The Straits Times
MUCH has been written in reaction to Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew's remarks about the Chinese population in neighbouring countries being 'systematically marginalised'. Not infrequently, commentators have also taken side swipes at Singapore's foreign talent policy, with insinuations that the policy aims to marginalise its minority races while boosting the majority race.
Consider the column that appeared in the Malay newspaper Utusan Malaysia on Sept 30, with the headline, 'Who Is Really Being Marginalised?'.
Using the pseudonym 'Political Observer', the writer demanded to know how Singapore explained its foreign talent policy in light of its much-vaunted multicultural, multiracial policy.
'What we are trying to question is this, whatever happens to the cosmopolitan character of the Singapore population? Why was priority for citizenship given to the Chinese in Hong Kong when the territory reverted to Beijing in 1997? Now, is there still priority for Hongkongers and Taiwanese to become citizens, and whether this same privilege will be extended to the Malays, Indians and Javanese? Singapore must answer this question to defend its status as a multiracial country,' he wrote.
Here is the background to the policy: In 1989, the Singapore Government set up the Immigration Affairs Committee (Imac) to woo professionals and skilled workers to come and obtain permanent residence here. The first batch invited comprised 25,000 Hong Kong residents, chosen on the assumption that, with political control of Hong Kong due to be handed back to communist China in a few years' time, many would be prepared to consider making Singapore their home.
Two special task forces were also formed to attract talented Malays and Indians, including Singaporeans who had emigrated.
When the policy was announced, minority races were understandably concerned that the influx of Chinese immigrants would dilute their own numbers.
Even Chinese Singaporeans had expressed reservations - for totally different reasons. Some still do.
The Government assured Singaporeans then that it would treat all potential permanent residents equally.
'We do not have a special door for a particular group,' Mr George Yeo, the chairman of Imac then, and Acting Minister for Information and the Arts, told the Malay newspaper Berita Harian in 1991, in response to a question on whether there was a quota on the number of foreign Malay-Muslim talent invited here.
The perception then, as it is now, was that there would be droves of immigrants from China as a result of the Republic's open-door policy, which would eventually either increase the proportion of the Chinese here, or at least preserve their ratio in the overall population, since Malays as a whole were reproducing more than the Chinese. Only for the first time last year did the birth rate for Malays fall slightly below replacement level - from 2.10 in 2004 to 2.07.
The same concern was raised by Malays as recently as August, during a dialogue among Malay community leaders to discuss the Prime Minister's National Day Rally speech, in which the hunt for talented foreigners had featured prominently.
How valid are these concerns? Two sets of statistics - the 2000 Census of Population and the General Household Survey of 2005 - throw up some surprises.
The 2005 survey showed that out of 3.5 million residents (citizens and permanent residents) in that year, the percentages of Chinese and Malays had dropped slightly - from 76.8 per cent in 2000 to 75.6 per cent for the former, and from 13.9 per cent to 13.6 per cent for the latter.
However, there was a significant increase in the percentage of Indians during the five-year period, from 7.9 per cent to 8.7 per cent.
This was due to the inflow of Indian PRs.
The 2000 Census of Population had a similar trend: Chinese and Malays both suffered a slight drop in percentages, from 77.8 per cent in 1990 to 76.8 per cent for the Chinese, and 14 per cent to 13.9 per cent for the Malays.
The percentage of Indians went up from 7.1 per cent to 7.9 per cent.
The clearest indication of the trend is in the field of education: While all ethnic groups showed improvement in the number of those with polytechnic or university qualification, the biggest jump was among Indians - from 20 per cent in 2000 to 31 per cent last year. For Chinese, it went from 20 per cent to 27 per cent, while for Malays, it went from 4.9 per cent to 8.6 per cent.
'The increase in proportion of Indian university graduates was partly due to the inflow of Indian permanent residents with university qualification,' the report noted. Some 60 per cent of Indian PRs were university graduates in 2005, up from 51 per cent in 2000, it noted.
It is the same with average monthly household incomes. While it rose from $4,940 in 2000 to $5,400 last year, with all races enjoying bigger pay packets, it rose the highest for Indian households, from $4,560 in 2000 to $5,170 last year.
The Chinese saw their average monthly household wages grow by $410 to $5,630, while those of Malay households rose from $3,150 to $3,440.
For comparison, the average monthly household income for the Chinese between 1990 and 2000 rose from $3,213 to $5,219, from $2,246 to $3,148 among the Malays and from $2,859 to $4,556 among the Indians.
The bottom line: Contrary to the common perception that the foreign-talent policy has brought in proportionately more Chinese from China, it is actually the Indians from India who are taking full advantage of the Republic's search for talent.
