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This is how much chan chun sing is being despised.
- Thread starter TerrexLee
- Start date
An egg may be smarter than him. I am Singaporean chinese but I would like to see Tharman or Pritam as PM.
He is a maverick.
He is a charlatan.
Whipper snapper..... hahaha. Means loud mouth?
The Economist says "pugnacious" and "whippersnapper" Chan will replace Heng - The Online Citizen Asia
The Economist says “pugnacious” and “whippersnapper” Chan will replace Heng
by Correspondent
11/04/2021
Reading Time: 3 mins read
When news of Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat decided to throw in the towel and announced last Thursday (8 Apr) that he was relinquishing his role as heir apparent to the current PM, Lee Hsien Loong, The Economist also followed up with a short write-up (‘Rules of succession: Singapore’s next prime minister‘).
“Succession in Singapore is normally planned years in advance by the grandees of the People’s Action Party, which led the country to independence in 1965 and has governed ever since,” The Economist commented.
“But they failed to foresee that Mr Heng, an accomplished technocrat, lacked the skills of a retail politician (though he says he is resigning because he will be too old for the job once he gets it).”
“In the most recent election, he (Heng) won his constituency by just 53%—a humiliating scrape,” it added.
The Economist then speculated that Minister of Trade and Industry Chan Chun Sing would replace Heng but went on to paint a not so positive image of Chan.
“The favourite to replace him is Chan Chun Sing, the pugnacious trade minister, who at 51 is a whippersnapper,” it said.
51-year-old Chan entered politics in 2011 during the General Elections as a PAP candidate in Tanjong Pagar GRC helmed by late Lee Kuan Yew. Chan had been a professional military man since 1987 who rose to the rank of Major General and the appointment of Chief of Army, prior to stepping down from the position to contest in the GE.
After being elected, he was immediately appointed as acting Minister of defunct- Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports (MCYS) and Minister of State for Information, Communications and the Arts (MIDA). He was subsequently appointed acting Minister of Social and Family (MSF) and then made full-Minister in 2013 and concurrently served as Second Minister for Defence.
After being elected for the second time in the GE2015, Chan took up the role of a Minister in Prime Minister Office for a period of time while he was elected and was concurrently taking up the position of Deputy Chairman of the People’s Association (PA) and National Trades Union Congress (NTUC)’s deputy secretary-general.
He was later appointed as Minister of Trade and Industry (MTI) in 2018. In that same year, Chan was elected as 2nd assistant-secretary general (ASG) of PAP.
Chan remains as Minister of MTI and his positions as 2nd ASG of PAP and Deputy Chairman of PA.
“While the PAP debates the succession, Mr Lee has manfully agreed to stay in power for as long as it takes to find a replacement.”
The Economist has described Chan as “pugnacious“, which means “inclined to quarrel or fight readily”.
It also described Chan as a “whippersnapper“, meaning Chan is deemed by The Economist as “an unimportant but offensively presumptuous person, especially a young one”.
In 2004, The Economist was forced to pay defamation damages to the PM Lee and his family over an article it published on Temasek headed by his wife, Ho Ching. It apologised and agreed to pay damages of S$390,000.
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The Economist says "pugnacious" and "whippersnapper" Chan will replace Heng - The Online Citizen Asia
The Economist says “pugnacious” and “whippersnapper” Chan will replace Heng
by Correspondent
11/04/2021
Reading Time: 3 mins read
When news of Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat decided to throw in the towel and announced last Thursday (8 Apr) that he was relinquishing his role as heir apparent to the current PM, Lee Hsien Loong, The Economist also followed up with a short write-up (‘Rules of succession: Singapore’s next prime minister‘).
“Succession in Singapore is normally planned years in advance by the grandees of the People’s Action Party, which led the country to independence in 1965 and has governed ever since,” The Economist commented.
“But they failed to foresee that Mr Heng, an accomplished technocrat, lacked the skills of a retail politician (though he says he is resigning because he will be too old for the job once he gets it).”
“In the most recent election, he (Heng) won his constituency by just 53%—a humiliating scrape,” it added.
The Economist then speculated that Minister of Trade and Industry Chan Chun Sing would replace Heng but went on to paint a not so positive image of Chan.
“The favourite to replace him is Chan Chun Sing, the pugnacious trade minister, who at 51 is a whippersnapper,” it said.
51-year-old Chan entered politics in 2011 during the General Elections as a PAP candidate in Tanjong Pagar GRC helmed by late Lee Kuan Yew. Chan had been a professional military man since 1987 who rose to the rank of Major General and the appointment of Chief of Army, prior to stepping down from the position to contest in the GE.
After being elected, he was immediately appointed as acting Minister of defunct- Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports (MCYS) and Minister of State for Information, Communications and the Arts (MIDA). He was subsequently appointed acting Minister of Social and Family (MSF) and then made full-Minister in 2013 and concurrently served as Second Minister for Defence.
After being elected for the second time in the GE2015, Chan took up the role of a Minister in Prime Minister Office for a period of time while he was elected and was concurrently taking up the position of Deputy Chairman of the People’s Association (PA) and National Trades Union Congress (NTUC)’s deputy secretary-general.
He was later appointed as Minister of Trade and Industry (MTI) in 2018. In that same year, Chan was elected as 2nd assistant-secretary general (ASG) of PAP.
Chan remains as Minister of MTI and his positions as 2nd ASG of PAP and Deputy Chairman of PA.
“While the PAP debates the succession, Mr Lee has manfully agreed to stay in power for as long as it takes to find a replacement.”
The Economist has described Chan as “pugnacious“, which means “inclined to quarrel or fight readily”.
It also described Chan as a “whippersnapper“, meaning Chan is deemed by The Economist as “an unimportant but offensively presumptuous person, especially a young one”.
In 2004, The Economist was forced to pay defamation damages to the PM Lee and his family over an article it published on Temasek headed by his wife, Ho Ching. It apologised and agreed to pay damages of S$390,000.
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Women should not even b given the vote let alone b PMPlease don't be sexist! I'm looking forward to the first female Sinkie PM.
Let him be PM then vote his GRC out.
Fuck Chan Chun Sing and his mother's cheebye.
Fuck Chan Chun Sing and his mother's cheebye.
https://mothership.sg/2020/02/chan-chun-sing-leaked-transcript/
Full transcript of 25-minute leaked audio recording of Chan Chun Sing dialogue with SCCCI
There are many versions of his dialogue disseminated online.
Kayla Wong | Sulaiman Daud | Belmont Lay |
February 20, 2020, 03:46 PM
Events
Law Awareness Week 2020
05 October 2020 - 13 November 2020
A 25-minute audio recording of Trade and Industry Minister Chan Chun Sing’s dialogue with business people from the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCCI) was leaked since Feb. 17, 2020 at least.
The content of Chan's speech in Singlish, peppered with colloquialism, has been reported on.
Multiple versions of his dialogue have been spliced, edited and reassembled to be disseminated online, with some recordings zeroing in on certain parts without the benefit of context of his prior point.
The SCCCI president, Roland Ng, has since said that the 25-minute clip was an “edited audio recording”.
It is still unclear if Ng meant that the clip was edited unfairly or whether the clip was an extract of a more than two-hour-long dialogue, but he did say it was “clearly edited out of context”.
Here is a full 4,200-plus-word transcript of what Chan said in 25 minutes, in the interest of transparency for those keen on comparing various versions against the full version.
Start of 25-minute leaked audio
This silly thing you talk about social media right. Everybody start to run for a surgical mask.
But is the surgical mask the solution anot?
Then if the surgical mask is not the solution, and no matter how many millions of masks we have, we will never have enough.
And the whole world is fighting for this right?
Escalating prices of masks
Now as we speak, the mask used to be 20 cents one piece, now is $2 one piece.
And now you pay $3 you also may not get a mask.
So, it's a very difficult decision. If we don't issue mask, and if we don't issue surgical masks, everybody scold us.
Everybody say that we don't care.
If we still issue surgical masks, and give everybody surgical masks just to make them feel shiok shiok, because they saw Carrie Lam wore masks right, at the conference right, everybody must wear mask right?
Hong Kong's issue with masks
Today you see newspaper? What is happening to Hong Kong now? What did South China Morning Post just report about Hong Kong?
They are down to less than one months' supply of masks for their medical people.
Which means that when the medical people don't even get the masks you think they dare to go and take care of the sick people?
Singapore to avoid masks shortage
If we have done what we have done like Hong Kong without thinking, and ask Carrie Lam, PM, myself, Lawrence Wong, Gan Kim Yong go to press conference everyone wear a mask, today everybody panic.
I can guarantee you, today our hospital system would have broken down.
They would be no more surgical masks for our hospital people because people would have all used up like tissue paper.
If every Singaporean used a surgical mask, one day we would burn 5 million surgical masks, if not more.
And since we don't know how long we got to fight this war right, and the supply lines are cut already right, how long must we conserve the surgical masks to make sure that our medical system still can work?
It could be three months, it could be six months, correct?
You all now understand the difficulty?
But then we have a problem.
Because everybody is clamouring for a mask.
And we know that the surgical masks will all be wasted and we will end up like Hong Kong one of these days without masks for their medical workers.
So what did we do?
