Name: Poon Kin Fai, Sam (1155072072)

Course: GPEC5016 – Comparative Politics

Essay Topic: A comparison between Deng
Xiaoping and Lee Kuan Yew – on the perspective on economic reform and
corruption control

Introduction

Both Deng Xiaoping and Lee Kuan Yew are
not only the most powerful leaders and political thinkers not only in their
home country (China and Singapore) or the
perspective in regional (Asia) or the
global perspective but also influence the world politics. Although Deng and Lee
are dead, their legacies, theories, and
ideas still influence today’s world.

In October 1978, Deng Xiaoping visited
Singapore, this is the first meeting between
Lee and Deng, and they exchanged ideas on both internal and external events.
During this visit, Deng founded the success of Singapore’s economic reform
together with a promising society; it makes Deng determined to perform the same
in China.

Although they have the same vision about
the development of their home countries, some differences can be found when
we make a detailed comparison between Deng and Lee

In my essay, I will
first make an introduction about Deng and Lee and
what kind of situation they are facing, and then
I will compare the similarities and differences between Deng and Lee in the
area of their economic reform policies
and their perspective about corruption control. As the conclusion, I will sum
up their stories and legacies and elaborate
how they still have great influence in
today’s world after their death.

An
Introduction of Deng Xiaoping and Lee Kuan Yew

Lee Kuan Yew was born in a middle-class Chinese family in 1923 while Singapore was a part of the Malaya Settlement under the
British Colonial rule. He has an English name, Harry, which was given by his
paternal grandfather.

During his life, the family wants Lee to
be English gentlemen, so Lee’s parents
sent him to educational institutions that English was the primary language for
teaching. Lee performed well in his primary studies. In 1935, Lee was enrolled
to the Raffles Institution, which is a top high school in Singapore at that
time. During his study, he is a top student that achieved academic excellence
that can pursue university studies in the United
Kingdom. But this dream was interrupted because of the Japanese
Occupation in Singapore between 1942 and 1945. At that time, he worked as a
translation for Japanese Army during this period.

One year after the Second World War
ends, Lee was granted the Queen’s Scholarship, a scholarship made by British
authorities for top students, to read law at the
University of Cambridge, Lee graduated in 1949 from Cambridge with a
First-Class Honours degree in law. After Lee had finished his study, he came back to Singapore in 1950 to practice
law, in the same year, Lee and his accomplice created
a barrister firm, Lee & Lee.

Lee started to involve in politics in the
early 1950s while he served as legal
consultants for many trade unions and student organizations. In 1952, he
successfully pressed the British colonial authorities to improve the wage and
welfare for the postman. Two years later, Lee and his accomplice, including
social elites and leftist supporters formed the People’s Action Party (PAP) and
participated the Legislative Council elections in 1955, that Lee won a seat in
the council. Yap, Lim, Leong (2010) revealed in 1959, British authorities allowed Singapore to have self-governance, and
the PAP got a landslide victory in the
Legislative Council Election at the same year, and Lee was appointed to be the
Prime Minister of Singapore. Lee determined
that Singapore should be independent of the British rule, and he worked hard to achieve this
ultimate goal for the country.

However, the honeymoon period of PAP
came to end. Yap, Lim, Leong (2010) revealed that the such impact is huge for
PAP as the leftist and pro-communism members withdrew the party and formed another party to against PAP in the
early 1960s, including the key leaders of the party and its associates, The
People’s Association formed in 1960. But it did not affect Lee’s determination
for his service for Singapore, and it
recovered by arresting such leftist members with the consent by the British
Authorities. And PAP enhances its majority in the Legislative Election in 1963.
At the same year, a majority of Singaporeans voted to support Singapore to be independent of British rule in a referendum, soon after the referendum,
Singapore joined the Malaya Federation with a new name: Malaysia.

However, the merge with Malaysia did not
go well;
many racial riots happened during that time. On August 8, 1965, Malaysia has no
other option but have to expel Singapore from the Federation. On the following
day, The Republic of Singapore was established and became an independent country. From now, Lee and his administration
have the important role to fight for the
future of Singapore.

As a comparison,
Deng Xiaoping’s life is much different
than Lee Kuan Yew. Vogel (2011) made an
introduction about Deng’s early life. Deng was born in a small landlord
family in Guangan, Xi Chuan Province of China in 1904, that his ancestor was a
famous official in the Qing Dynasty. Deng
received early education in a private institution that founded by Deng’s father and other landlords in the region.

