First, let us consider the case of India, the second most populous country in the world with a population of about 1.2 billion. It has about 1600 regional dialects and numerous languages. The most commonly spoken is Hindi which has an estimated 40% of the population speaking it. However, when two educated Indians of different language streams meet and neither is familiar with the other’s tongue, they will probably need to communicate in English, the country’s subsidiary official language, which is regarded as a prestigious and popular language there for historical reasons. Despite this multiplicity of diverse languages and dialects, it has become a potential world economic powerhouse if it keeps up with its current vibrant economic development.

On the other hand, China, the most populous nation in the world with more than 1.3 billion people, has a less formidable language and dialect problem than India to contend with. Despite having a total of 55 minority ethnic components with their own languages and many Chinese regional dialects of the majority Han Chinese race which constitutes more about 92% of its overall citizenry in this vast landmass, it is fortunate to have a common written Chinese script and spoken Mandarin which all educated Chinese and minority groups are familiar with and they serve as the common medium for effective communication with each other. This is because all schools and other educational institutions and government bodies are required by law to adopt only Mandarin as their sole language of instruction and communication, after the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, with the exception of the significant minority-run autonomous regions where Chinese and the native tongues are taught alongside each other. In private gatherings and at home Chinese dialects have continued to be spoken extensively, especially among the older generation. Then the Chinese and minority group parents began to realise that having a firm foundation and proficiency in Mandarin will bring with it more economic advantages and better employment prospects for their children. Over the decades, the popularity of Mandarin among the younger generation nationwide has increased steadily and this has led to the continuing decline of both the minority languages and regional Chinese dialects . The pace of their decline has begun to accelerate from the 1990s onwards as the Chinese central government intensifies its ongoing effort to strongly encourage the use of Mandarin in Public and in government and other public funded organisations. This policy has worked very successfully with the overwhelming majority of the provinces but has encountered some obstacles in the large and influential Guangdong Province, which has stood out like a sore thumb. Many people there would only adhere to this national policy publicly but, in their day-to-day interaction with one another and in the privacy of their own homes, Mandarin would largely be discarded by the citizenry in favour of their own Cantonese dialect. Other major dialects like Shanghainese and Beijinghua too have resisted the relentless threat to them posed by the ever popular and growing Mandarin usage by their younger kith and kin.

Be that as it may, in recent years there has been a clear and unmistakable sign that the national policy of gradually replacing the dialects with Mandarin aimed at promoting national unity and cohesiveness is bearing fruits even in its three largest cities, namely Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou, where dialects are nowadays less and less used in public places and at home spearheaded by the better educated parents and the younger generation. Language experts have noted this trend in the other large urban centres too. They are therefore optimistic that this development is irreversible. They predict that all Chinese dialects will ultimately be abandoned in favour of Mandarin when the older generation has passed on. In the minority groups, the need to know the Chinese language and Mandarin for a better future has resulted in only a very tiny number of people who are still fluent with both their own written and spoken native tongues. The Chinese central government officially recognises only 80 major regional dialects. Hastening the rapid decline of the regional Chinese dialects and minority languages is the continuing strong parental influence and the manifold tangible advantages for their children to be facile with the lingua franca of China, Mandarin.

What about the state of the Cantonese dialect in the Special Autonomous Region of Hong Kong where it is the common dialect for all its more than 7-million residents, Cantonese and other chinese groups? It rejoined China only in 1997, after having been under the British colonial administration for the past 150 years. Under China’s One country, two systems doctrine, it is allowed to retain its existing capitalist system for a period of 50 years. Prior to 1997, Cantonese was not only the daily working language among the Chinese there but it was also the common medium of instruction in schools. With such a long-standing tradition, it is hardly surprising that the overwhelming majority of the Cantonese Hong-Kongers are non-Mandarin speakers, but their proficiency in the written Chinese language is on par with their compatriots on the Mainland. By tenaciously sticking to Cantonese as the common dialect there when the rest of China are increasingly switching to Mandarin as their common language, the Hong kong people have paid a very high price for its past neglect and disdain for the many advantages and benefits of being fluent speakers of Mandarin. To remedy the situation for their own future well-being, the Hong-Kongers, who are noted for their shrewdness, adaptability, resourcefulness which had enabled them to overcome many past crises, are now making a determined effort for the younger people to learn to speak Mandarin well. The schools there now use both Mandarin and Cantonese as their mediums of instruction. Besides their very poor command of Mandarin which has hindered their interactions with their Chinese compatriots outside the Guangdong area, the birth place of the Cantonese dialect , the average Hong-Konger’s level of English is also way below that of many other countries with past colonial connections with Britain. This is despite the fact that English has been taught in their schools, both in the past and at the present time, This, again, is attributable to the overpowering influence and convenience of speaking only Cantonese in their everyday life. This tends to make them feel uncomfortable and even diffident when speaking to non Cantonese-speaking English speakers. I believe that, as Cantonese is so much a part of their life in Hong Kong for so long now, it will take at least one more generation for Mandarin to become the common language in Hong Kong. Only time will tell.

