INVESTIGATING THE CAUSES OF THE RISE OF PRO-CHINA SENTIMENTS IN SINGAPORE: A CASE OF CULTURAL AFFINITY OR PRACTICAL NECESSITY?

Abstract

Despite largely negative perceptions towards China in Southeast Asia within the last decade, Singapore is one of the outliers with the highest level of support for the rising giant. With Singapore being the only Southeast Asian nation-state with an ethnic Chinese majority, the concept of Huntington’s intercivilisational kinship and transnational ethnic support seems like the most convenient explanation for this phenomenon. Yet, ethnicity fails to explain the fluctuating levels of pro-China sentiments in Singapore over the years, and growing support for China in Southeast Asia in recent times. This paper seeks to understand why Singaporeans are becoming increasingly pro-China in recent times and identify possible predictors of pro-China sentiments. To account for the chronological inconsistency, this paper will utilise a combination of historical and sociological perspectives to investigate factors that predispose Singaporeans towards support for China. This paper will illustrate the recency bias surrounding the discourse of this phenomenon and show that there were latent pro-China sentiments in Singapore ever since the end of the Cold War. In doing so, this paper will show that the recent spike in pro-China sentiments can be attributed to an amalgamation of Cold War politics, national identity construction and the Singaporean state’s ideological discourse, amongst others. Most importantly, this paper will prove that there is an equal part to play from the Singaporean state and the Chinese Communist Party in accounting for this phenomenon.