Masks distribution was a gamble
Can I be frank? We took a gamble. I took a gamble.
To calm the nerves, I distribute four to everybody to use only when you are sick and go to a hospital, to calm the nerves.
But to issue four to every family, I burn another 5 million masks from my limited stockpile.
When China now asks for masks right, China is burning at a rate of hundreds of millions per day you know?
Which country and which production line can even meet China's needs?
Cannot right?
I examine you know, go down to this level.
One machine, one machine, the three-ply one.
One month, 2 million masks. Max rate. One machine.
So we took a gamble.
Give people the masks. Damn bua hang like that.
Give you the masks. Don't kan cheong.
Because first of all why use that mask when it is not community outbreak of that sort, when it is not proven effective?
Keep the surgical masks as much as possible to the medical people first.
And if the evidence proves so, my next line of people is not to give everybody.
My next line of people will be those at the front line: Drivers, service staff, or whatever.
So we need to prioritise and track.
So you can see right, I am having to do this literally like a military operation.
When to give masks to which group of people, tier by tier.
So we hear bus drivers concerned, taxi drivers concerned, we even think of how to save the masks like during SARS.
You know SARS you know we got no masks right?
Don't have enough of the N95 one, what did we do?
Prioritise giving of masks
We literally wind down the window. Seriously!
But today the bus want to wind down window also cannot.
All air-con bus. See, First World Problem. (Laughter)
You tell me which bus can wind down window one? Your bus can wind down window one?
You find me one bus can wind down window, I'll bring the bus to the museum already.
See, so I hope you all understand, I'm being very blunt, being very frank, how we manage this thing.
Now, will we issue mask to the bus driver and the taxi drivers?
I'm thinking very hard now. Because I can issue you the haze masks if it is just a security blanket.
But I have to ask the same thing, how long must we last in this fight?
Fear of running out of masks
Because the fear that we have issuing the four masks to every family was this: Everybody anyhow use, next week all come and ask you for more masks ah, what will our government do?
If government cannot give more masks the next week, the whole country will panic right if people never calm down and listen to government and say only use when you need it.
If everybody take four masks, that's why, everybody scold us. "Wah lau eh my family got five members you give me four masks, how to enough?"
I say, "Uncle, only when you sick."
"Then what if my whole family all five fellows fall sick together?"
Then what's my answer? Stay at home call the ambulance take the whole family there together already. (Laughter)
No need to go and take five masks already.
I mean seriously, if your whole family sick until like that then we really get ambulance, quarantine you, go and send you to NCID already, won't be taking you mask by mask.
So actually, the Chinese say, chen zhuo yi zhan (face the war calmly, 沉着应战).
Comparisons between countries
But the problem today in social media is this: People like to compare.
Eh why other country do this you all never do?
Then how come today the social media never ask, "How come Hong Kong run out of masks, we never run out of masks?"
"How come China run out of masks we never run out of masks?"
So you see we like to choose the type of thing that we like to select and compare but we never think about how long.
Because my number one question in my mind now is exactly what Mr Lee said: "I don't know how long we must fight this."
"And I must prepare for the day where I have to at least fight this for six months."
Correct? SARS took us at least six months.
How SARS differs from Covid-19
That was a very good case because SARS the lethality, usually is like that, lethality very high, the disease die off very fast one.
The lethality like flu very low one, it will lasts for long time. So we don't know which one to be happy or sad.
You want the slow boil one or you want the sharp one.
Because that also then later affects the economic recovery plan.
So these are the real unknowns that we have to deal with.
So, DORSCON orange did we anticipate it? Yes.
Did we go and place the thing? Yes.
But can we tell you all and get you ready before we announce? No.
Because if that is the case, everybody get different speed, even more luan (messy).
Ok, mask I explain to you already.
Runs on supermarkets
Then the next thing I want to explain to you all and share with you is this.
Why did the run happen?
The run on the supermarket right?
Actually this one I damn ashamed.
You know why?
Sia suay. (Laughter)
I don't know how to say in English. Anyone? English sia suay called what?
[Disgrace, crowd says.] (Laughter)
We embarrassed ourselves.
[Crowd: Disgraceful.]
We disgrace ourselves.
Don't say Third World. Third World some people also quite nice one.
Like Tommy Koh said, don't criticise people Third World.
Actually it's not kiasu.
Actually never think.
Never think.
First of all, what is there to run?
Of all things, rice?
Rice since 1970, we've been stockpiling.
In fact I can tell you I'm very happy now.
Finally got people turnover my rice stockpile. (Laughter)
Actually that night, Friday night, I buay tahan.
I was thinking maybe some retailers, eh are you all involved anot?
Retailers trying to clear their old Chinese New Year stock, Christmas stock, send out all the video and everybody go and chiong.
So now when you go to Sheng Siong and NTUC, you buy all fresh stock. (Laughter)
Because all the suckers have bought the old stock. (Laughter)
Who responsible? Put up your hand? (Laughter)
Who circulate one?
Psychological defence
Ok, but today, come to social media that Rose talked about.
Today the problem is not psychological defence.
We can teach 95 percent to be steady.
5 percent not steady, actually that night, over the weekend ah, I really analyse all the picture and video circulated, you know?
And I concluded there's only about less than 10 video and less than 30 picture circulated.
I can almost name you all the photos and videos I have seen.
The first one is the Auntie Bukit Indomie.
Correct anot? The one 15 one?
That one photo kenna send to me like five, six times.
Even my WhatsApp group I don't know you all kenna how many time.
Then another two idiots wear masks wear goggle, young couple go and buy things. (Laughter)
But actually the number of photos is finite you know?
The number of people accessing it is disproportionate so everybody scare everybody.
Then the videos also same thing mah.
There's only two videos circulating, damn haolian one, damn show off.
Show their bomb shelter, "Wah lau I got my minimart here." You think I never see? (Laughter)
So then everybody wah lau, he got minimart I also must have minimart.
Sia suay.
Then so I buay tahan I went to scold people already but of course, PM won't scold people.
Scold people must leave to people like me to scold people.
So, you think about it.
Rice you scared ah, shi jie mo ri (end of the world, 世界末日), cos people think DORSCON Orange means Wuhan.
You want to stock rice, stock noodle, I can tahan.
Then why stock toilet paper? (Laughter)
If you eat all the rice and instant noodles you confirm diarrhoea. (Laughter)
You explain to me lah.
Toilet paper stockpiling
Then why Hong Kong people stock toilet paper?
Because monkey see monkey do.
Hong Kong people stock toilet paper because people scared toilet paper come from China, tomorrow China no toilet paper, we all cannot go pang sai.
Right?
Our toilet paper come from where?
Indonesia and Malaysia.
So got Indonesia and Malaysia cut off our toilet paper supply anot?
Cut off that one, the famous word from Sun Xueling, "bo zhuar zui ah ho". (Laughter)
No paper, water also can. So why do we behave so idiotically I cannot tahan.
Right?
Then the selfish idiot go and take all the alcohol swab because got no more clean wipe right?
Take alcohol swab, you know the small small one, to clean table ah.
That one people use for medical, you know the diabetic patient must clean the skin then poke the needle through one?
Wah lau eh you take that one to clean table, clean finger.
That one I really cannot tahan.
Why condoms also get run out of stock. (Laughter)
Press lift? (Laughter)
Self-entertainment?
In case of lockdown self-entertainment? (Laughter)
I thought at least lockdown nine months later TFR (Total Fertility Rate) go up still got chance. (Laughter)
So can you explain to me why Singaporean like that?
So buay tahan. So that night some of you right were at PM's chap gao mei.
80 percent of you were not listening to PM's speech.
I know because I watching behind.
Everybody forwarding all the stupid photo and video to the friends correct anot?
You all don't bluff me I from behind I see everyone. (Laughter)
Nobody listening to PM.
You are listening? You multitasking. (Laughter)
Then I also have to 8:30 wah have to send out "everybody steady steady".
Wah I never had my Facebook post in one hour few thousand people see one you know?
Today I check the thing, 700,000 people saw that Facebook post to tell people steady lah.
You see now social media how fast the thing viral.
I got reason anot? No reason.
No to rationing
Then people ask me, eh got people shout. Eh, why don't you all ration?
So why did I hold back the decision to ration?
Because once you see people run right, got problem.
Because if we that day if we say ration then the people must be, "You confirm don't have that's why you ration, right?"
Lagi panic right? Like this steady lah.
Anyway since I got to clear rice stock and noodle stock right, so you all carry on.(Laughter)
You really think about it, sia suay you know.
Then ah I really cannot tahan already.
Until Saturday night I got to scold people.
That's why got this viral thing going around say supposedly from me, haha is from me lah because I cannot tahan already.
I must tell my grassroots leader.
You know why this is so bad?
Hong Kong behave badly. Okay lah, their problem lah, correct?
But if Hong Kong behave badly, and even if they behave like idiots, somebody will do business with them because they are part of China.
If we behave badly, people think that our society is like that one, we lose our brain one, and cannot be steady one, got anybody want to do business with us after this anot?
Singapore held ransom
And already people chen huo da jie (take advantage of someone else's misfortune, 趁火打劫), people try to raise the price already.
Then we all behave like idiots like that, the foreign supplier will all lagi raise their price.