I can still vividly recall a somewhat amusing and embarrassing episode in Beijing on my first visit there in 1982. My wife and I were in a tour group comprising wholly of Hong Kong residents, most of them were in the 40s and 50s age group. As none of them spoke Mandarin and as the tour guide could speak only impeccable Beijing Mandarin and no Cantonese at all, I had to come to their rescue by acting as an interpreter for both sides in my less than perfect Cantonese and Mandarin, much to their relief. To show their appreciation, the Hong Kong group bought me a present to thank me for my assistance and I felt impolite to decline.

In China’s offshore province of Taiwan, Mandarin became a political hot potato during the 8-year presidency of Chen Sui Bian from 2000 to 2008. He and his government were determined to declare Taiwan an independent country, and not an integral part of China. To further their aim, Chen was advocating that the Chinese Fujian Minnan dialect, which more than 80% of its citizens speak, be elevated to the status of the official national language of Taiwan. He went so far as to claim that the Taiwanese’s DNA is different from the Chinese on the Mainland and therefore they are not of the Chinese race in order to augment his case to turn Taiwan into a separate independent state. However, before this could come to fruition, Chen’s party was defeated by the opposition Nationalist Party, which was opposed to Taiwan becoming an independent nation. Chen is now serving a long prison sentence for a number of corruption convictions and for misuse of public funds during his terms of office.

What about in the other multiethnic countries in Southeast Asia like Singapore, where its citizens of Chinese descent constitute 74% of the local population? As in China, the Singapore Government too had officially launched a national campaign in 1979 aimed at making Mandarin the ultimate common spoken language of the entire Chinese community in place of the multitude of Chinese dialects brought by their ancestors from China when they settled in Singapore over the past 130 years, mainly from 1819 to around 1949 when it was still a British colony. The government leaders are making sustained efforts to convince the local Chinese population of the manifold advantages and benefits of switching to Mandarin from the then wide use of Chinese dialects as they firmly believe that the Chinese economy will continue to expand resulting in more trade and business dealings between Singapore and the fast emerging China and that the Chinese Singaporeans who are facile with the Chinese language and Mandarin will have an edge over others. Unlike Hong Kong, the Chinese language schools in Singapore had, from their early days, already opted to adopt Mandarin as the only medium of instruction. The sole use of Mandarin was later extended to cover the broadcasting industry and in the movie and the performing arts sectors. The government ministers also set an example by abstaining from making public speeches in the popular Chinese dialects like Hokkien as they had done earlier for political reasons. There was initial disquiet and apprehension over this new language policy, especially among the dialect-speaking older Chinese Singaporeans and some Chinese community and opinion leaders. However, through unwavering perseverance, rational reasoning, public debates and gentle public persuasion over the years, this government language policy has gradually started to bear fruits as parents began to realise that being proficient in both the Chinese language and Mandarin is the way forward to a better future for their children. This has led to a significant decline of dialects and the corresponding rise of Mandarin as the vehicle of communication among the Chinese community. The language experts are optimistic that Mandarin will ultimately replace the Chinese dialects as the common language of the Chinese community in Singapore after the older generation of Chinese there has left the scene. As anticipated by the Singapore Government earlier, the Chinese economy did expand exponentially in the past two decades and by 2011, it had exceeded that of Japan as the world’s number two economy after the US. Economists are confident that Chinese economy will continue to move up in the near future and that it will surpass the US as the number one world economy around 2020. Hopefully, Singapore will benefit much from this in its business and other dealings with China and will also improve further their existing friendly ties.

At the other end of the globe, English is the common language of another multicultural nation, the United Kingdom (UK). It is the union of four historically sovereign countries of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales, each with its separate languages, traditions, customs and culture. For economic and historical reasons, they decided that it would be best for them to come together to form a larger entity of UK, also known as Great Britain, with England as the undisputed dominant leader in view of its military and economic prowess and its emerging influence in world affairs which would significantly benefit the other three components too. The heyday of UK was in the 19th and early 20th centuries when its colonial empire stretched from Europe to many other parts of the world. The unabashed boast then was that “the sun never sets on the British Empire”. After world War II in 1945, there was a great influx of British colonial subjects from different parts of the world settling in the UK in search of a better Life. Thus, over time, this country has gradually become a multiethnic nation that it is today.

