TR EMERITUS

Leong Sze Hian We refer to the full page coverage in the Straits Times of 23 July, on the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) CPF Forum on 22 July. A great deal has been said in recent months about our CPF system, and at the IPS forum as well. However, the following questions remain unanswered: 1) What is the GIC’s returns from inception, since we now know that CPF funds have always been managed by the GIC? 2) What is the average weighted interest on all CPF accounts, yearly, since the extra 1% on the first $60,000 was only effected on 1 January 2008? 3) What is the average weighted interest on the Ordinary and Special Accounts (excluding the Medisave Account) since Medisave cannot be used as retirement funds? 4) What is the cumulative excess returns (GIC’s rate minus CPF average weighted interest)  in absolute dollars that CPF members have lost over the years? 5) What is the percentage of all Singaporeans (active and inactive CPF members, self-employed) who reached age 55 last year, who were able to meet the combined CPF and Medisave Minimum Sums of $198,500, since both minimum sums must now (effective 1 January 2013) be met before CPF members can withdraw the excess in their accounts?   S Y Lee and Leong Sze Hian P.S. Come with your family and friends to the 3rd Return Our CPF – HDB protest on 23 August 4 pm to 6.30 pm at Speakers’ Corner https://www.facebook.com/events/648543138548193/   Editor's note: TRE has forwarded Mr Leong's questions to DPM Tharman    Read More →

Was NSP’s Embargoed Policy Proposal Circulated to 3rd parties by ST? On Sat 28 June 2014, NSP invited The Straits Times (ST) to attend our Press Conference to be held at 7.45 pm, 2 July 2014 at which NSP would present our Electoral Reform Proposal. On Sat 28 June 2014, ST responded to accept our invitation and requested for a copy of the Proposal. We were happy to provide ST with an advanced (but embargoed) copy of our Proposal to help them be better prepared for our Press Conference. On 1 July 2014 08:15 pm, we replied to ST’s request for a copy of our Proposal as follows: “Please find attached the embargoed copy of our CRM Proposal. We will be releasing the definitive version to the public domain after the Press Conference. Any changes between the attached embargoed version and the definitive version are likely to be minor. Should there be any changes, I will let you know what they are.” On the header of each page of the Embargoed Copy was printed in red: “EMBARGOED COPY (VER 13.1 1 JULY 2014)” The Embargoed Copy itself contained no expiry date, but had a version date. Our email to ST did not indicate any expiry date for the Embargoed Copy. In fact, we had indicated that there may be changes to the Embargoed Copy. We promised that any changes between the Embargoed Copy and the Release Version would be highlighted to ST. Breach of Confidence? On Wed 2 July 2014, ST attended our Press Conference which took place between 8pm to 9pm. Early morning on Thurs 3 July 2014 at 1:24am, we emailed ST a copy of the Release Version. We also attached a Tracked Version highlighting the changes between the Embargoed Version and the Release Version, in fulfilment of our promise to ST. Later at about 1pm that day, on Thursday 3 July 2014, we posted the Release Version of the Proposal in the public domain. However, earlier at 6:02am on Thurs 3 July 2014, ST published its article captioned “NSP calls for GRCs to be scrapped“. The article provided comments on our Proposal given by the following persons: Institute of Policy Studies senior research fellow Dr Gillian Koh National University sociologist Dr Tan Ern Ser Mr Zaqy Mohamad, PAP Member of Parliament for Chua Chu Kang GRC It was clear to us that the Embargoed Copy ST received from us had been circulated to individuals who are not from ST, in breach of confidence. We asked ST if it wanted to comment. Phone Call from the Writer of the ST Article On 5 July 2014 at about 4pm, our Secretary-General (SG) had a phone call from the writer of that ST article. The writer said that she had called to find out exactly what were our concerns and how she could address them. Our SG told her that it is important and necessary for NSP to know whether ST has the same understanding as us of the term “EMBARGOED COPY”. Our SG then explained to her what she believed the term meant. After hearing our SG’s definition, the writer tried to argue about the Embargo being lifted after 9.30pm. Our SG however pointed out to her that she is not allowed to circulate our embargoed copy to third parties, and not whether it is released/published after 9.30pm. The writer then confirmed that she did not furnish our Embargoed Copy to any of the 3 people mentioned in her article. She claimed that all she did was to summarise/describe our proposals to her interviewees and then asked her interviewees what they thought about it. To drive her point home, the ST writer mentioned that she even contacted a Member of Parliament from the opposition, who declined to give any comment on the basis that he had not read our Proposal. To this our SG remarked that it did appear from her article that the 3 people she cited commented as if they were privy to a copy of our Proposal. Moreover, from the public conversation thread between Dr Koh and NSP member