Wednesday, February 10, 2016

Impact of New Citizens Voters

In one of the CNY gathering, someone expressed the view that opposition can no longer attack Foreign Talent policy because there are over 14% of New Citizen voters this round and by next round it may just continue to rise. It will be suicidal for opposition to attack Foreign Talent policy.

However everyone round the table agreed that this Foreign Talent policy or rather New Citizen policy is a double edged sword for PAP.

I opined that it is not only a double edged sword to PAP but also to Singapore social political stability as well.

Imagine that the conflicts we may have with the three biggest group of New Citizens, PRC, INDIA and Philippines. These new citizens may only be name as Singapore citizens but deep down their hearts, they are still emotionally linked to their "mother land". This was demonstrated by the overwhelming responses of some New Citizens when leaders of India or China paid Singapore a visit.

If there were conflicts between China and India (as they have fought border wars before) or China and Philippines over Spratley islands, whatever decisions made by the government of Singapore would not please all these New Citizens. These New Citizens will still be emotionally attached to their mother land and may react vigorously against any adverse decisions made against their mother land.

True blue Singaporeans will only care about our own country's interests but these New Citizens may not think that way. Conflicts between the different groups of New Citizens may arise and we will be stuck with internal strife.

That is a plausible and horrible scenario for Singapore but is PAP ready to handle such situations?

Goh Meng Seng

3 comments:

南沙群島 said...

"spartly island" c simi lan? *scratch head*
Never heard of it before.
Heard of something called Nansha Islands 南沙群島 though.
They have always belonged to the Chinese since a millenium ago ago, before some white men came along and renamed it barely more than a century ago.

Nansha said...

And by the way, distance cannot be used to judge sovereignty. Otherwise, Guam would not belong to USA.

南 nan 沙 sha said...

"True blue Singaporeans will only care about our own country's interests but these New Citizens may not think that way"

It is our own country's interest to *not* be a barking dog for USA. We should be as neutral as it is possible. And one way is to respect history and let fact speaks for itself: 南沙群島!Nansha Island.

Spratly kee lan!