Owing to historical developments and the pervasive influence of the English language both at home and abroad, it has become the common language of UK and internationally at the expense of the minority Scottish, Irish and Welsh languages to the extent that nowadays their native tongues, both written and spoken, are almost completely alien to their people except to a small group of diehard nationalists among them. In the case of the new immigrants from the former British colonies, all will have to be proficient in English if they are to survive and do well in their new adopted country. The older generation of these immigrants have managed to keep their native languages and traditions alive at home and when interacting with those of their own community. However, with the younger generation of immigrants, born and bred in the UK, they will, over time, cease to be familiar with their parents’ languages, customs and traditions because of the social and educational environment and the compelling need to completely integrate themselves into the larger British community as an integral part of it and for a brighter future.

Across the Atlantic Ocean. the United States is truly a melting pot of races and cultures whose ancestors, excepting the native Americans, came from virtually all corners of the earth, but predominantly from the West. There is no official national language there but, for historical reasons, English has always been the de facto national language and spoken by almost every citizen, young and old. The native American languages, which had no written scripts, had virtually disappeared under the overwhelming impact of the English language. Be that as it may, the US has an enlightened policy towards all its minority languages and racial groups and freely allows them to preserve their own cultures and languages within their own community. Take the Chinese as a case in point. Following the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and US in 1979, there has been an influx of Chinese students and immigrants coming to that country. Consequently, in some major cities, a sizable Chinese community has sprung up, not counting the American-born Chinese and those who had migrated there from earlier times. To cater to the Chinese community’s needs, there are now Chinese kindergartens, supermarkets, newspapers and even Chinese-speaking churches in these cities which include New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay Area. Among the minority races there, the Spanish-speaking group, mainly immigrants from north, south and central America, forms the largest non-white population in the US. However, all the immigrants’ offsprings, born and bred there, will need to become fully integrated into the mainstream American community with the passage of time. All these minority groups have contributed much to the development and prosperity of their adopted country and have enriched the life and culture of the American society. This is self-evident to discerning visitors to that country.

Lam Pin Foo

There were two days in November this year that were considered highly auspicious and much sought after by couples planning to get married. One was 11 November 2011 (11.11.11) and the other, 20 November 2011 (20.11.2011). The rare coincidence of the repeated numbers representing the day, month and year also intrigued and interested many others, not just those involved in matrimony.

Unlike these two “star” days, another day in November probably did not attract as much attention. Sunday, 13 November came and went without most people being aware of what it stood for or its significance. That it was World Kindness Day likely caused some Singaporeans, myself included, to scratch their heads and go: “Huh, what’s that?”

Well, at least one group of people knew better as they were direct beneficiaries. In an appropriate act of kindness, contract cleaners in Marine Parade were given the day off to commemorate World Kindness Day. As reported by the media, resident volunteers in the estate took over the cleaning for the day, led by Emeritus Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong and his fellow members of parliament.

Elsewhere in Singapore, volunteers stationed at shopping malls and other public areas gave away thousands of yellow gerbera daisies as symbols of kindness. Some schools and tertiary institutions also marked the day with special programmes.

The day was perhaps marred for at least one volunteer who observed on blog that some people were hoarding flowers they were given and asking for more! World Kindness Day was also celebrated in countries around the world. In Sydney, friends and strangers exchanged hugs, in the UK people sent text messages expressing appreciation for acts of kindness and in Vancouver, a “Kindness” concert was the main event.

World Kindness Day has a relatively short history, it was officially inaugurated in 1998 and celebrated annually since. Behind it is an organisation called the World Kindness Movement whose vision is to “inspire individuals towards greater kindness and to connect nations to create a kinder world.”

The movement was in fact launched right here in Singapore which is a founding member together with countries like Thailand, Japan, UK and the US. Its local affiliate is the Singapore Kindness Movement which has none other than the Prime Minister as its Patron. The Singapore Movement has its roots in the long running National Courtesy Campaign which several generations of Singaporeans have grown up with.

Having discovered World Kindness Day and its vision belatedly, I was struck by the profound irony of the event this year. For a month earlier, exactly to the day, the world witnessed a horrific act of man’s inhumanity that had probably not been seen outside the ravages of a war zone.

A little girl in China’s Foshan city, injured by a hit-and-run driver and later ran over by another vehicle was ignored as she laid hapless and bleeding on a busy street. No fewer than 18 passers-by could have come to her aid but none did until an old lady collecting refuse chanced upon her. The toddler named Yue Yue unfortunately succumbed to her massive injuries and her tragic story grabbed world headlines.

