History of the Republic of Singapore

For the full history of Singapore before independence dating back to settlement, see History of Singapore.

History of modern Singapore

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Part of a series on the
History of Singapore
Early history (pre-1819) Srivijaya 650–1377 Temasek, Long Ya Men, Ban Zu c.14th century Kingdom of Singapura 1299–1398 Malacca Sultanate 1400–1511 Johor Sultanate 1528-1819
British colonial era (1819–1942) Founding 1819–1826 Straits Settlements 1826–1867 Crown colony 1867–1942
Japanese Occupation (1942–1945) Fall of Singapore 1942 Sook Ching 1942
Maria Hertogh riots	1950
Second Legislative Council	1951–1955
Anti-National Service Riots	1954

The history of the Republic of Singapore began when

Singapore became part of Malaysia on 16 September 1963 following a merger with Malaya, North Borneo, and Sarawak. The merger was thought to benefit the economy by creating a common, free market, and to improve Singapore's internal security. However, it was an uneasy union. Disputes between the state government of Singapore and the federal government occurred on different issues, especially the federal policies of affirmative action, which granted special privileges to the Malays guaranteed under Article 153 of the Constitution of Malaysia. Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, and other political leaders began advocating for equal treatment of all races in Malaysia, with a rallying cry of "Malaysian Malaysia!"^[4]

Racial tensions between the Chinese and Malays increased dramatically, resulting in numerous racial riots. The most notorious riots were the

Seeing no alternative to avoid further bloodshed, Malaysian Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman decided to expel Singapore from the federation. The Parliament of Malaysia voted 126-0, with all Singaporean MPs boycotting the vote, in favour of the expulsion on 9 August 1965. On that day, a tearful Lee Kuan Yew announced on a televised press conference that Singapore was a sovereign, independent nation. In a widely remembered quote, he uttered that: "For me, it would be a moment of anguish. I mean for me, it is a moment of anguish because all my life... you see the whole of my adult life.. I have believed in merger and the unity of these two territories. You know it's a people connected by geography, economics, and ties of kinship..."^[5] The new state became the Republic of Singapore.

In 1971, the Five Power Defence Arrangements (FPDA) between Singapore, Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand and Britain was established. As a tiny island, Singapore was seen as a nonviable nation state; much of the international media was sceptical of prospects for Singapore's survival. Besides the issue of sovereignty, the pressing problems were unemployment, housing, education, lack of natural resources and lack of land.^[6]

Singapore also faced the threat of Terrorism. By the 1970s, the Malayan Communist Party had split into smaller groups. While there were no longer a formidable, unified force, the communists still posed a danger to the internal security of Singapore. Police raids against these groups uncovered large quantities of weapons such as pistols and grenades. During this decade, the communists carried out acts of violence that included the killing of a 7-year-old girl in Changi in 1970. There was also an explosion of a bomb in Katong in 1974, as well as the attempted assassination of Singapore's Commissioner Police in 1976. Independent Singapore experienced its first encounter with international terrorism on 31 January 1974 when foreign terrorists hijacked the ferry boat Laju and held crew members hostage. The Terrorists had earlier attacked the oil refinery on Pulau Bukom in an attempt to disrupt the oil supply from Singapore to South Vietnam. After days of negotiation, the hijackers finally agreed to release the hostages in exchange for safe passage from Singapore to Kuwait. To ensure safe passage of hikackers of the Laju from Singapore to Kuwait, a group of Singapore government officials, led by S.R. Nathan, accompanied by the hijackers on their flight. Nathan was then Director of the Security and Intelligence Division at the Ministry of Defense, and would later go on to serve as the President of Singapore. The Singapore team comprised Nathan, eight government officials and four Singapore Armed Forces commandos. On 9 February 1974, the 13 Singaporean Officials returned to Singapore from Kuwait.

The

Economic focus

Singapore invested heavily to promote economic growth. The

The new direction that Singapore took demanded a skilled labour force to engage in her revised role of refining raw goods, as opposed to the traditional natural resource extraction industries of her neighbours. Its leaders decided early on that the population would need to be fluent in the English language, as they would be communicating and cooperating with expatriate employers or business partners abroad, and English was adopted as the medium of education for all schools.

The education system was designed to be rigorous and intensive, with emphasis on immediately practical, rather than intellectual, applications, such as on technical sciences as opposed to political discussion or philosophy. A large portion, around one-fifth of Singapore's budget, was devoted to education to facilitate a large and competent workforce upon graduation. The government of Singapore currently maintains it at this level.

New housing

There was a lack of good housing and a proliferation of

The

In 1965, Goh Keng Swee became Minister for the Interior and Defence, and initiated the formation of a national defence force, called the Singapore Armed Forces, which was to be established by the time of the British withdrawal. The British agreed to postpone the withdrawal for half a year, but no longer. "Our army is to be engaged in the defence of the country and our people against the external aggression. This task we are unable to do today by ourselves. It is no use pretending that without the British military presence in Singapore today, the island cannot be easily over-run by any neighbouring country within a radius of 1000 miles, if any of them cared to do so..." Dr Goh Keng Swee made a speech to Parliament on 23 December, 1965.

Singapore consulted international experts from West Germany and Israel to train their armed forces and equip them. As a small country surrounded by larger neighbours, Singapore allocated a large portion of its budget, around 19%, to defence and this still continues today, having the fourth largest per capita military expenditure in the world, after Israel, the United States and Kuwait.

Singapore was especially interested in Israel's model of national service, a factor in its decisive victory in the Six-Day War over its Arab neighbours in 1967. This led to the implementation of Singapore's own national service programme starting in 1967. All eighteen-year-old males would be required to participate in national service and train full-time for two and a half years, and then required to repeatedly come back each year to maintain their skills in order to carry out an effective mobilisation at any time.

This policy meant that Singapore could quickly mobilize enough defence forces to deter any

Further economic success continued through the 1980s onwards, with the unemployment rate falling to 3% and real GDP growth averaging at about 8% during this time until 1999. In the 1980s, Singapore faced the challenge of needing to upgrade its industries to higher-technology industries, in order to compete with its neighbours which were exporting the same things at a lower price. Originally, Singapore manufactured goods such as textiles. A skilled workforce with an aptitude for learning helped ease the transition, for example, to new jobs in the wafer fabrication industry, which was quickly being established in Singapore.

Singapore also had to upgrade its military, for instance upgrading the standard infantry weapon of its army. Formerly it had been the

With continuous strong economic growth, Singapore became one of the world's most prosperous countries, with strong international trading links. Its port is one of the world's busiest and with a per capita GDP above that of the leading nations of Western Europe. The education budget remains at one fifth or more, and many of its practices, such as racial harmony, continue today.

A side effect of this is that traffic congestion became increasingly more common, and in 1987, the first Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) line was established and would later grow to become a famous epitome of what is often viewed as a well-integrated public transport system. This network also improved the convenience of travelling from one side of the island to the other—a benefit which did not exist in the 1960s.

Political system

The political situation in Singapore is extremely stable. The PAP had a 15-year monopoly in parliament during 1966 to 1981, winning all seats in elections before

In 2004, Lee Hsien Loong, the eldest son of Lee Kuan Yew, became the third prime minister of Singapore.^[9] A number of national policy changes have been proposed and carried out since then. One of these changes was the reduction of National Service training requirements from two and a half years to two during 2005. The government also introduced a "Cutting Red Tape" program, which allows citizens to share their views on law, punishment, social and world issues.

The