We all buy masks almost have to send the SAF to guard the masks.
Pay money already, before the thing move out of the factory must pay one more time.
Go to the airplane must pay one more time.
Every step, in order to fight for mask worldwide behind the scene.
And if Singaporeans behave like that, all my ESG officer, ST Log officer, all will die.
People will say that, "Aha! Your country like that right? All kan cheong already right?
Mask ah, instead of 20 cent go $2, now got 20 cent go $3.
So you see, we all in trying to be - not we all lah, some of us, just a small group behaving like idiots like that ah will kill all of us.
You will kill our current price negotiations strategy.
You will kill our future business opportunities.
Urge business leaders to do their part
So can you all do me a favour?
Next time you see an idiot ah, queuing up at NTUC buying 16 packets of rice, can you just go up to him and ask: "Eh friend you need so many packet of rice for what?"
"You open provision shop ah?"
Yesterday my wife go and buy bread, the fellow say got one auntie come and buy 36 loaves of bread. (Laughter)
For the neighbour, so caring right?
So caring for the neighbours.
So you see, why do we behave like that?
So seriously, I was very upset on Saturday, because it has long-term implications on our international standing.
Every country can behave like idiots, Singaporeans must not behave like idiots.
Then we behave properly, then we show the world how different we can be.
Then people will have confidence.
Now the world haven’t even peak yet, you know.
Then we all zhen jiao da luan (panic and lose psychological ground, 阵脚大乱).
We all gabrah ourselves. Then how to go and convince people we all steady one? Right?
Ok, so I come out very nicely, say nicely, say nicely.
So of course when I talk to the media I say nicely lah, hoping that they will carry the message nicely.
But when I talk to my own grassroots leader, I point blank one.
If we continue to behave like that, the virus won’t kill us.
Our own behaviour will kill ourselves. Correct or not? It’s exactly what’s happening.
So now I’m trying to stop this.
So today, I think things are more calm already ah.
Other future runs
But you just wait ah. How many of you believe that in two days’ time ah, something will run again?
Maybe hand sanitiser, I don’t know lah. I don’t know what else people will run.
Then hand sanitiser is a First World Problem, know.
If don’t have hand sanitiser, use what? (Audience member: Soap.)
Soap lah. Don’t have Lux soap also got Ayam soap, the long long one, the brown, the yellow colour one.
Those who don’t know how to laugh, very young one.
That one must cut into square cube one, last time Ayam brand one.
So sanitiser is really for front line staff really got no time to wash hands.
But the rest of us every five metres got one toilet one, please go and use soap and wash hands. Correct or not?
Then people say, how can the government be so bad? Never stock up hand sanitiser?
Hand sanitiser essential goods or not? Don’t have right?
Ok ah, I’m telling you how we intend to stock up essential goods and I need your cooperation because all in the business.
Let me ask ah, when in emergency like this ah, contingency like this, can we still choose whether I want kangkong or taugey or not?
As far as I’m concerned ah, I choose carbohydrate, rice noodle. Right?
Make sure I have enough for prolonged period of time.
Protein. Ah? Meat, whether it is chicken, fish or whatever, all substitutable one right?
Vegetables. Greens. Whether it is frozen, canned food, all substitutable right?
That’s how we stockpile our things. Where got people “Wah, I go down there got no more kangkong!”
Wah, this is really ah, very Singaporean you know.
I mean canned food cannot.
If really worse come to this ah, the supply lines cut for three four months ah, you tell me I must still go and find kangkong and taugey?
We will use what we have, and we must be a bit more hardy than this.
Cannot be like that lah.
So I don’t know where to hide my face when I hear this kind of thing.
Other issues that cloud planning
Then ah, another one ah, the mask one I cannot tahan, must tell you all.
Today I must vomit blood.
We give four masks right? Then the question come, “Eh I got children. You got children size or not? Then don’t have children size, how the children use the mask?”
Surgical mask ah. Now what’s the answer? (Silence from the audience)
What’s the answer. (More silence)
Eh, surgical mask surgical mask right?
If really need to cover up the children, if the mask is too big what do we do?
If cannot, if you put the surgical mask over the children right, too loose right, what do you do?
Tie a knot lah, can or not?
We all know right?
This one elastic one right, rubber band right, tie one knot can already what.
Like that also must make a big song and dance.
That’s why ah, government ministers very busy.
I’m trying to think of two steps down the road, what to do ah.
But you see, so this type of thing ah, outside this room ah cannot scold people right, must be very nice right.
So can you all, next time you see this kind of behaviour, can you help me ah, get rid of all these kind of questions at least we all can think clearly, two steps down the road what to do.
Wah lau eh, I tell you, last one two week ah vomit blood.
So mask one settle already ah.
Help for businesses
So why February 18? It’s not why February 18, actually whatever we can do, we do... ok?
Then when it comes to that type of thing, we won’t be so specific one, ok.
Cash is cash. Cash is fungible one. We will try to help all those affected one, the tour agents, the tourist industry, the buses, the whatnot.
We will try to give you some... the most difficult problem you all have told me, over the last two weeks that SCCCI have helped me is the zi jing zhou zhuan (cash flow, 资金周转).
The cash flow. Right?
So, wherever I give you the cash flow then you flow lah.
But I don’t want to be so prescriptive and say “I give you car park.”
Because I give you car park, the other fellow don’t need car park, then he scold me. Correct or not?
So we just help you, whether you tourist... tour agency and whatnot, we try to give you some ways whereby you can flow your cash. Correct?
Now, having said this, ok, then what are we going to do for the Budget?
Post-outbreak plan
Now, go back to Mr Lee’s question again.
A lot of people are now trying to get over the difficult times, du guo zhe ge nan guan (get past this difficult time, 度过这个难关) Right?
But this one will be very short-sighted.
Ok, learn from SARS.
SARS everybody, every country only prepare to get past SARS, correct?
But actually, what is most important?
The most important is to position ourselves after SARS, to make sure that we recover fastest.
That’s why the global financial crisis, everybody fall like a rock right?
Then we the next year went up 14.5 per cent.
Because while we’re dealing with the current, we must make sure that we think two steps down the road.
So in the Budget, you will hear the following things.
There’s one part of the Budget that will help to stabilise the situation and support all the difficult challenges that you all are facing now.
But I must ask you all this favour.
Don’t just - bu yao zhi shi kan yan qian (don't just look at the present, 不要只是看眼前).
Don’t just look at the here and now.
Take this chance to ask ourselves.
When the recovery finally comes, whether it is six months, nine months, how do we position your business, our economy to go out faster than the rest of the people?
I can tell you, Hong Kong, they’re not thinking of this.
Because they are all only here and now.
We must distinguish ourselves as Singapore to think of the beyond here and now.
So there will be, beyond the immediate help package, there will be a package which I hope you all seriously take advantage of, which is to position your business beyond the crisis.
Then when finally the recovery come, we can all do much better. Can?
So that one, you must do.
That one you must plan. And I need to ask you all to do this.
Don't sack workers
When you got now got spare capacity right, can you all don’t sack the workers immediately?
Take the government help, train the workers, use some chance to help the workers to stay around for a while so that you prepare for the next phase.
I don’t know whether three months or six months.
But if you let go of the workers immediately, then we are all in trouble again.
[Audience: Ok, in fact I actually try to talk to Ministry of Manpower... I agree with what you say, we should think after this critical period. How we better groom up our business, I mean the turnover, all these thing. But then MOM was saying to me that if let’s say you’re not able to retain the staff, then let them go.]
Don't be so ji dong (agitated, 激动)
[Audience: I don’t want to sack my staff, but MOM was asking me to sack my staff.]
Ok, first ah. Steady ah. Take deep breath first. (Laughter)
Urge business leaders to change business model
So now let’s be very frank ah. Just now I was very blunt already.
Some of you have to change the business model one.
If you don’t change the business model, and you become... if you don’t diversify and have concentration risk, even if we help you this time, we cannot help you the next time.
So if we help you, can sumpah or not?
We make sure we help you, but you all must help yourself. Ok?
If we still have not learned the lesson about diversification, and I don’t mean just China.
I mean China, India and everything ah, we better learn it fast.
Because it affects you, it affects me, it affects all of us.
Tourism in Singapore not numbers game
So I give you an example. Tourism.
Actually, do you know that in Singapore, our tourist market can grow up even faster.
I got tonnes of tourists queuing up to come to Singapore.
You know that I tell STB, don’t take them. We now don’t go for numbers game.
And I will not allow the Chinese tourists to grow more than 20 percent.
Not the Indian market, not the Indonesian market, because we will be held ransom.
You look at what happened to Taiwan, South Korea, Japan.
When the market is turned off, either for political reasons or economical reasons, we are dead, correct or not?
So I have done what I can do at the national level.
I need your help. At your local level, can you all also do that.
That applies to tourists. That also applies to supply chains.
Avoid single source supply chains
Today, a lot of us depend on the cheap Chinese import, but we end up single source.
Ok, having from two Chinese cities doesn’t mean it’s double source ah. (Laughter)
Eh you all don’t laugh, got people tell me, “Eh I diversify, I got one Hubei, one Hunan." Because sometimes the problem is this. Well we do have a problem. Which are the two biggest factories in the world now? It’s China -
Full transcript of 25-minute leaked audio recording of Chan Chun Sing dialogue with SCCCI
There are many versions of his dialogue disseminated online.