Kindness obviously took a back seat to other considerations that day in Foshan city. Compassion, consideration and concern for others, charitable behaviour, however one chooses to define kindness, were sadly absent in those who turned a blind eye to the plight of little Yue Yue.

While the public debate raged on in China about the kind of society they have that could have nurtured such anti-social behaviour, my thoughts turned to Singapore and I could not help but wonder whether a “Foshan” would ever occur here. I would like to think not.

Even though Singaporeans will probably not score high on graciousness and courtesy, especially in public transport and on the roads, I am inclined to believe that collectively our heart and values are anchored in the right place and our sense of civic duty is intact.

By most accounts, Singaporeans are a charitable lot with a strong spirit of giving, be it time or money, to causes deserving of support. Whether it is a relief fund for victims of natural disasters in neighbouring countries or home-grown calls for help or even media stories of complete strangers in need of assistance, Singaporeans are known to respond whole-heartedly and generously.

But more can certainly be done to strengthen our social fibre and in this regard, two recent initiatives aimed at our young will hopefully prevent the possibility of a “Foshan” happening in the future.

One was the launch of a Character and Citizenship Education programme by the Ministry of Education that focuses on values driven and student-centric lessons. One of the desired outcomes of this new focus on character building is to have our students show care and concern for others.

The other is the launch of a Seed Kindness Fund by the Singapore Kindness Movement. It aims to encourage students and teachers to generate and run creative ideas that will promote values of care and consideration for others in and out of the classroom.

With such proactive programmes to instil the desired values in our young, Singapore can claim to continue to contribute positively to the World Kindness Movement’s vision to “inspire individuals towards greater kindness and to connect nations to create a kinder world.”

About the Writer

The writer is a former corporate executive who is now discovering a whole new world beyond the narrow confines of an office cubicle.

Among the prominent ethnic Chinese business leaders in Southeast Asia, one man stands apart from the rest of the pack and achieved a stature and acclaim not accorded to others. His name is Tan Kah Kee (1874-1961), who became a legend in his life time. A man of great vision, drive and unflinching convictions, he was an indefatigable champion of education and social justice, and a philanthropist par excellence and patriot.

Throughout his long life, he utilised his considerable financial resources and personal influence for the maximum benefit of the communities in China, Singapore and the region. Tan Kah Kee’s greatest and most enduring contributions, for which posterity will remember him affectionately, are in the field of education.

He was the first Chinese to have founded a major university, the Xiamen University, single-handedly. He also founded colleges and schools in his native Jimei, near Xiamen in Fujian province, and provided the pupils there with free education at a time when this was inaccessible. His colleges in Jimei came of age in recent years and were upgraded to a full-fledge university in 1996, a dream envisaged by him long ago.

In Singapore, many schools and tertiary institutions had benefited from his farsighted leadership and munificence. The Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce set up the Tan Kah Kee Foundation and also endowed a chair in history at the Nanyang Technological University to promote scholarship and innovations in his memory.

Thirty-five years after his death, his fame has now spread beyond the shores of Asia, to far away United States. The world-renowned University of California, Berkeley, which has produced more Nobel prize winners than any other universities, recently commissioned a US$ 40 million major science building and named it Tan Kah Kee Hall, in recognition of his distinguished service to education.

How the Berkeley accolade came about makes interesting reading. In the 1980s, the University was planning to construct a major chemical engineering building to cater to its growing needs. It would consider naming it after a deserving benefactor who would donate a substantial sum towards the building cost.

Professor Y T Lee, then teaching chemistry at Berkeley and who was the fourth ethnic Chinese to have won a Nobel prize in chemistry in 1986, is an ardent admirer of Tan Kah Kee for his selfless and unwavering commitment to education for its own sake. He believed that Tan ought to have international recognition, such as extended to Andrew Carnegie and Henry Ford, for his unprecedented efforts and exceptional achievements and that Berkeley would be an eminently suitable forum for it. This would also raise the level of American awareness of Chinese culture and civilisation, and their profound love and respect for scholarship, which most Americans were blissfully ignorant of.

With the active support of Prof. Tien Chang-Lin, the first Chinese-American to be appointed Chancellor of Berkeley in 1990 and himself an admirer of Tan Kah Kee, Prof. Lee spearheaded the unenviable and daunting task to raise the targeted sum of US$ 8.5 million in order to secure the naming right in honour of the famous educationalist. He then travelled around the United States, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and other ASEAN countries at his own expense in order to seek support and donations for this worthy cause. Everywhere he went he received an enthusiastic response from many quarters, including Dr K K Phua of the Tan Kah Kee Foundation here, who immediately grasped the significance of his quest.

