jeyaretnam's Workers' Party in the early 90s. Perc's Mr Gale says: "I don't think the Singaporeans are risking very much. He could join an opposition political party. He has said he is still interested in politics. But opposition in Singapore has been rather muted since the last [general] elections." Mr Chia is not sure whether he will join the Workers' Party. However, asked what his political beliefs are today, he is unrelenting. "I feel there should be a fair, just, democratic society. Down-trodden people, low-income people should be helped." His first action after restrictions were lifted on Friday was to issue a stern public statement condemning the ISA and demanding its repeal. Asked whether he holds any grudges against Singapore's Senior Minister and former veteran prime minister Mr Lee and his People's Action Party which has held an iron grip on power in Singapore since independence in 1957, Mr Chia said: "I have no personal grudge against anybody. "My main concern is the policy [of detention without trial], because if the policy is not fair, many people will suffer." Source: Singapore Window  Read More →

By Henry Sanderson from Associated Press As leader of the volatile far western Xinjiang territory for 15 years, Wang Lequan is the closest China has to a regional strongman. So it's little wonder a recent purge of lower-ranking officials over a spate of bloody unrest has done nothing to clip his authority, underscoring both the extent of his power and China's extreme sensitivity over any changes in the leadership of this strategic, conflict-ridden territory. Angry protesters poured into the streets of the regional capital Urumqi last week, demanding the removal of Wang and other officials over deadly ethnic rioting in July and a string of unnerving needle attacks blamed by the government on Muslim separatists. Officials say five people died in the protests and 21 have been detained on suspicion of stabbing people with needles. On Saturday, the protesters won a partial victory with the firing of Urumqi's Communist Party Secretary Li Zhi and Xinjiang's regional police chief. Wang, 64, escaped without so much as a reprimand. "Wang Lequan is too big," said an Urumqi beverage seller on Sunday, who would give only his surname, Chen, for fear of official reprisals. "There is nothing you can do." If anything, last week's protests may have strengthened Wang's position because Beijing will always favor a tough approach toward ethnic unrest, even if that just aggravates the tensions, said Michael Davis, a professor of law at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. "The government has shown that every time this problem flares, rather than reconsider the problem, they crack down, and the hard-liners take a dominant position," Davis said. Paramilitary forces maintained a strong presence on the Urumqi's streets on Sunday, but there was no sign of new protests of the sort that had called for Wang's ouster and forced him to address demonstrators outside his office on Thursday. Residents told reporters they were basically satisfied with the dismissals and wanted a return to normalcy — although they repeated demands for a speedy end to the needle attacks and prosecutions of suspects in the July riots that killed 197 people. A close ally of President Hu Jintao, Wang has led Xinjiang, China's westernmost region that abuts Central Asia, since 1994 — an unprecedented term in modern Chinese politics. He's consolidated his hold on power by combining a hard line toward the region's native Turkic Muslim Uighur ethnic group with an unremitting drive to develop the region's economy and mineral wealth. Under Wang's policies, the Uighur language has been marginalized through the introduction of bilingual education and Muslim religious life tightly controlled. Advocates for Uighur cultural rights have been harassed and jailed while thousands have reportedly been rounded up in sweeps for extremists. At the same time, Xinjiang's population has swelled with the addition of millions of ethnic Han migrants from elsewhere in China, while Urumqi has grown into a Central Asian economic powerhouse. Wang has milked Beijing for investment and loans, while turning the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps., a sort of government-within-a-government with its own militia and courts — into a corporation listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange. Stirring the resentment, many Uighurs complain the new jobs and economic benefits have accrued largely to the Han population, who they regard as having occupied their homeland. Many Han, for their part, regard Uighurs as lazy and ungrateful for the development brought by Chinese rule. Born in the eastern province of Shandong, Wang came of age politically during the chaos of the 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution, rising in 1989 to vice governor of his native province. Beginning in 1991, Wang began his steady climb up the Xinjiang leadership ladder, taking over as acting party secretary just three years later. During his time in Shandong, Wang served for four years as deputy secretary of the provincial Communist Youth League, lending him access to Hu at a time when the future president and Communist Party leader was cementing his power base within the league's national