Ravi Philemon on FB, it seemed as if Dr Koh had read the Proposal. Our SG also remarked that if her 3 interviewees gave their comments on the basis of her summarisation/description, but without the benefit of having actually read our Proposals, then their comments are pretty worthless; but that if indeed the writer did not furnish a copy of our Proposal to any third parties, then we have no issue. In which case, the writer may consider replying to us via email with such clarification. The writer then said that since she has clarified this with our SG on the phone, if there was a need for her to reply NSP’s email? Our SG told her that the phone conversation with the writer is a personal contact between the writer and our SG, and that her email as NSP’s SG still stands. She reminded the writer that in our email, we invited ST to comment. Our SG told the writer to make her own decision whether to reply or not reply us. Another Phone Call On 7 July 2014 at about 11.30am, our SG had another phone call from the writer of that article. In her phone call the writer told our SG that she checked her email and realised that she had indeed forwarded a copy of our embargoed copy to two academics sometime during office hours on 2 July 2014, and that one of the recipients was Dr Tan, whose comments were cited by the writer in her article. She said that the other academic did not respond to her email. The writer said that she did not forward any document to Dr Koh and that she did not know how Dr Koh obtained her copy of our Embargoed Copy. The ST writer apologised for telling our SG in her previous phone conversation that she did not circulate the Embargoed Copy to anyone when in fact she had done so to two academics. The writer went on to explain that she had been instructed by her supervisor to seek the views of experts as part of her write up on our Press Conference. To our SG’s question as to how the writer could expect to obtain meaningful responses from her interviewees by simply forwarding our 5,000 word Proposal to them, expecting them to respond immediately, the writer explained that she wrote a cover message identifying the issues or posing the specific questions that she was seeking their responses to. Our SG told the writer that she found it unsettling that ST’s method of covering a Press Conference to deliver a 5,000 word Proposal for Electoral Reform would be to seek the views of experts on the eve of the Press Conference by serving them with: an Embargoed Copy of our Proposal; and specific questions for their responses; and then delivering the comments of such experts to a captive audience as if these were duly considered opinions, when in fact they were off the cuff remarks to packaged questions. Our SG asked the writer whether or not she would be responding to her email. ST’s Assistant Political Editor Replies On 9 July 2014 at 1.14pm, the Assistant Political Editor of ST responded via email to say the following: Dear Jeannette, I refer to your email to Rachel on July 5, 2014. I understand she has already explained to you the events that had occurred. The National Solidarity Party’s report was sent to two news makers telling them that it was embargoed till 930pm, with the clear understanding that they would not circulate it to others. This was to get comments on NSP ‘s proposals for our story the next day. There was no intention to breach confidence, and I would like to assure you that we do respect embargoes. I hope this clarifies any misunderstanding that may have arisen, and that we can continue to work together going forward. Sincerely, Robin Chan Assistant Political Editor The Straits Times NSP’s SG replies to ST’s Editor On 13 July 2014 at 5.12pm, our SG replied to the Assistant Political Editor of The Straits Times as follows: Dear Robin Thank you for your email below of 9 July 2014. (1) Circulation of Embargoed Copy of our Paper to Third Parties We note that Straits Times (ST) had indeed circulated the Embargoed Copy of our Electoral Reform Proposal Paper to third parties without our consent. The Embargoed Copy is not a press release. It is the final draft of a 5,000 word paper, the definitive version of which was scheduled for public release after its presentation at the Press Conference. We had even indicated to your reporter, Rachel Au-Yong, that there might be changes between the embargoed version and the definitive version, and we promised to inform her of any such changes. We had advanced ST the Embargoed Copy for purposes of the Press Conference, to help your reporter better prepare herself for the Press Conference. On every page of the document is printed the words “EMBARGOED COPY (VER 13.1 1 JULY 2014)”. Nowhere on the document is any embargo expiry time stated. We did not expect ST to forward our Embargoed Copy to anyone outside of ST. The information given by ST to the third parties that it was embargoed till 9.30pm of 2 July 2014 – is inaccurate as there is no stated expiry for the embargo. We note that ST also requested the third parties not to circulate it to others – but such request is clearly non-binding on the third parties. (2) Solicitation of Bias, Pre-emptory Comments We note that only hours before our 8pm Press Conference, ST circulated the Embargoed Copy to two newsmakers in order to seek comments