The aim was not to confine the fund-raising campaign to only the rich and powerful and those who knew Tan Kah Kee or were related to him. From the outset, the organisers felt that it would be more meaningful for those who simply admired his greatness but had nothing at all to do with him to also come forward spontaneously to support the project.

Through the untiring efforts of Prof. Lee and the numerous co-campaigners who shared his vision, widespread public donations from both continents poured in and the mission was thus successfully accomplished, several years after the idea was first mooted. The bulk of the donations came from Singapore, Taiwan, Indonesia, Thailand and the United States.

The seven-storey Tan Kah Kee Hall is primarily used for postgraduate teaching and research, and houses a number of laboratories, a large lecture hall, a state-of-the-art computer facility, conference rooms and administrative offices. It is part of the College of Chemistry and has enhanced the needs of its School of Chemical Engineering.

The Berkeley project led to the formation of the Tan Kah Kee International Society, with Prof. Lee as its first chairman and Singaporean Dr K K Phua as Secretary, to further Tan’s aims to propagate education and culture including the raising of funds to expand the Overseas Chinese Museum in Xiamen and the conversion of the Jimei colleges into a university.

What propelled Tan Kah Kee to persevere in his abiding labour of love with education? What makes his achievements so unique, in view that many prominent business tycoons everywhere also actively support education and charitable projects? With only eight years’ schooling, he emigrated to Singapore at the age of 17 to help his father run his sundry goods business. He quickly showed his mettle in business. By 1906, he had become a wealthy businessman, with interests which included rubber trading and manufacturing, rice mills and pineapple canning.

His businesses continued to expand and prosper by leaps and bounds, and he ventured into new fields such as shipping, sawmills, real estate and shoe manufacturing. By the time he was 45, he had become one of the richest men in Singapore and Malaya. Tan Kah Kee believed passionately that, for any nation to be strong and economically affluent, its people must first become literate and well-educated. He often lamented that, while China is a country with 5000 years of continuous civilisation, a vast number of Chinese were too poor to attend school, and that education was a luxury that only the well off could afford to indulge in.

His own native Fujian province was a case in point. It was then one of the poorer parts of China. With a population of more than 10 millions, there was a paucity of schools and no university to speak of. His simple philosophy was that, as one derives one’s wealth from the community in which one operates in, it is imperative that this should be extended to the advantage of the community and not for personal glorification. He began to practise what he firmly believed in by initiating and establishing a succession of schools in Jimei from 1913 onwards, and providing the funds needed to uplift the children of poor homes in Fujian. This was followed by the founding of a teachers’ training college and colleges for agriculture and forestry, fisheries and marine navigation, also in Jimei.

His generosity extended to schools elsewhere in the province, where such support was most acutely felt. Not content with merely endowing these infant institutions, he took a continuing interest in their management through regular correspondence and by making periodic prolonged visits there in order to keep abreast with their progress and development. Tan Kah Kee’s enterprises reached their zenith between 1919 and 1925. He was now one of the richest entrepreneurs in Southeast Asia, with a net worth of more than $12 millions, a colossal fortune in those distant days. His business empire became even more diversified and spread out in China and throughout the region, employing a combined workforce exceeding 10,000.

Tan Kah Kee was most fortunate to have had good people working for him. Two of his most able and trusted employees, Lee Kong Chian, the would be rubber magnate and founder of Lee Foundation and Oon Khye Hong, a chemical engineer from MIT, became his sons-in-law; while the third, the legendary and inimitable Tan Lark Sye, who also made his fortunes in rubber, co-founded the Nanyang University in 1955 and donated $5 millions to it.

In 1919, he launched his most ambitious project, the setting up of the Xiamen University. An initial funding of $1 million was needed, together with an operating budget of $3 millions for the next 12 years. With his characteristic decisiveness and resolve, he decided to shoulder the above financial burden himself, in order not to delay the launch of this momentous scheme.

He later described vividly his repeated futile attempts to raise the urgently needed endowment fund, from amongst the richest Chinese in the region for the long term viability of the fledgling University, as one of the most disappointing episodes of his life. Simultaneous with supporting education in China, Tan Kah Kee did not forget the needs of his adopted country. He led the establishment and funding of several Chinese language schools in Singapore from 1918 onwards, which were then grossly neglected by the colonial government.