committee in Beijing. The close ties paid off and in 2002, the year Hu took over as party head, Wang gained a seat on the Communist Party's powerful Politburo. "You don't survive leadership changes unless you have built up very powerful apparatus in Xinjiang," Beijing-based China commentator Russell Leigh Moses said. The two men remain close, a sign of Hu's reliance on Wang to hold the line in Xinjiang. Wang is renowned for his tough, salty talk on the need to crush terrorism, religious extremism, and separatism — a rhetorical flair shared by a former deputy Zhang Qingli, now Tibet's hard-line party boss. "These guys are fantasizing if they think they can disrupt the Olympics," Wang said in 2008, after crushing a series of alleged plots blamed on Uighur separatists ahead of the Beijing games. "They don't have the strength." Source: AP  Read More →

From our Correspondent Singapore's semiconductor industry had floundered in recent years with mounting losses caused by reduced demand and intense competition from Taiwanese and U.S. chipmakers, a situation exacerbated by the global financial crisis. Once the crown jewel of Singapore inc, Chartered Semiconductor has struggled to make a profit in the last two years. Chartered Semiconductor was created in 1987 as a venture that included Singapore Technologies Engineering Ltd., another state-linked company owned by Temasek Holdings. When its shares were first floated in the market in 1999, IPO price was USD $20 10 years later, it is worth only USD$1.86 per share. (Source: Money Central) At current prices, Temasek may lose up to S$16 billion dollars from the deal. (also read here) Advanced Technology Investment Co., an investment company owned by Abu Dhabi, will pay S$2.68 ($1.86) a share in cash for Chartered Semiconductor. It will spend a total of S$2.5 billion to buy Temasek's stake of 62 per cent or 930 million shares in the company. In Monday's statement, the companies said Temasek fully supports the acquisition by ATIC and will vote in support of the transaction. Abu Dhabi plans to combine Chartered Semiconductors with Globalfoundries Inc., a venture ATIC created with Advanced Micro Devices Inc. last year. Temasek will be relieved to be rid of an unprofitable company which is encountering difficulties to keep itself afloat. In January this year, Chartered Semiconductors retrenched 600 workers in Singapore. (Source: CNA) Chartered Semiconductor today also raised its third-quarter forecasts for revenue and earnings. Revenue will range from S$405 million to S$415 million, up from a forecast of S$382 million to S$394 million, according to a statement. The company now anticipates results to range from a net loss of S$8 million to breakeven, an improvement from a loss of S$27 million to S$17 million. Chartered Semiconductor has reported losses in the previous four quarters. Globalfoundries Chief Executive Officer Doug Grose will run the combined operations, ATIC said. Chartered Semiconductor CEO Chia Song Hwee will be chief operating officer and will be in charge of integrating the operations. Ironically, Mr Chia said that Chartered has a chance of breaking even in the third quarter ending Sept. 30, noting that the company has upgraded its outlook for the period amid improving market conditions. Globalfoundries has been facing an uphill battle against No. 1 player Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. and second-ranked United Microelectronics Corp., both of Taiwan. It currently has just one manufacturing base in Dresden, Germany, and has a weak client base with just AMD as its primary customer. By adding Chartered, analysts said Globalfoundries would gain access to a broader set of clients like Broadcom Corp. and Qualcomm Inc., and position itself for growth with a US$4.2 billion plant in New York state that could be fully ramped up within as early as three years. This may very well put Globalfoundries in a position to pose a legitimate threat to TSMC and UMC in the contract chip manufacturing market later down the road. (Source: WSJ) The semiconductor industry was once touted as a key industry for Singapore in the 1990s as it shifted away from low-cost manufacturing and electronics industry to high-end technologies. It was not known how much money the Singapore government had invested initially to set up Chartered Semiconductor's operations. Despite a good start, Chartered Semiconductor soon find itself up against larger players in a field dominated by Taiwanese chipmakers. Temasek's exit from Chartered Semiconductor will mark the dawn of the semiconductor industry in Singapore and yet another blemish on its record under the leadership of Ho Ching after Shin Corp, ABC Learning, Merrill Lynch and Barclays Bank. Related articles: >> Abu Dhabi to buy Chartered Semiconductor >> How Norway manages its Sovereign Wealth Fund by Fang Zhi Yuan >> Temasek’s spin doctors at Straits Times try to salvage battered image >> Temasek outperforms? by Edmund Khor EDITORS’ NOTE: If you like our work and would like to support us, please transfer your donations via paypal to our account ([email protected]). Any amount will be greatly appreciated! Alternatively, you can also help boost our advertising revenue by clicking on the ads displayed. Thank you! Join our tweet at www.twitter.com/temasekreview  Read More →