Kayla Wong | Sulaiman Daud | Belmont Lay |
Events
Law Awareness Week 2020
05 October 2020 - 13 November 2020
A 25-minute audio recording of Trade and Industry Minister Chan Chun Sing’s dialogue with business people from the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCCI) was leaked since Feb. 17, 2020 at least.
The content of Chan's speech in Singlish, peppered with colloquialism, has been reported on.
Multiple versions of his dialogue have been spliced, edited and reassembled to be disseminated online, with some recordings zeroing in on certain parts without the benefit of context of his prior point.
The SCCCI president, Roland Ng, has since said that the 25-minute clip was an “edited audio recording”.
It is still unclear if Ng meant that the clip was edited unfairly or whether the clip was an extract of a more than two-hour-long dialogue, but he did say it was “clearly edited out of context”.
Here is a full 4,200-plus-word transcript of what Chan said in 25 minutes, in the interest of transparency for those keen on comparing various versions against the full version.
Start of 25-minute leaked audio
This silly thing you talk about social media right. Everybody start to run for a surgical mask.
But is the surgical mask the solution anot?
Then if the surgical mask is not the solution, and no matter how many millions of masks we have, we will never have enough.
And the whole world is fighting for this right?
Escalating prices of masks
Now as we speak, the mask used to be 20 cents one piece, now is $2 one piece.
And now you pay $3 you also may not get a mask.
So, it's a very difficult decision. If we don't issue mask, and if we don't issue surgical masks, everybody scold us.
Everybody say that we don't care.
If we still issue surgical masks, and give everybody surgical masks just to make them feel shiok shiok, because they saw Carrie Lam wore masks right, at the conference right, everybody must wear mask right?
Hong Kong's issue with masks
Today you see newspaper? What is happening to Hong Kong now? What did South China Morning Post just report about Hong Kong?
They are down to less than one months' supply of masks for their medical people.
Which means that when the medical people don't even get the masks you think they dare to go and take care of the sick people?
Singapore to avoid masks shortage
If we have done what we have done like Hong Kong without thinking, and ask Carrie Lam, PM, myself, Lawrence Wong, Gan Kim Yong go to press conference everyone wear a mask, today everybody panic.
I can guarantee you, today our hospital system would have broken down.
They would be no more surgical masks for our hospital people because people would have all used up like tissue paper.
If every Singaporean used a surgical mask, one day we would burn 5 million surgical masks, if not more.
And since we don't know how long we got to fight this war right, and the supply lines are cut already right, how long must we conserve the surgical masks to make sure that our medical system still can work?
It could be three months, it could be six months, correct?
You all now understand the difficulty?
But then we have a problem.
Because everybody is clamouring for a mask.
And we know that the surgical masks will all be wasted and we will end up like Hong Kong one of these days without masks for their medical workers.
So what did we do?
Masks distribution was a gamble
Can I be frank? We took a gamble. I took a gamble.
To calm the nerves, I distribute four to everybody to use only when you are sick and go to a hospital, to calm the nerves.
But to issue four to every family, I burn another 5 million masks from my limited stockpile.
When China now asks for masks right, China is burning at a rate of hundreds of millions per day you know?
Which country and which production line can even meet China's needs?
Cannot right?
I examine you know, go down to this level.
One machine, one machine, the three-ply one.
One month, 2 million masks. Max rate. One machine.
So we took a gamble.
Give people the masks. Damn bua hang like that.
Give you the masks. Don't kan cheong.
Because first of all why use that mask when it is not community outbreak of that sort, when it is not proven effective?
Keep the surgical masks as much as possible to the medical people first.
And if the evidence proves so, my next line of people is not to give everybody.
My next line of people will be those at the front line: Drivers, service staff, or whatever.
So we need to prioritise and track.
So you can see right, I am having to do this literally like a military operation.
When to give masks to which group of people, tier by tier.
So we hear bus drivers concerned, taxi drivers concerned, we even think of how to save the masks like during SARS.
You know SARS you know we got no masks right?
Don't have enough of the N95 one, what did we do?
Prioritise giving of masks
We literally wind down the window. Seriously!
But today the bus want to wind down window also cannot.
All air-con bus. See, First World Problem. (Laughter)
You tell me which bus can wind down window one? Your bus can wind down window one?
You find me one bus can wind down window, I'll bring the bus to the museum already.
See, so I hope you all understand, I'm being very blunt, being very frank, how we manage this thing.
Now, will we issue mask to the bus driver and the taxi drivers?
I'm thinking very hard now. Because I can issue you the haze masks if it is just a security blanket.
But I have to ask the same thing, how long must we last in this fight?
Fear of running out of masks
Because the fear that we have issuing the four masks to every family was this: Everybody anyhow use, next week all come and ask you for more masks ah, what will our government do?
If government cannot give more masks the next week, the whole country will panic right if people never calm down and listen to government and say only use when you need it.
If everybody take four masks, that's why, everybody scold us. "Wah lau eh my family got five members you give me four masks, how to enough?"
I say, "Uncle, only when you sick."
"Then what if my whole family all five fellows fall sick together?"
Then what's my answer? Stay at home call the ambulance take the whole family there together already. (Laughter)
No need to go and take five masks already.
I mean seriously, if your whole family sick until like that then we really get ambulance, quarantine you, go and send you to NCID already, won't be taking you mask by mask.
So actually, the Chinese say, chen zhuo yi zhan (face the war calmly, 沉着应战).
Comparisons between countries
But the problem today in social media is this: People like to compare.
Eh why other country do this you all never do?
Then how come today the social media never ask, "How come Hong Kong run out of masks, we never run out of masks?"
"How come China run out of masks we never run out of masks?"
So you see we like to choose the type of thing that we like to select and compare but we never think about how long.
Because my number one question in my mind now is exactly what Mr Lee said: "I don't know how long we must fight this."
"And I must prepare for the day where I have to at least fight this for six months."
Correct? SARS took us at least six months.
How SARS differs from Covid-19
That was a very good case because SARS the lethality, usually is like that, lethality very high, the disease die off very fast one.
The lethality like flu very low one, it will lasts for long time. So we don't know which one to be happy or sad.
You want the slow boil one or you want the sharp one.
Because that also then later affects the economic recovery plan.
So these are the real unknowns that we have to deal with.
So, DORSCON orange did we anticipate it? Yes.
Did we go and place the thing? Yes.
But can we tell you all and get you ready before we announce? No.
Because if that is the case, everybody get different speed, even more luan (messy).
Ok, mask I explain to you already.
Runs on supermarkets
Then the next thing I want to explain to you all and share with you is this.
Why did the run happen?
The run on the supermarket right?
Actually this one I damn ashamed.
You know why?
Sia suay. (Laughter)
I don't know how to say in English. Anyone? English sia suay called what?
[Disgrace, crowd says.] (Laughter)
We embarrassed ourselves.
[Crowd: Disgraceful.]
We disgrace ourselves.
Don't say Third World. Third World some people also quite nice one.
Like Tommy Koh said, don't criticise people Third World.
Actually it's not kiasu.
Actually never think.
Never think.
First of all, what is there to run?
Of all things, rice?
Rice since 1970, we've been stockpiling.
In fact I can tell you I'm very happy now.
Finally got people turnover my rice stockpile. (Laughter)
Actually that night, Friday night, I buay tahan.
I was thinking maybe some retailers, eh are you all involved anot?
Retailers trying to clear their old Chinese New Year stock, Christmas stock, send out all the video and everybody go and chiong.
So now when you go to Sheng Siong and NTUC, you buy all fresh stock. (Laughter)
Because all the suckers have bought the old stock. (Laughter)
Who responsible? Put up your hand? (Laughter)
Who circulate one?
Psychological defence
Ok, but today, come to social media that Rose talked about.
Today the problem is not psychological defence.
We can teach 95 percent to be steady.
5 percent not steady, actually that night, over the weekend ah, I really analyse all the picture and video circulated, you know?
And I concluded there's only about less than 10 video and less than 30 picture circulated.
I can almost name you all the photos and videos I have seen.
The first one is the Auntie Bukit Indomie.
Correct anot? The one 15 one?
That one photo kenna send to me like five, six times.
Even my WhatsApp group I don't know you all kenna how many time.
Then another two idiots wear masks wear goggle, young couple go and buy things. (Laughter)
But actually the number of photos is finite you know?
The number of people accessing it is disproportionate so everybody scare everybody.
Then the videos also same thing mah.
There's only two videos circulating, damn haolian one, damn show off.
Show their bomb shelter, "Wah lau I got my minimart here." You think I never see? (Laughter)
So then everybody wah lau, he got minimart I also must have minimart.
Sia suay.
Then so I buay tahan I went to scold people already but of course, PM won't scold people.
Scold people must leave to people like me to scold people.
So, you think about it.
Rice you scared ah, shi jie mo ri (end of the world, 世界末日), cos people think DORSCON Orange means Wuhan.
You want to stock rice, stock noodle, I can tahan.
Then why stock toilet paper? (Laughter)
If you eat all the rice and instant noodles you confirm diarrhoea. (Laughter)
You explain to me lah.