Among the schools that owe their existence to his pioneering efforts are the Chinese High School and Nanyang Girls’ High School, both of which have become leading schools here. He also made substantial donations to the local English language institutions including the Anglo Chinese School and Raffles College, one of the predecessor institutions of the National University of Singapore. The dark clouds of the Great Depression of the late 1920s started to cast its sinister impact on his extensive business ventures, as the Malayan and Singapore economies took a precipitous plunge which resulted in drastic declines in rubber and tin prices, the two territories’ biggest revenue earners.

Even while Tan Kah Kee was trying desperately, to keep his businesses afloat and to cope with the mounting cash-flow problems, he continued to finance his educational projects in China, rather than let them flounder due to lack of funds. Even after the inevitable winding up of his business conglomerate in 1934, he still managed to remit monies to China, relying on his now greatly reduced personal resources and generous financial assistance of his loyal friends and relatives. It must have been a tremendous relief to him that the Chinese Government was finally prevailed upon to take over the financing and running of Xiamen University in 1940. He retired to Jimei in 1950, and devoted much of his time to overseeing the direction and development of the schools and colleges he founded there.

What makes Tan Kah Kee’s contributions to education so unique was his all-consuming belief in its importance and role in nation building, to the extent that, instead of giving only a portion of his wealth as other benefactors the world over would have done, he gave practically all he had for the advancement of education, leaving virtually nothing to his own large family. Moreover, it is a hallmark of his greatness that he eschewed personal publicity and recognition for what he had done and had consistently and tenaciously declined repeated attempts by his well-wishers to have some of the important edifices named after him.

He died in 1961 at the age of 87 and was buried in his beloved native Jimei. He left his entire fortune of more than ¥1 million RMB to the schools there, which he first founded almost 50 years earlier. Today, his birthplace has become one of the top attractions in Xiamen as visitors, both from China and overseas, flock there to pay fitting tributes to a visionary who was well ahead of his time.

Lam Pin Foo

In a recent speech delivered at the 21st Century Forum in Beijing, Singapore’s Senior Minister, Mr Lee Kuan Yew, spoke optimistically of the renaissance of East Asia which would re-invigorate the world. His optimism was buttressed by the progress made by East Asians in the last 30 years. He predicted that, barring major unforseen events, “… China will quicken the pace of its development by using inputs from the industrial and newly industrialising countries to catch up with and become first, a fully industrialised, and next, a high-tech society – if not in 50 years, then in 100 years”.

“If the present concentration of economic growth and cooperation prevails in East Asia for another 10 to 20 years, Asia will be transformed… By 2020, East Asia’s GDP (Gross Domestic Product), at present rates of growth, extrapolated for 25 years, will be 40 per cent of the world’s total GDP in PPP (Purchasing Power Parity) terms, as compared to North America’s 18 per cent and EU 15 countries’ 14 per cent …”, he added.

The Senior Minister said that, as Asia develops, its people would master the media. Asian documentaries would interpret world events to us from an Asian perspective. This would take several decades to achieve.

While China could acquire economic and military strength (hard power) in 30 years, he believed it would take it much longer time to attain cultural influence (soft power ). This would come about “… only when other nations admire and want to emulate aspects of that nation’s civilisation. Before others will want to do so, that civilisation must be seen to be superior and it has to be open, receptive and generous, allowing easy access to its knowledge and culture. American aid and investments helped many developing countries. This was the difference between the soft power of America and that of the former Soviet Union …”

The development of East Asia, he stressed, would lead to a re-affirmation of Asian culture, its traditions and values. To appraise China’s future prospects to become both a hard and soft power, it is instructive to comb through Chinese history, to ferret out the periods where Chinese influence was at its greatest. Was China ever an international soft power in the sense described by Senior Minister Lee?

The Dynastic Contenders

Throughout its 5000 years of history, four periods stand out for the purpose of our investigation. The first period when Chinese civilisation and military might reached a high point was the Han Dynasty (206 BC – AD 220). During this period, China established trade relations with countries in Asia, the Arab world, Iran, Turkey ,and through them, with the Roman Empire. Other nations were greatly attracted by Chinese silk and other luxury goods, which were symbols of an advanced and gracious society.

While China was undoubtedly rich and powerful, Han’s ascendance, 2000 years ago, came too early for its influence to be widely transmitted to other Eurasian civilisations. Transportation and communications technology of the period did not permit much cultural transmission, beyond the osmotic impact of mercantile trade. Also, while Han was rich and powerful, so was the contemporaneous Roman Empire. Proximity to the ancient centres of the Middle East ensured that the Romans were the dominant civilisation throughout much of antiquity.

