As the first comprehensive study of its kind, this book analyzes the dynamics, processes, mechanisms, and consequences of socio-economic and political changes in Singapore Chinese society from 1945 to 1965. By employing a wide range of primary materials that have been rarely used before, the authors have demonstrated the multi-dimensionality and complexity of the Chinese society in postwar Singapore, which was full of vitality and politically active. They argue that the combination of the internal dynamism and the changing socio-political framework shaped the nature and characteristics of the Chinese community and its fundamental role in the making of modern Singapore. This study is essential reading for an understanding of not only the Chinese politics and business networks in postwar Singapore, but also the historical evolution of the newly independent Republic.

The history of communism in Malaya (including Singapore) almost coincided with the rise and fall of communism worldwide, best epitomized in Europe by the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Operating through the Malayan Communist Party, communism posed an existential threat to Malaya. While the communist threat in peninsular Malaya was manifested dramatically in armed struggle with guerrillas in the jungle, in Singapore it was primarily in the form of united front subversive activities, interspersed with episodes of violence and assassinations. This new book examines the MCP’s quest for political power in Singapore in the midst of a raging Cold War between communism and the free world, with particular focus on events in the 1950s and 1960s. From its close collaboration with the two leading communist great powers (USSR and China) to its united front strategy of infiltrating student, trade union and political organizations, the MCP’s activities are related here in a clear and engaging manner

At the height of the Cold War in Southeast Asia, the foreign relations between the United States and Singapore demonstrated the interplay between America’s strategy of containment and Singapore’s efforts at a non-aligned foreign policy. But there is a deeper story. American involvement in the Vietnam War not only held back the spread of communism in Southeast Asia, but also catalysed economic and strategic cooperation between the United States and Singapore. The author argues that Singapore might not have achieved its success so rapidly without the support of the US. As the war in Vietnam raged on, Singapore became a critical refueling point, also providing ship and aircraft repair for the US military. Commercial and strategic support from the United States lifted Singapore out of the economic doom predicted for the city-state after secession from Malaysia, cessation of Indonesian trade during Konfrontasi and Britain’s military withdrawal. By considering the importance of the US’s role in Singapore’s nation-building, this book provides an important supplement to the well-trodden narrative that attributes Singapore’s success to good governance.

A General History of the Chinese in Singapore documents over 700 years of Chinese history in Singapore, from Chinese presence in the region through the millennium-old Hokkien trading world to the waves of mass migration that came after the establishment of a British settlement, and through to the development and birth of the nation. Across 38 chapters and parts, readers are taken through the complex historical mosaic of Overseas Chinese social, economic and political activity in Singapore and the region, such as the development of maritime junk trade, plantation industries, and coolie labour, the role of different bangs, clan associations and secret societies as well as Chinese leaders, the diverging political allegiances including Sun Yat-sen's revolutionary activities and the National Salvation Movement leading up to the Second World War, the transplanting of traditional Chinese religions, the changing identity of the Overseas Chinese, and the developments in language and education policies, publishing, arts, and more.With 'Pride in our Past, Legacy for our Future' as its key objective, this volume aims to preserve the Singapore Chinese story, history and heritage for future generations, as well as keep our cultures and traditions alive. Therefore, the book aims to serve as a comprehensive guide for Singaporeans, new immigrants and foreigners to have an epitome of the Singapore society. This publication is supported by the National Heritage Board's Heritage Project Grant.Related Link(s)

The story of China's spectacular economic growth is well known. Less well known is the country's equally dramatic, though not always equally successful, social policy transition. Between the mid- 1990s and mid-2000s---the focal period for this book---China's central government went a long way toward consolidating the social policy framework that had gradually emerged in piecemeal fashion during the initial phases of economic liberalization. Major policy decisions during the focal period included adopting a single national pension plan for urban areas, standardizing unemployment insurance, (re)establishing nationwide rural health care coverage, opening urban education systems to children of rural migrants, introducing trilingual education policies in ethnic minority regions, expanding college enrolment, addressing the challenge of HIV/AIDS more comprehensively, and equalizing social welfare spending across provinces, among others. Unresolved is the direction of policy in the face of longer-term industrial and demographic trends---and the possibility of a chronically weak global economy. Chinese Social Policy in a Time of Transition offers scholars, practitioners, students, and policymakers a foundation from which to explore those issues based on a composite snapshot of Chinese social policy at its point of greatest maturation prior to the 2007 global crisis.

Fast-paced economic growth in Southeast Asia from the late 1960s until the mid-1990s brought increased attention to the overseas Chinese as an economically successful diaspora and their role in this economic growth. Events that followed, such as the transfer of Hong Kong and Macau to the People's Republic of China, the election of a non-KMT government in Taiwan, the Asian economic crisis and the plight of overseas Chinese in Indonesia as a result, and the durability of the Singapore economy during this same crisis, have helped to sustain this attention.The study of the overseas Chinese has by now become a global enterprise, raising new theoretical problems and empirical challenges. New case studies of overseas Chinese, such as those on communities in North America, Cuba, India, and South Africa, continually unveil different perspectives. New kinds of transnational connectivities linking Chinese communities are also being identified. It is now possible to make broader generalizations of a Chinese diaspora, on a global basis. Further, the intensifying study of the overseas Chinese has stimulated renewed intellectual vigor in other areas of research. The transnational and transregional activities of overseas Chinese, for example, pose serious challenges to analytical concepts of regional divides such as that between East and Southeast Asia.Despite the increased attention, new data, and the changing theoretical paradigms, basic questions concerning the overseas Chinese remain. The papers in this volume seek to understand the overseas Chinese migrants not just in terms of the overall Chinese diaspora per se, but also local Chinese migrants adapting to local societies, in different national contexts.