Toilet paper stockpiling
Then why Hong Kong people stock toilet paper?
Because monkey see monkey do.
Hong Kong people stock toilet paper because people scared toilet paper come from China, tomorrow China no toilet paper, we all cannot go pang sai.
Right?
Our toilet paper come from where?
Indonesia and Malaysia.
So got Indonesia and Malaysia cut off our toilet paper supply anot?
Cut off that one, the famous word from Sun Xueling, "bo zhuar zui ah ho". (Laughter)
No paper, water also can. So why do we behave so idiotically I cannot tahan.
Right?
Then the selfish idiot go and take all the alcohol swab because got no more clean wipe right?
Take alcohol swab, you know the small small one, to clean table ah.
That one people use for medical, you know the diabetic patient must clean the skin then poke the needle through one?
Wah lau eh you take that one to clean table, clean finger.
That one I really cannot tahan.
Why condoms also get run out of stock. (Laughter)
Press lift? (Laughter)
Self-entertainment?
In case of lockdown self-entertainment? (Laughter)
I thought at least lockdown nine months later TFR (Total Fertility Rate) go up still got chance. (Laughter)
So can you explain to me why Singaporean like that?
So buay tahan. So that night some of you right were at PM's chap gao mei.
80 percent of you were not listening to PM's speech.
I know because I watching behind.
Everybody forwarding all the stupid photo and video to the friends correct anot?
You all don't bluff me I from behind I see everyone. (Laughter)
Nobody listening to PM.
You are listening? You multitasking. (Laughter)
Then I also have to 8:30 wah have to send out "everybody steady steady".
Wah I never had my Facebook post in one hour few thousand people see one you know?
Today I check the thing, 700,000 people saw that Facebook post to tell people steady lah.
You see now social media how fast the thing viral.
I got reason anot? No reason.
No to rationing
Then people ask me, eh got people shout. Eh, why don't you all ration?
So why did I hold back the decision to ration?
Because once you see people run right, got problem.
Because if we that day if we say ration then the people must be, "You confirm don't have that's why you ration, right?"
Lagi panic right? Like this steady lah.
Anyway since I got to clear rice stock and noodle stock right, so you all carry on.(Laughter)
You really think about it, sia suay you know.
Then ah I really cannot tahan already.
Until Saturday night I got to scold people.
That's why got this viral thing going around say supposedly from me, haha is from me lah because I cannot tahan already.
I must tell my grassroots leader.
You know why this is so bad?
Hong Kong behave badly. Okay lah, their problem lah, correct?
But if Hong Kong behave badly, and even if they behave like idiots, somebody will do business with them because they are part of China.
If we behave badly, people think that our society is like that one, we lose our brain one, and cannot be steady one, got anybody want to do business with us after this anot?
Singapore held ransom
And already people chen huo da jie (take advantage of someone else's misfortune, 趁火打劫), people try to raise the price already.
Then we all behave like idiots like that, the foreign supplier will all lagi raise their price.
We all buy masks almost have to send the SAF to guard the masks.
Pay money already, before the thing move out of the factory must pay one more time.
Go to the airplane must pay one more time.
Every step, in order to fight for mask worldwide behind the scene.
And if Singaporeans behave like that, all my ESG officer, ST Log officer, all will die.
People will say that, "Aha! Your country like that right? All kan cheong already right?
Mask ah, instead of 20 cent go $2, now got 20 cent go $3.
So you see, we all in trying to be - not we all lah, some of us, just a small group behaving like idiots like that ah will kill all of us.
You will kill our current price negotiations strategy.
You will kill our future business opportunities.
Urge business leaders to do their part
So can you all do me a favour?
Next time you see an idiot ah, queuing up at NTUC buying 16 packets of rice, can you just go up to him and ask: "Eh friend you need so many packet of rice for what?"
"You open provision shop ah?"
Yesterday my wife go and buy bread, the fellow say got one auntie come and buy 36 loaves of bread. (Laughter)
For the neighbour, so caring right?
So caring for the neighbours.
So you see, why do we behave like that?
So seriously, I was very upset on Saturday, because it has long-term implications on our international standing.
Every country can behave like idiots, Singaporeans must not behave like idiots.
Then we behave properly, then we show the world how different we can be.
Then people will have confidence.
Now the world haven’t even peak yet, you know.
Then we all zhen jiao da luan (panic and lose psychological ground, 阵脚大乱).
We all gabrah ourselves. Then how to go and convince people we all steady one? Right?
Ok, so I come out very nicely, say nicely, say nicely.
So of course when I talk to the media I say nicely lah, hoping that they will carry the message nicely.
But when I talk to my own grassroots leader, I point blank one.
If we continue to behave like that, the virus won’t kill us.
Our own behaviour will kill ourselves. Correct or not? It’s exactly what’s happening.
So now I’m trying to stop this.
So today, I think things are more calm already ah.
Other future runs
But you just wait ah. How many of you believe that in two days’ time ah, something will run again?
Maybe hand sanitiser, I don’t know lah. I don’t know what else people will run.
Then hand sanitiser is a First World Problem, know.
If don’t have hand sanitiser, use what? (Audience member: Soap.)
Soap lah. Don’t have Lux soap also got Ayam soap, the long long one, the brown, the yellow colour one.
Those who don’t know how to laugh, very young one.
That one must cut into square cube one, last time Ayam brand one.
So sanitiser is really for front line staff really got no time to wash hands.
But the rest of us every five metres got one toilet one, please go and use soap and wash hands. Correct or not?
Then people say, how can the government be so bad? Never stock up hand sanitiser?
Hand sanitiser essential goods or not? Don’t have right?
Ok ah, I’m telling you how we intend to stock up essential goods and I need your cooperation because all in the business.
Let me ask ah, when in emergency like this ah, contingency like this, can we still choose whether I want kangkong or taugey or not?
As far as I’m concerned ah, I choose carbohydrate, rice noodle. Right?
Make sure I have enough for prolonged period of time.
Protein. Ah? Meat, whether it is chicken, fish or whatever, all substitutable one right?
Vegetables. Greens. Whether it is frozen, canned food, all substitutable right?
That’s how we stockpile our things. Where got people “Wah, I go down there got no more kangkong!”
Wah, this is really ah, very Singaporean you know.
I mean canned food cannot.
If really worse come to this ah, the supply lines cut for three four months ah, you tell me I must still go and find kangkong and taugey?
We will use what we have, and we must be a bit more hardy than this.
Cannot be like that lah.
So I don’t know where to hide my face when I hear this kind of thing.
Other issues that cloud planning
Then ah, another one ah, the mask one I cannot tahan, must tell you all.
Today I must vomit blood.
We give four masks right? Then the question come, “Eh I got children. You got children size or not? Then don’t have children size, how the children use the mask?”
Surgical mask ah. Now what’s the answer? (Silence from the audience)
What’s the answer. (More silence)
Eh, surgical mask surgical mask right?
If really need to cover up the children, if the mask is too big what do we do?
If cannot, if you put the surgical mask over the children right, too loose right, what do you do?
Tie a knot lah, can or not?
We all know right?
This one elastic one right, rubber band right, tie one knot can already what.
Like that also must make a big song and dance.
That’s why ah, government ministers very busy.
I’m trying to think of two steps down the road, what to do ah.
But you see, so this type of thing ah, outside this room ah cannot scold people right, must be very nice right.
So can you all, next time you see this kind of behaviour, can you help me ah, get rid of all these kind of questions at least we all can think clearly, two steps down the road what to do.
Wah lau eh, I tell you, last one two week ah vomit blood.
So mask one settle already ah.
Help for businesses
So why February 18? It’s not why February 18, actually whatever we can do, we do... ok?
Then when it comes to that type of thing, we won’t be so specific one, ok.
Cash is cash. Cash is fungible one. We will try to help all those affected one, the tour agents, the tourist industry, the buses, the whatnot.
We will try to give you some... the most difficult problem you all have told me, over the last two weeks that SCCCI have helped me is the zi jing zhou zhuan (cash flow, 资金周转).
The cash flow. Right?
So, wherever I give you the cash flow then you flow lah.
But I don’t want to be so prescriptive and say “I give you car park.”
Because I give you car park, the other fellow don’t need car park, then he scold me. Correct or not?
So we just help you, whether you tourist... tour agency and whatnot, we try to give you some ways whereby you can flow your cash. Correct?
Now, having said this, ok, then what are we going to do for the Budget?
Post-outbreak plan
Now, go back to Mr Lee’s question again.
A lot of people are now trying to get over the difficult times, du guo zhe ge nan guan (get past this difficult time, 度过这个难关) Right?
But this one will be very short-sighted.
Ok, learn from SARS.
SARS everybody, every country only prepare to get past SARS, correct?
But actually, what is most important?
The most important is to position ourselves after SARS, to make sure that we recover fastest.
That’s why the global financial crisis, everybody fall like a rock right?
Then we the next year went up 14.5 per cent.
Because while we’re dealing with the current, we must make sure that we think two steps down the road.
So in the Budget, you will hear the following things.
There’s one part of the Budget that will help to stabilise the situation and support all the difficult challenges that you all are facing now.
But I must ask you all this favour.