Another period to consider was the Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368). Its Mongolian rulers created the most powerful empire in the 13th Century, with its territories spread over Asia and Europe. While this was one of the largest empires the world has ever seen, it was essentially a Mongolian rather than a Chinese empire. Also, while it was clearly a hard power given the Mongol’s military prowess, it was not a soft power in terms of cultural influence.

Indigenous Chinese prestige was briefly rekindled during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), when Admiral Zheng He’s fleets sailed through Southeast Asia, India to Arabia and East Africa. Many countries from all over Asia came to China to seek trade or protection against their stronger neighbours.

From the mid-15th century onwards, however, Ming China had lapsed into a self-imposed isolation from the outside world due to its Court intrigues. Its once powerful navy was drastically reduced in strength until it ceased to be a force to be reckoned with. A cocooned society, the late Ming Empire was a force primarily within its own boundaries.

The Splendours of Tang

Only the Tang Dynasty (618-906) came close to possessing soft power, in the sense defined by Senior Minister Lee. What then were this dynasty’s contributions to China’s internationalisation?

Historians generally agree that China was, in the 7th and 8th Centuries, the strongest, most advanced and the best governed country in the world. It possessed a then unprecedented population of over 50 million. Its capital Changan (now Xian), with an estimated population of one million, was the largest and most cosmopolitan city in the world. In both cultural and material terms, the country was better endowed than anywhere else.

The splendours of China were a magnet which drew a continuous stream of visitors to its capital. They came to China via the “Silk Road”, which was at its busiest. during Tang time. This began at Changan, on to the neighbouring states along its northwestern border and through to Central and South Asia, Middle East, Iran, Turkey and ended in Rome.Official foreign envoys came to pay tributes at the Chinese Court. Foreign traders brought their exotic merchandise to exchange for Chinese luxury items which could be sold for huge profits back home. Students and officials came to learn what made China tick. Monks,too, came and spread Chinese religious cults to their own people.

Tang China had official relations with some 70 countries and states, a feat unsurpassed by other countries. The foreign community, which numbered more than 10,000 in Changan alone, were generously treated and had special quarters set aside for them. Every assistance was extended to them in order to make their stay a successful and happy one. Many stayed for years, or even decades, while a few were appointed Court officials and took up Chinese nationality.

The Tang government was liberal and receptive to foreign ideas and culture. These enriched Chinese life and contributed to its intellectual development. Two-way trade was of mutual benefit. Most coveted among the Chinese quality goods were silk, textiles and porcelains. The Chinese, in turn, were fascinated by novel foreign products like grapes, cotton, precious stones, exotic arts and crafts and the famed sturdy stallions.

Culturally prodigious, Tang China’s painting, sculpture, calligraphy, poetry, literature, music and dance reached a new high. Important scientific innovations, such as woodblock printing on paper and silk, helped to speed up knowledge and literacy. With peace, prosperity and an efficient bureaucracy, life was orderly and pleasant. The Tang elite were refined and accomplished, their lifestyle cosmopolitan and elegant. The game of polo, introduced from Iran, became the favourite sport of the Emperor and his Court.

The glory of Tang has been so deeply implanted in the collective folk consciousness of the Chinese, especially those of the coastal South, that, even to-day, they still call themselves “ Men of Tang”. Chinese quarters in overseas countries, ungrammatically called “Chinatown” by Westerners, are habitually referred to by the Chinese themselves as “Tang Quarters”.

The Emergence of East Asian Civilisation

It was during this period that the Chinese language, culture, and the distinctively Chinese creed of Confucianism were firmly transplanted in Korea, Japan and Vietnam, providing East Asia with a common cultural heritage.

The Japanese, whose first contacts with China date back to Han times, were the greatest admirers of Tang culture and society. Their scholars and Buddhist monks who came to Changan were awed by the powers and magnificence of the Tang Court and the efficient way the country was governed. They perceived Chinese civilisation to be superior to Japan’s. On their return, they spoke glowingly of what they saw and this created excitement about China.

The Japanese government decided to send official missions to China by arduous sea journeys, with the prime objective of observing and studying exhaustively all aspects of its system of government and society that Japan could draw upon for its own development. The envoys and their subordinates were the creme de la creme of the Japanese elite who were carefully handpicked in accordance with their rank, learning, technical or vocational skills. The size of each mission varied between 100 and 500. Many remained in China for years or even decades in order to accomplish their assigned tasks.

The Tang government was favourably impressed by the sincerity and humility of the Japanese in their desire to learn from China and gave them unstinting help and guidance to make their quest a fruitful one.

Between the years 618 and 894, numerous such study missions came to China. As a result of their strong recommendations, the Japanese government finally decided to overhaul its society by adopting the Chinese language, its government structure, the tenets of Confucianism, its cultural and religious practices, in order to propel the Japanese nation forward.