from them ahead of our Press Conference. The very next morning (3 July 2014), Straits Times published an article captioned “NSP calls for GRCs to be scrapped”. The article provided comments on our Proposal paper given by the following persons described by the article as ‘political analysts’ (none of whom attended our Press Conference): (1) Institute of Policy Studies senior research fellow Gillian Koh; (2) National University sociologist Tan Ern Ser; and (3) Mr Zaqy Mohamad, PAP Member of Parliament for Chua Chu Kang GRC We do not know who (if any) of those three persons were among the two newsmakers ST had circulated our Embargoed Copy to. If they had received our Embargoed Copy, it is unlikely that they would have had the time to read and digest the substance of our 5,000 word draft paper before giving their comments to ST. If they gave their comments not as a result of having read our Proposal, but on the basis of a description of our Proposal, then we wonder how did ST describe our Proposal and whether the description of our Proposal provided to them was fair and objective, or selective and biased. Moreover, if they had given their comments in response to certain questions ST had posed to them, it is not known from the article what the questions were or how they were framed. Yet, anyone reading the ST article will naturally assume that those three persons gave their comments after some thought and due consideration of our Proposal – which was not the case at all. By soliciting comments ahead of our Press Conference and public release, and packaging them as substantive thoughts from ‘political analysts’ (which term connotes independence and objectivity), ST has pre-empted the conversation which we had wanted to start with the presentation of our Proposal at the Press Conference by introducing bias at the onset. What is more, the public is not aware of the limited extent to which the three persons had considered our Proposal before giving their comments on it. How useful to the public are “on-the-spot” comments given on the basis of a description of the Proposal provided to the commentator? The method of choosing our national leaders is serious issue. On such substantive matters, do not the public deserve to read opinions which are arrived at after the opinion maker has read up and has mulled over the issues before speaking about it? What is the urgency of seeking opinions from ‘political analysts’ for publication the next morning after the Press Conference? We find it difficult to understand why ST would want to seek comments from newsmakers on a 5,000 word Proposal for Electoral Reform ahead of a Press Conference to present the public release of the same. The foregoing is intended to communicate our perspective to ST in the interest of Singaporean readers, as they currently do not enjoy a wide source of local news. Regards Jeannette Chong-Aruldoss, Secretary-General NATIONAL SOLIDARITY PARTY 397 Jalan Besar #02-01A, Singapore 209007 Website: http://nsp.sg To date we have no further responses from ST on this matter. *  First published July 18, NSP website.  Read More →

Soviet Union I refer to Mr Ronald Tan’s 20 Jul 2014 TR Emeritus letter “Re-evaluating Ng Kok Lim’s re-evaluation”. The gist of Mr Tan’s arguments are these: 1. Since Moscow’s Comintern directed the MCP’s set up, MCP was taking orders from Comintern, Soviet Union. So the MCP wasn’t patriotic, wasn’t fighting for the Malayan cause but was merely following Soviet orders to turn Malaya into another Soviet satellite similar to East Europe Soviet states where oppression was worse than by the Nazis and where political dissidents were either executed or sent to gulags. 2. Ho Chi Minh tortured the South Vietnamese and supported the Khmer Rouge which murdered 2 million people. Anyone who portrays Ho Chi Minh as an admirable anti-colonial is whitewashing his despotism and his mass murders which is no different from Holocaust denial. 3. Saying that communist violence cannot be condoned but that they deserve better is covering up for communist wrong doings and is like saying the Nazis deserve better even though they were mass murderers. MCP taking orders from Soviet Union The argument that MCP was taking orders from the Soviet Union because its set up was Comintern directed is facile at best and deceitful at worst. The following evidence shows that Comintern was disbanded during the war so the MCP’s patriotic jungle war against the Japanese couldn’t have been Soviet directed. It also shows that the later Cominform was focused more on China and Indonesia and that Ho Chi Minh had an independent streak, not a complete Soviet stooge. • The Comintern had been abolished in 1943 as a gesture to the anti-Fascist allies. In November 1947 it was reconstituted as the Cominform [Communist Information Bureau] … But Andrei Zhdanov ‘boxed in’ the organization with ‘the rigid and rather simplistic “two-camp doctrine”, under which the Cominform deliberately bypassed what would seem to have been obvious opportunities in Asia. The turn to Asia … was focused more on China than Southeast Asia, and in Southeast Asia more on Indonesia than Indochina … some in Moscow saw Ho Chi Minh as too independent, too much like the Yugoslav Tito who had refused to bend to the Russians’ will in Europe. [Southeast