Don’t just - bu yao zhi shi kan yan qian (don't just look at the present, 不要只是看眼前).
Don’t just look at the here and now.
Take this chance to ask ourselves.
When the recovery finally comes, whether it is six months, nine months, how do we position your business, our economy to go out faster than the rest of the people?
I can tell you, Hong Kong, they’re not thinking of this.
Because they are all only here and now.
We must distinguish ourselves as Singapore to think of the beyond here and now.
So there will be, beyond the immediate help package, there will be a package which I hope you all seriously take advantage of, which is to position your business beyond the crisis.
Then when finally the recovery come, we can all do much better. Can?
So that one, you must do.
That one you must plan. And I need to ask you all to do this.
Don't sack workers
When you got now got spare capacity right, can you all don’t sack the workers immediately?
Take the government help, train the workers, use some chance to help the workers to stay around for a while so that you prepare for the next phase.
I don’t know whether three months or six months.
But if you let go of the workers immediately, then we are all in trouble again.
[Audience: Ok, in fact I actually try to talk to Ministry of Manpower... I agree with what you say, we should think after this critical period. How we better groom up our business, I mean the turnover, all these thing. But then MOM was saying to me that if let’s say you’re not able to retain the staff, then let them go.]
Don't be so ji dong (agitated, 激动)
[Audience: I don’t want to sack my staff, but MOM was asking me to sack my staff.]
Ok, first ah. Steady ah. Take deep breath first. (Laughter)
Urge business leaders to change business model
So now let’s be very frank ah. Just now I was very blunt already.
Some of you have to change the business model one.
If you don’t change the business model, and you become... if you don’t diversify and have concentration risk, even if we help you this time, we cannot help you the next time.
So if we help you, can sumpah or not?
We make sure we help you, but you all must help yourself. Ok?
If we still have not learned the lesson about diversification, and I don’t mean just China.
I mean China, India and everything ah, we better learn it fast.
Because it affects you, it affects me, it affects all of us.
Tourism in Singapore not numbers game
So I give you an example. Tourism.
Actually, do you know that in Singapore, our tourist market can grow up even faster.
I got tonnes of tourists queuing up to come to Singapore.
You know that I tell STB, don’t take them. We now don’t go for numbers game.
And I will not allow the Chinese tourists to grow more than 20 percent.
Not the Indian market, not the Indonesian market, because we will be held ransom.
You look at what happened to Taiwan, South Korea, Japan.
When the market is turned off, either for political reasons or economical reasons, we are dead, correct or not?
So I have done what I can do at the national level.
I need your help. At your local level, can you all also do that.
That applies to tourists. That also applies to supply chains.
Avoid single source supply chains
Today, a lot of us depend on the cheap Chinese import, but we end up single source.
Ok, having from two Chinese cities doesn’t mean it’s double source ah. (Laughter)
Eh you all don’t laugh, got people tell me, “Eh I diversify, I got one Hubei, one Hunan." Because sometimes the problem is this. Well we do have a problem. Which are the two biggest factories in the world now? It’s China -
https://sudhirtv.com/2020/02/23/chan-chun-sing-our-beng/
Everybody I know who knows Chan Chun Sing likes him.
Smart, folksy, straight-talker, authentic, humble beginnings, frugal, hard worker who tirelessly works the ground, all well known attributes. I like his accent and liberal use of colloquialisms.
I have enjoyed stories about how he likes driving his security detail around (rather than being driven) and how, in conversations with elite civil servants, he has championed the need to cultivate closer ties with our immediate neighbours, Malaysia and Indonesia, an issue close to my heart.
All that gives me reason for pause when critiquing CCS. In the ivory tower that writers sometimes appear to occupy, one invariably wonders about the image of a person that the media projects. CCS is not the bumbling buffoon caricatured by his kee chiu antics, something I’ve heard many times.
Yet, as with most things, there is value in the views from both near and far. From my distant trench, the evidence that keeps emerging about him—the latest being a leaked recording of a closed-door discussion with the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCCI)—only deepens my conviction that he has ascended far higher than he would have if we had genuine meritocracy at the top.
CCS, in other words, would probably make a great Permanent Secretary (PermSec), pinnacle of the civil service, or agency head, or possibly a more junior politician, somebody that can connect with, and rouse, the “heartland” ground.
That he has risen to our putative second in command worries me.
And the fact that many Singaporeans have actually praised CCS for his comments at SCCCI suggests to me that our bar for leadership is just so low.
***
Many believe, firstly, that CCS’s explanation of the COVID-19 mask situation was indicative of transparency about stocks and logical decision-making. Yes, I enjoyed the clear-eyed thinking but then I remembered something: you and I were never supposed to hear that.
Instead the message the government publicly gave us was a cursory “Don’t wear masks if healthy, wear if sick”, which was confusing for all sorts of reasons.1
Instead of patting CCS on the back for being upfront with a closed group, we should ask: why did our politicians not treat us, all of us, as smart, responsible citizens and give us a fuller, more thorough explanation from the start?
Oh yes, that is a non-starter. A little more than a month ago, when CCS faced a parliamentary question from the Worker’s Party Pritam Singh about specific PMET employment numbers, his blithe, brow-beating response included “What is the point behind the question?”
If even our democratically-elected opposition leader is unable to easily extract basic data about our employment situation in parliament, then you and I, ordinary citizens, should be grateful simply to be told what day of the week it is.
CCS is a straight talker? Yes, for whatever he chooses to talk straight about. The government’s weird messaging on masks led many to conclude that the government was not being honest about mask stocks. (And if so, then what else?)
This probably had some part to play in the eventual, though thankfully short-lived, panic—the same one that CCS blamed on “idiots” at SCCCI, playing to his kar kia gallery, as he loves to do (another example at the end).
There are two aspects to his shameful and disgraceful—how do you say that in Hokkien, xia suay?—denigration of his fellow citizens that we need to consider. The first is the elitist display of insider chums sitting around their control room pontificating about the lemmings they need to control.
One always gets the impression that CCS—and many others among the political and civil service elite—believe they are bearing some twisted modern form of The White Man’s Burden, and without their benevolent paternalism Singapore and Singaporeans would be rudderless, penniless peasants. (The Men in White‘s Burden?)
Perhaps that ideology had more currency in independent Singapore’s early days, when institutions were still being built, when we were at an earlier stage of industrial development, when the civil service and PAP actually could monopolise more of our best minds.
But in today’s Singapore, with talent spread so broadly across a knowledge economy that depends on the free exchange of ideas, sometimes from the most unexpected of places, this idea is not just offensive but also myopic.
The second problem with blaming everything on “idiots” is the obvious lack of introspection and humility. CCS has positioned himself as the standard bearer of the PAP’s public relations playbook: when things are going well, it is because of the party’s famed governance; but when anything bad happens, it is because of individual error—those irresponsible, ungrateful, stupid idiots whom you call fellow citizens.
This strategy is always used when it comes to race and religion. When there is harmony, it is because of the PAP (and no, nothing to do with the fact that Singapore has been a multicultural trading port for at least two hundred years). When something flares up, it is because of individual provocateurs, like Preeti and Subhas (and no, nothing to do with the PAP’s own racist policies, including institutionalised discrimination against Malays and Indians).
From Beijing to Riyadh, this is an essential element of autocratic control: make your citizens fearful enough of each other, of the rapacious tendencies of all the “idiots” around, and they will always come scurrying back to your protective embrace.
Dear Supreme Leader, we want your government and your tech companies to control all our data and watch us 24/7 because then you can monitor the real enemies: my fellow errant citizens.
Of course, even without the PAP, Singapore would still have selfish individuals who behave in idiotic ways—just like in any country. But the PAP gleefully exploits this with its divisive messaging. It’s not conciliatory, it’s not appealing to the better angels of our nature, it’s not helping to build a more cohesive and gracious society.
This is especially true of many members of this 4G leadership, who seem eager to use this ongoing transition to power as the moment to prove their mettle, to show who among them is the biggest bully. One thinks of Ong Ye Kung, our (yes) education minister, using parliament to compare one of our leading playwrights to Nazis and violent jihadis. Are they all trying to Out-Shanmugam Shanmugam?
***
Another bit of CCS’s leaked discussion that melted his followers’ hearts was his apparent braininess and worldliness.
This is from last week’s viral post, “So he’s a Beng. But he’s our Beng”:
“#3 He also really knows his stuff. He knows the going price for masks. He knows how long Hong Kong’s supply of masks would last for medical personnel. He knows how many million masks one single machine can make in a month. To calculate whether he could safeguard the public hospitals’ mask supply while distributing 5 million to Singapore households, he did the math.”
Really? Is this what impresses you from your next deputy prime minister in conversation with the business elite? How about an interrogation of Singapore’s dependence on the Chinese tourist dollar? Or a conversation about the balance of power between landlords and retail tenants? (It’s been shocking, indeed, to see how quickly businesses across the world have folded.)
Singaporeans have every reason to expect deep thought, gravitas and intellect at such an event. Instead what CCS’s audience got was some rambling braggadocio, coffeeshop talk befitting a mid-level administrator who moonlights as a stand-up comedian.2
How, then, has CCS risen this far?