Through the above process, coupled with the Japanese genius for imitating and improving on their imported models to suit their own needs, the country was irreversibly transformed into a sinicised culture underpinned by Confucianism. After the collapse of the Tang Dynasty in 906, the Japanese stopped sending official missions to China as they started to build up their own public institutions and culture more independently, with new found national confidence.

Soft Power After Tang: Confucianism and Art

The dynasties after Tang – Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing, had their high points, but none could match Tang in terms of its international prestige and influence. Nevertheless, two aspects of Chinese soft power have achieved widespread interest and admiration down to modern times: Confucianism and art.

In traditional China, the Confucian precepts were the bedrock upon which government and the social structure were built upon. Among its admirers were European rulers and philosophers such as King Louis XIV of France and the philosopher Voltaire. The latter regarded the sage as a “precursor of Eighteenth Century rationalism” and the Chinese government as an “Utopian” role model worthy of emulation.

As for Chinese art, its products rapidly became the prized possessions. First introduced into Europe during the Middle Ages, perhaps after the publication of Marco Polo’s travels in China in the early 14th Century, Chinese porcelains were in great demand from kings and nobles, and were often depicted in Renaissance paintings.

The West’s love affair with Chinese porcelains and other works of art such as carved jades, lacquers, furniture and paintings continued unabated during the Renaissance, and into modern times. Large quantities were imported and sold in Europe at highly inflated prices, especially between the 16th and 18th Centuries. These gave Europeans a glimpse of the unsurpassed Chinese standards of elegance and delicacy, and greatly enriched their life.

So highly esteemed had Chinese porcelains become that the German Elector of Saxony was reputed to have bartered a regiment of his grenadier guards in exchange for a set of Famille Verte vases of the Kangxi reign (1662-1722 )!

Europe’s insatiable appetite for Chinese art ushered in an era of “ Chinoiserie” during the 18th Century. Fanciful European notions of China were reflected in its arts and crafts. “Chinese taste” was also reflected in European gardens and architecture. Pagodas and palaces were erected all over Europe and embellished with dragons, mandarin figures and Chinese genres. Prominent examples of these can be seen in London’s Kew Garden and the Chinese Pavilion in Brighton.

Today, Chinese art continues to fascinate foreigners. The country’s objects d’art are among the most keenly collected in the world. Ms. Jessica Rawson, Editor of “Chinese Art” and Keeper of Oriental Antiquities at the British Museum, said, “…Day to day life in the West was transformed by the introduction of Chinese silks, teas, spices and porcelains…In addition, Chinese technology – printing, the making of gunpowder, iron casting and methods of mass-production – altered the West beyond recognition. By contrast, Western products, technologies and ideas had very little impact on China before the twentieth century.”

Soft Power in Today’s World

There is a direct correlation between a nation’s cultural influence and the state of its political and economic fortunes. Great Britain provides a classic example. At its peak, the proud boast was that “the sun never set” on the British Empire. However, by the end of 1960s, the British colonies had virtually disappeared as that country became weaker and nationalism re-emerged everywhere.

With the British decline, world leadership passed to the Americans. It inherited from the British, and built upon, the all-pervasive soft power of the English language. Even one of the most august and admired of British institutions, Oxford and Cambridge, have lost some of its gloss over the years. By contrast, the image and prestige of the better endowed and equipped American universities, such as Harvard, Yale, MIT and Stanford, have risen. They are increasingly attracting many of the world’s best talents into their folds. In my native Singapore, both the National University of Singapore and the National Technological University now look to Harvard and MIT for inspiration in their quest for world status.

It is a truism that one can best imbibe and appreciate a country’s culture and civilisation if one is familiar with its language. In this respect, both Britain and United States have a tremendous advantage over China in that English is an international medium of communication. Also, unlike China, both these countries have efficacious adjuncts, such as the Voice of America, United States Information Service, British Broadcasting Corporation and British Council, and a powerful print media, which are well placed to spread their respective cultures and to influence the world opinion accordingly.

I agree with Senior Minister Lee that for China to acquire soft power, the road ahead will be a long and difficult one. Much needs to be done before it can again achieve the well-deserved fame of the Tang era. Nevertheless, as China’s economy expands further, more foreigners will see the palpable benefits of being familiar with its language and culture, if not for its intrinsic value, at least for economic advantage. In this regards, more and more foreigners are now learning Chinese in their own countries or in China itself.

Whether or not China will ever acquire the soft power which the United States now has over other countries, only time will tell.

Lam Pin Foo