Asia and the Great Powers, Nicholas Tarling, page 124] The following evidence shows that the Special Branch, Chin Peng and the Russians themselves all denied Soviet instructions for the MCP uprising of 1948. • The Times (London) had long ago (June 1948) taken the view there was little evidence of direct Soviet intervention in the rise of revolutionary movements then taking place in Malaya and other parts of Southeast Asia • At the beginning of the Emergency in June 1948, the Special Branch was inclined to downplay the importance of the CPM’s uprising unless it received exernal support, and no reports of any such external assistance had been received. It began to look more closely at the situation, however, when captured documents revealed that the CPM was in written contact with Liu Shao-che, a top-ranking member of the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee … It was apparent that the CPM attached importance to Mao Zedong’s On New Democracy (1940) and his “Theory of National Democratic Revolution”, which essentially adapted Marxist-Leninism for Chinese conditions to provide an ideological justification for China’s supporting communist revolutions in Southeast Asia. • After weighing all of these factors and their knowledge of the local situation, the Special Branch came to the view that Soviet influence, as opposed to Chinese influence, was negligible in Malaya • Too Chee Chew who later became head of the government’s psychological warfare section, supported the Special Branch’s analysis. Writing much later in the New Straits Times … he reasoned that while the CPM leaders could be expected to take note of such international communist directives that happened to serve their purpose, they would infinitely prefer to be masters of their own destiny than “running dogs” or puppets of international communism. • Chin Peng stated that Sharkey did not convey any “instructions” or “message” from the Calcutta meeting to the CPM, a denial that he subsequently repeated at the Chin Peng Workshop in Canberra, 22 February 1999. In fact, in an earlier BBC TV interview in London on 19 June 1998, he had already denied that the hidden hand of the Soviets was behind the CPM’s uprising. • In the Tribune of 14 August 1948, Sharkey pointed out that ‘Always the Communist Party is supposed to be “ordered” from outside to do this, that or the other thing: whereas wars of national independence cannot be conjured up by “instructions” from anyone but arise out of existing conditions. • To sum up … evidence assembled by the Special Branch that the CPM’s uprising arose from its own dynamics rather than any “instruction” issued to it from the Soviets … the views arrived as early as 1949 by the Malayan Special Branch are corroborated by contemporary research that mined the recently opened Russian archives in Moscow as confirmed by … Asian Research Institute, National University of Singapore, 10-11 July 2008. [The origins of the cold war in Southeast Asia: the case of the Communist Party of Malaya (1948-1960) – a Special Branch perspective, Leon Comber, visiting senior research fellow, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore] The following evidences show that the MCP was more China inspired, not Soviet inspired: • ... Chin Peng ... had been introduced to the Party through the anti-Japanese movement which had taken hold of the Chinese Middle School students after 1937 ... As a schoolboy, he dreamed of enlisting to fight in China and began a process of self-education in the works of Mao Zedong. [Forgotten Wars: The End of Britain's Asian Empire, Tim Harper, Christopher Bayly] • On November 15, 1969, the Chinese opened a clandestine radio station, the "Voice of the Malayan Revolution," which in its broadcast called for an "extensive people's war" in Malaysia and Singapore. It stated explicitly that the Communist part of Malaya was guided by the thought of Mao Tse-tung. [Autopsy on People's War, Chalmers A. Johnson, page 80-81] • By 1948 it was clear to the Communists leaders that the Russian revolutionary model was not working, so they converted to Mao's model. In June 1948 the new secretary general of the Malayan Communist Party, Chin Peng, mobilized the former anti-Japanese guerilla army and committed it to a Maoist-inspired guerrilla war. [Jungle of Snakes: A Century of Counterinsurgency Warfare from the Philippines to Iraq, James R. Arnold, page 137] • the Malayan Communist Party ... Over-all strategy was now dominated by the Chinese line and patterned after that evolved in the Chinese revolution. Such texts as Strategic Problems of the Malayan Revolutionary War, issued at the time by the insurgents, were not much different from Mao Tse-Tung's own Strategic Problems of China's Revolutionary Wars, first written in 1936. [The 1948 Communist Revolt in Malaya: A Note on Historical Sources and Interpretation, Michael R. Stenson, Gerald De Cruz, page 1966] • the Central Committee of the CCP congratulated the Malayan Communist Party on the thirty-fifth anniversary of its founding; discussed the party's leadership of "the armed struggle against British imperialism and ... the MCP's opposition to "modern revisionism" [Revolution and Chinese Foreign Policy: Peking's Support for Wars of National Liberation, Volume 34, Peter Van Ness, page 89] • The