That would be a valid question even if I did not utter the T word. But with Tharman, one of Asia’s sharpest minds and Singapore’s most popular politician in the background, it makes the elevation of CCS seem like a cruel joke, as if Singaporeans are being forced to live through an extended reality show where the best person has so egregiously been voted off the island.
General chatter suggests that CCS is the favoured 4G minister of Lee Hsien Loong and Ho Ching, and might even have gotten the nod over Heng Swee Keat as Singapore’s next prime minister, but for some broad disgruntlement among the PAP’s cadres.
If the PAP had instead chosen as leader Tharman, its current top electoral performer who elicits broad, cross-party adoration, it would have pulled the rug from under the opposition. A long period of dominance would beckon. If the PAP cared about its own electoral future, in other words, it would have chosen Tharman.
This, then, is what scares me the most. CCS symbolises the idea that the Lee family’s interests are being prioritised over the party’s and the country’s.
And he best embodied this at the February 2017 debate over constitutional changes to pave the way for the reserved presidency, which limited that year’s election to Malays. Many Singaporeans believe this was a political manoeuvre masquerading as racial representation, led by Lee Hsien Loong to prevent (nemesis) Tan Cheng Bock from contesting.
During the debate CCS stood up in parliament and called Halimah Yacob “Madam President”. He did it not once but twice, laughing along with his fellow PAP politicians, having a ball of a time, delighting themselves in their own megalomaniac conceit. A full seven months before the election, Halimah’s colleagues were already calling it in her favour. They made a blatant mockery of our democratic process.
And in the process he also helped reduce Halimah, Singapore’s first female president, to a stooge of tokenism. How will history remember that election? As the achievement of a talented and very likeable Malay Muslim lady? Or as a vulnerable lady from a minority community being exploited by a dastardly fix?
In the video below you can see CCS, Ong Ye Kung and Janil Puthucheary, among others, laughing at your expense, dear Singaporeans. Tharman? He looked down soberly, perhaps embarrassed. Respect.
This incident alone should have disqualified CCS from high office. Even those who agreed with the political manoeuvre that delivered Halimah to office would have cringed at his horrible fuck-up. And for those who disagreed with reserving the presidency for one ethnicity—seemingly the vast majority of Singaporeans—what CCS did that day was to essentially give you a big middle finger on national TV. We can do whatever we want whenever we want.
Chan Chun Sing is “your beng”? That’s fine. Just remember that to him you could be an idiot. Even if not today, maybe tomorrow.
***
Watch Chan Chun Sing calling Halimah Yaacob “Madam President” in parliament in 2017, with Ong Ye Kung, Janil Puthucheary and his other kar kia in support—seven months before the proposed election, which Halimah won in a walkover.
***
Everybody I know who knows Chan Chun Sing likes him.
Smart, folksy, straight-talker, authentic, humble beginnings, frugal, hard worker who tirelessly works the ground, all well known attributes. I like his accent and liberal use of colloquialisms.
I have enjoyed stories about how he likes driving his security detail around (rather than being driven) and how, in conversations with elite civil servants, he has championed the need to cultivate closer ties with our immediate neighbours, Malaysia and Indonesia, an issue close to my heart.
All that gives me reason for pause when critiquing CCS. In the ivory tower that writers sometimes appear to occupy, one invariably wonders about the image of a person that the media projects. CCS is not the bumbling buffoon caricatured by his kee chiu antics, something I’ve heard many times.
Yet, as with most things, there is value in the views from both near and far. From my distant trench, the evidence that keeps emerging about him—the latest being a leaked recording of a closed-door discussion with the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCCI)—only deepens my conviction that he has ascended far higher than he would have if we had genuine meritocracy at the top.
CCS, in other words, would probably make a great Permanent Secretary (PermSec), pinnacle of the civil service, or agency head, or possibly a more junior politician, somebody that can connect with, and rouse, the “heartland” ground.
That he has risen to our putative second in command worries me.
And the fact that many Singaporeans have actually praised CCS for his comments at SCCCI suggests to me that our bar for leadership is just so low.
***
Many believe, firstly, that CCS’s explanation of the COVID-19 mask situation was indicative of transparency about stocks and logical decision-making. Yes, I enjoyed the clear-eyed thinking but then I remembered something: you and I were never supposed to hear that.
Instead the message the government publicly gave us was a cursory “Don’t wear masks if healthy, wear if sick”, which was confusing for all sorts of reasons.1
Instead of patting CCS on the back for being upfront with a closed group, we should ask: why did our politicians not treat us, all of us, as smart, responsible citizens and give us a fuller, more thorough explanation from the start?
Oh yes, that is a non-starter. A little more than a month ago, when CCS faced a parliamentary question from the Worker’s Party Pritam Singh about specific PMET employment numbers, his blithe, brow-beating response included “What is the point behind the question?”
If even our democratically-elected opposition leader is unable to easily extract basic data about our employment situation in parliament, then you and I, ordinary citizens, should be grateful simply to be told what day of the week it is.
CCS is a straight talker? Yes, for whatever he chooses to talk straight about. The government’s weird messaging on masks led many to conclude that the government was not being honest about mask stocks. (And if so, then what else?)
This probably had some part to play in the eventual, though thankfully short-lived, panic—the same one that CCS blamed on “idiots” at SCCCI, playing to his kar kia gallery, as he loves to do (another example at the end).
There are two aspects to his shameful and disgraceful—how do you say that in Hokkien, xia suay?—denigration of his fellow citizens that we need to consider. The first is the elitist display of insider chums sitting around their control room pontificating about the lemmings they need to control.
One always gets the impression that CCS—and many others among the political and civil service elite—believe they are bearing some twisted modern form of The White Man’s Burden, and without their benevolent paternalism Singapore and Singaporeans would be rudderless, penniless peasants. (The Men in White‘s Burden?)
Perhaps that ideology had more currency in independent Singapore’s early days, when institutions were still being built, when we were at an earlier stage of industrial development, when the civil service and PAP actually could monopolise more of our best minds.
But in today’s Singapore, with talent spread so broadly across a knowledge economy that depends on the free exchange of ideas, sometimes from the most unexpected of places, this idea is not just offensive but also myopic.
The second problem with blaming everything on “idiots” is the obvious lack of introspection and humility. CCS has positioned himself as the standard bearer of the PAP’s public relations playbook: when things are going well, it is because of the party’s famed governance; but when anything bad happens, it is because of individual error—those irresponsible, ungrateful, stupid idiots whom you call fellow citizens.
This strategy is always used when it comes to race and religion. When there is harmony, it is because of the PAP (and no, nothing to do with the fact that Singapore has been a multicultural trading port for at least two hundred years). When something flares up, it is because of individual provocateurs, like Preeti and Subhas (and no, nothing to do with the PAP’s own racist policies, including institutionalised discrimination against Malays and Indians).
From Beijing to Riyadh, this is an essential element of autocratic control: make your citizens fearful enough of each other, of the rapacious tendencies of all the “idiots” around, and they will always come scurrying back to your protective embrace.
Dear Supreme Leader, we want your government and your tech companies to control all our data and watch us 24/7 because then you can monitor the real enemies: my fellow errant citizens.
Of course, even without the PAP, Singapore would still have selfish individuals who behave in idiotic ways—just like in any country. But the PAP gleefully exploits this with its divisive messaging. It’s not conciliatory, it’s not appealing to the better angels of our nature, it’s not helping to build a more cohesive and gracious society.
This is especially true of many members of this 4G leadership, who seem eager to use this ongoing transition to power as the moment to prove their mettle, to show who among them is the biggest bully. One thinks of Ong Ye Kung, our (yes) education minister, using parliament to compare one of our leading playwrights to Nazis and violent jihadis. Are they all trying to Out-Shanmugam Shanmugam?
***
Another bit of CCS’s leaked discussion that melted his followers’ hearts was his apparent braininess and worldliness.
This is from last week’s viral post, “So he’s a Beng. But he’s our Beng”:
“#3 He also really knows his stuff. He knows the going price for masks. He knows how long Hong Kong’s supply of masks would last for medical personnel. He knows how many million masks one single machine can make in a month. To calculate whether he could safeguard the public hospitals’ mask supply while distributing 5 million to Singapore households, he did the math.”
Really? Is this what impresses you from your next deputy prime minister in conversation with the business elite? How about an interrogation of Singapore’s dependence on the Chinese tourist dollar? Or a conversation about the balance of power between landlords and retail tenants? (It’s been shocking, indeed, to see how quickly businesses across the world have folded.)
Singaporeans have every reason to expect deep thought, gravitas and intellect at such an event. Instead what CCS’s audience got was some rambling braggadocio, coffeeshop talk befitting a mid-level administrator who moonlights as a stand-up comedian.2
How, then, has CCS risen this far?
That would be a valid question even if I did not utter the T word. But with Tharman, one of Asia’s sharpest minds and Singapore’s most popular politician in the background, it makes the elevation of CCS seem like a cruel joke, as if Singaporeans are being forced to live through an extended reality show where the best person has so egregiously been voted off the island.
General chatter suggests that CCS is the favoured 4G minister of Lee Hsien Loong and Ho Ching, and might even have gotten the nod over Heng Swee Keat as Singapore’s next prime minister, but for some broad disgruntlement among the PAP’s cadres.