Malayan Communist Party had a vision of large guerrilla bands, in the 'Yenan way' of Mao Zedong's movement in China. [Forgotten Armies: The Fall of British Asia, 1941-1945, Christopher Alan Bayly, Timothy Norman Harper, page 134] The following evidences show that Comintern or Soviet Union had limited control or influence in Southeast Asia or Malaya: • If the Soviet Union had instigated the insurgency it remains odd that no Soviet arms, funding or civil-military personnel were sent to ensure success. This would have almost certainly been an imperative, especially if the USSR wanted to ensure that a future communist Malaya fell under their influence and not, after 1949, that of Mao's China. It also fails to take into account the anti-colonial element. The MCP, like other anti-colonial insurgent groups, would likely have been influenced by India and Burma's recent independence from Britain. [The Counter-insurgency Myth: The British Experience of Irregular Warfare, Andrew Mumford, page 45] • The Comintern did its best to control communist movements in South East Asia, but its ability to impose its will was limited by poor communucations, insufficient financial and logistical support, interception of its directives by the authorities, and by periodic arrests of militants ... Finally, not least of the problems faced by the Comintern, was its directives always had to be adapted by communist parties to domestic traditions and local circumstances. [The Oxford Handbook of the History of Communism, S. A. Smith, Stephen Anthony Smith, page 238] It is clear from the above evidences that Mr Tan’s assertion that since the Soviets directed the setup of MCP they controlled MCP is pure hogwash. It then follows that all the Soviet atrocities Mr Tan tried to pile onto the MCP to make the MCP look immoral is also pure hogwash as is his assertion that the MCP was fighting and dying in the jungles for the Soviets rather than for Malayans. The MCP’s fighting and dying for fellow Malayans against the Japanese or against colonialism clearly and unambiguously qualifies them as patriots. If fighting and dying for your fellow countrymen is not considered patriotism, what is? There is nothing fawning, adulatory, disturbing or immoral about recognizing patriotism as patriotism. On the contrary, it is Mr Tan’s refusal to recognize patriotism as patriotism that is disturbing and immoral. Ho Chi Minh and communist violence Mr Tan got it wrong when he said that Ho Chi Minh’s fighting the French does not make him a liberator. Ho Chi Minh’s freeing of his people from the French is definitely an act of liberation. Similarly, stating that Vietnamese today hail Ho Chi Minh as their hero is not portraying him to be a saint but merely stating a fact as a fact. Mr Tan reminded us of Ho Chi Minh lending support to the Khmer Rouge who murdered two million people. But Ho Chi Minh merely helped Khmer Rouge come to power; he didn’t help them commit massacres which only occurred after the Khmer Rouge won power. Is Mr Tan going to blame the Soviet Union for lending support to the Chinese Communist Party resulting in millions of death during the Great Leap Forward also? Ho Chi Minh even invaded Cambodia to put an end to Khmer rule. Mr Tan reminded us of Vietcong atrocities. But even the Americans committed atrocities like the My Lai massacre. Stating Ho Chi Minh’s revere by his own people is neither portraying him as admirable nor whitewashing his cruelty nor denying the Holocaust but merely stating a fact as a fact. Is it not a fact that the Vietnamese today revere Ho Chi Minh? What cruelty can prevent a fact from being said as a fact? Does the Germans’ act of Holocaust prevent us from saying they just won the World Cup? Saying that communist violence cannot be condoned but that they deserve better obviously refers to Chin Peng and the MCA vis-à-vis others like Ho Chi Minh and his Vietcong, Sukarno and Nelson Mandela in the original posting. If the crueler Vietcong can be regarded as heroes by its own people today, why does the less cruel MCA deserve less? This is no denial of Ho Chi Minh’s cruelties, no denial of the Holocaust. This is just putting cruelty beside cruelty and saying that the one with less cruelty ended up with more infamy in its own country. This is not, as Mr Tan has claimed, like condoning the Nazi mass murder or covering up for communist wrong doing but simply comparing wrong doings and saying that for the same or for less wrong doing, the MCA had been more villainised. Mr Tan wrongly brushed off the original article as an apologia for communism and communists like Ho Chi Minh. It is not. Instead, it is Mr Tan who has created something out of nothing using hollow arguments unsubstantiated by facts. To conclude, Mr Tan’s main argument that the CPM was doing the Soviet’s bidding is completely without basis, without merit. His attempt to pile Soviet atrocities onto the CPM is rejected too as it rests on his false assertion that the CPM was doing Soviet bidding. Mr Tan’s attempt to alter the statement of the fact that the Vietnamese today revere Ho Chi Minh into one of glorifying Ho is also rejected because, like it or not, a fact is a fact. Mr Tan’s false sense of self-righteousness is betrayed by his own deceitful arguments. Thank you   Ng Kok Lim  Read More →