If the PAP had instead chosen as leader Tharman, its current top electoral performer who elicits broad, cross-party adoration, it would have pulled the rug from under the opposition. A long period of dominance would beckon. If the PAP cared about its own electoral future, in other words, it would have chosen Tharman.
This, then, is what scares me the most. CCS symbolises the idea that the Lee family’s interests are being prioritised over the party’s and the country’s.
And he best embodied this at the February 2017 debate over constitutional changes to pave the way for the reserved presidency, which limited that year’s election to Malays. Many Singaporeans believe this was a political manoeuvre masquerading as racial representation, led by Lee Hsien Loong to prevent (nemesis) Tan Cheng Bock from contesting.
During the debate CCS stood up in parliament and called Halimah Yacob “Madam President”. He did it not once but twice, laughing along with his fellow PAP politicians, having a ball of a time, delighting themselves in their own megalomaniac conceit. A full seven months before the election, Halimah’s colleagues were already calling it in her favour. They made a blatant mockery of our democratic process.
And in the process he also helped reduce Halimah, Singapore’s first female president, to a stooge of tokenism. How will history remember that election? As the achievement of a talented and very likeable Malay Muslim lady? Or as a vulnerable lady from a minority community being exploited by a dastardly fix?
In the video below you can see CCS, Ong Ye Kung and Janil Puthucheary, among others, laughing at your expense, dear Singaporeans. Tharman? He looked down soberly, perhaps embarrassed. Respect.
This incident alone should have disqualified CCS from high office. Even those who agreed with the political manoeuvre that delivered Halimah to office would have cringed at his horrible fuck-up. And for those who disagreed with reserving the presidency for one ethnicity—seemingly the vast majority of Singaporeans—what CCS did that day was to essentially give you a big middle finger on national TV. We can do whatever we want whenever we want.
Chan Chun Sing is “your beng”? That’s fine. Just remember that to him you could be an idiot. Even if not today, maybe tomorrow.
***
Watch Chan Chun Sing calling Halimah Yaacob “Madam President” in parliament in 2017, with Ong Ye Kung, Janil Puthucheary and his other kar kia in support—seven months before the proposed election, which Halimah won in a walkover.
***
Online petitions started to oppose & support Chan Chun Sing as next S'pore PM
Probably won't move the needle one way or another.
Sulaiman Daud |
April 11, 2021, 10:43 AM
Singaporeans have taken it upon themselves to prove Sir Isaac Newton's maxim that for every action, there must be an opposite reaction.
Mere hours after Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat announced that he was effectively taking himself out of the running to be Singapore's next Prime Minister, a petition popped up.
But this didn't concern Heng.
Instead, it was about Trade and Industry Minister Chan Chun Sing.
Petition: Say no!
The petition was started by a user calling themselves "Singaporean First".
The message attached to the petition claims that their "worst fear" is having the Minister-in-Charge of Public Service as PM, and urged others to sign the petition if they "cares (sic) for our political future".
As of early April 11, it has garnered over 3,700 signatures, some with explanations for why they are signing the petition.
Petition: Say yes!
Perhaps inevitably, someone else realised they too could create an online petition to express their support for the Deputy Chairman of the People's Association
This one was started by someone going by Love SG.
The message here recycles a Facebook post that touted the various achievements of the Member of Parliament for Tanjong Pagar GRC.
As of early April 11, it has garnered over 400 signatures.
Petitions: Unlikely to do anything
Before you consider signing either of these petitions, it might be useful to remember that anyone on planet Earth with an Internet connection can "sign" the petition.
Also, there is an infinitesimally tiny chance that either of these petitions will have any kind of influence on whether Second Assistant-Secretary General of the People's Action Party (PAP) does get the top job.
Singapore's system of government: Leader of the ruling party becomes PM
Many Singaporeans could be influenced by other political systems, where the President or PM is elected by the popular vote.
But the Government in Singapore is modelled after the United Kingdom's Westminster system.
There are three separate branches: the Legislature (which comprises the President and Parliament), the Executive (which comprises Cabinet Ministers and office-holders, and is led by the Prime Minister) and the Judiciary.
So how does one become the PM?
The leader of the political party that secures the majority of seats in Parliament after the General Election will be asked by the President to become the PM.
During GE 2020, it is the PAP who won 83 seats out of 93 seats in parliament.
This is why the PAP cadres and leaders have the most say in who becomes the PM.
And what does the man himself have to say on the subject?
You can see it below:
Here's the relevant bit:
"When DPM Heng chose me as his deputy in 2018, and the team supported it, now that DPM has decided to step aside as the leader of the 4G, the 4G team should be given the opportunity to relook at the question of succession holistically. And we will make a collective decision on who will be the next leader of the 4G in due course.
Now having said that, I must add that our leadership succession plans goes beyond just choosing a leader. It is more than that. It is always about finding and forming the strongest team possible for Singapore, so that Singapore (has) the best chance to defy the odds of history, to not only survive, but to thrive. And that we will continue to do and that is what our entire team is committed to do for Singapore and all Singaporeans."
Related story:
Top image from Chan Chun Sing's Facebook page.
If you like what you read, follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Telegram to get the latest updates.
Probably won't move the needle one way or another.
Sulaiman Daud |
April 11, 2021, 10:43 AM
Singaporeans have taken it upon themselves to prove Sir Isaac Newton's maxim that for every action, there must be an opposite reaction.
Mere hours after Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat announced that he was effectively taking himself out of the running to be Singapore's next Prime Minister, a petition popped up.
But this didn't concern Heng.
Instead, it was about Trade and Industry Minister Chan Chun Sing.
Petition: Say no!
The petition was started by a user calling themselves "Singaporean First".
The message attached to the petition claims that their "worst fear" is having the Minister-in-Charge of Public Service as PM, and urged others to sign the petition if they "cares (sic) for our political future".
As of early April 11, it has garnered over 3,700 signatures, some with explanations for why they are signing the petition.
Petition: Say yes!
Perhaps inevitably, someone else realised they too could create an online petition to express their support for the Deputy Chairman of the People's Association
This one was started by someone going by Love SG.
The message here recycles a Facebook post that touted the various achievements of the Member of Parliament for Tanjong Pagar GRC.
As of early April 11, it has garnered over 400 signatures.
Petitions: Unlikely to do anything
Before you consider signing either of these petitions, it might be useful to remember that anyone on planet Earth with an Internet connection can "sign" the petition.
Also, there is an infinitesimally tiny chance that either of these petitions will have any kind of influence on whether Second Assistant-Secretary General of the People's Action Party (PAP) does get the top job.
Singapore's system of government: Leader of the ruling party becomes PM
Many Singaporeans could be influenced by other political systems, where the President or PM is elected by the popular vote.
But the Government in Singapore is modelled after the United Kingdom's Westminster system.
There are three separate branches: the Legislature (which comprises the President and Parliament), the Executive (which comprises Cabinet Ministers and office-holders, and is led by the Prime Minister) and the Judiciary.
So how does one become the PM?
The leader of the political party that secures the majority of seats in Parliament after the General Election will be asked by the President to become the PM.
During GE 2020, it is the PAP who won 83 seats out of 93 seats in parliament.
This is why the PAP cadres and leaders have the most say in who becomes the PM.
And what does the man himself have to say on the subject?
You can see it below:
Here's the relevant bit:
"When DPM Heng chose me as his deputy in 2018, and the team supported it, now that DPM has decided to step aside as the leader of the 4G, the 4G team should be given the opportunity to relook at the question of succession holistically. And we will make a collective decision on who will be the next leader of the 4G in due course.
Now having said that, I must add that our leadership succession plans goes beyond just choosing a leader. It is more than that. It is always about finding and forming the strongest team possible for Singapore, so that Singapore (has) the best chance to defy the odds of history, to not only survive, but to thrive. And that we will continue to do and that is what our entire team is committed to do for Singapore and all Singaporeans."
Related story:
Top image from Chan Chun Sing's Facebook page.
If you like what you read, follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Telegram to get the latest updates.
Knn is that kee chiu with a wig?????Please don't be sexist! I'm looking forward to the first female Sinkie PM.
Can eat don't waste.Please don't be sexist! I'm looking forward to the first female Sinkie PM.
He looks better as a girl.
Please don't be sexist! I'm looking forward to the first female Sinkie PM.
We already have.
That aside CCS is your best bet. Like one of the above post commented he is smart, hard working, and talks like a sinkie. He talks like that in the recording but didn't the people all laff with him its the trust the bond. You think the leaks is accidental ? Someone wants him stepped upon.
You think small space biotch and the rest of the ChaoAhGuas talk nice of us or any better in their heart or behind our backs ? C'mon don't be naive. lol.......
Yes he's a bit howlian yes and very kwailan but don't forget he's one of us he's not one of 'them' the porlumpar type like 'lawwless w' and the rest this is the most important factor we need. That's also why he's less trusted because he's kwailan he's disobedient. Sinkies are fools he our best bet for a freer SG.
But you know what ? Like LKY he won't get what he wants, the 'dishonorable' stuffs they'll do just to hold on to power and ensure a smoother seat warmer transition that's why stroked hheng was selected but he kinda disappointed them out he gib up /rofl.... nuff said !
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