In 1919, Deng became an activist in
social movements that he participated protests in Guangan that against the
government’s attitude at the Paris
Conference. At the same year, Deng was offered a financial support from a
merchant who lived in France before to pursue further education in France. Unfortunately, after a few months, they
received the news that they will get no further financial support from China.
Since then, Deng and other students had to be workers in different factories.
During his work, Deng witnessed the gap between workers and capitalist, which makes him be
an activist to fight for workers.

Since the forming of the Chinese
Communist Party (CCP) in 1921, Deng and his accomplice
formed a Communist group in France and later become one of the branches of Chinese
Communist Youth League, that Deng was enlisted to be a member of the League. He officially joined CCP in 1924
and became one of the leading members of the General Branch of the Youth League
in Europe.

In 1926, Deng traveled to Moscow, the
capital of the Soviet Union and pursued his study at the Moscow Sun Yat-Sen
University. He returned to China in 1927 and joined the army of Fung Yuxiang, a
warlord that liked the Communists. But
when the Kuomintang (KMT) government broke the relationship with CCP at that
year, Deng and his communist accomplice
has to fled. He led for several uprisings
to against the KMT government, but such attempts failed. Then he joined the Central Soviet are in Jiangxi Province.

In his early period after joining CCP,
Deng was involved in many important events of CCP: leading uprisings in different
regions, the Long March, the war against Japanese and Civil War against the KMT
force. He become one of the effective leaders and shows his potential in both
civil and military perspective.

While discussing about
Deng’s role in the early period of CCP, historian Mobo Gao (2008) argued that
Deng was not a loyalist with Communism, but a revolutionary nationalist who
wanted to see the future of China can be strong and equal with other great
powers, and the joining of CCP is the only effective options that can achieve
his dream.

After the establishment of People’s
Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, Deng became the mayor of Chongqing and
transited the city from a chaotic situation. In the early 1950s, Deng rose to the Central Government and
held several important roles while serving as Finance Minister, the Deputy
Premier.

During the Cultural Revolution, Deng’s
family were heavily abused by the Red Guards, his
son, Deng Pufang, was left paralyzed after falling from a multi-storey building. But in the early 1970s, Deng
came back to the Central Government and served as an assistant or a prospective successor to the aged and seriously-ill Premier Zhou Enlai. Although Deng
was expelled again in 1976 after Zhou Enlai’s death, he resumes his position of
the leadership just after a year. In 1978, Deng became the actual leader of
China although he had the official title as Vice-Premier. Once Deng came to
power, his first duty has to restore the country after the destructive outcome
brought by the Cultural Revolution.

Comparison
between Deng and Lee: Issue of Economic Reform

Both Deng and Lee have to face a
problem: how to lead their country to survive after a chaotic situation. In
China, the Cultural Revolution just ended, the country was now in a crossroad
for its future: maintain or change the status quo, and Singapore has been forced to be independent that the country
did not have any natural resource. Quah (2011) quoted that in 1960, Singapore’s
Gross National Product (GNP) per capita was only SG$1,330 (equivalent to US$443 at that time)

Comparison
between Deng and Lee: Issue of Corruption
Control

During the colonial rule, the corruption
problem is serious in Singapore. Quah (2011) conducted research on the history of combat corruption in Singapore. During his
research, he to explain why the civil
servants, especially police officers, make use of their power to gain more
money. Quah concluded there are several reasons made caused the problem of
corruption in Singapore:

a. Low
salary for civil servants: In the research, Quah (2011) got information about salary for police officers during
the 19^th Century. He discovered that in 1887, the difference of salary for
European Contingent (ranged from SG$40 to
SG$100 per month) and Native Contingent from the Singapore Police Force was huge (ranged from SG$4 to SG$15 per month).
Quah also argues that low salary for civil servants may create a chance for
those servicemen to use their position and power to collect bribes as a mean to maintain their needs.

b. Low
control for civil servants. Besides low salary, there is an inadequate control of civil servants,
especially police officers. Quah (2011) stated that some illegal gambling
operators usually bribed police officers in
order to prevent police raid their place of gambling. Even the high level officers of the Police Force
admitted that such acts made by the corrupted police officers usually occurred.

c. Low
detection for punishment against corruption. In the same research, Quah (2011)
pointed that there are low or even no intervention to fight corruption, which makes a misleading situation that taking
bribes is a low risk, high return act. Although the colonial authorities made
corruption as an illegal act in 1871, however, there is no action made until 1937
for passing the Prevention of Corruption Ordinance (POCO) and the establishment
of the Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB). However, both measures were later found
ineffective. The POCO stated that the maximum punishment for corruption was sentenced
to two
years imprisonment and a maximum fine of SG$10,000, that cannot scare the
corrupted officials to stop collect their bribes. What is more, the ACB is only
a small department under the Singapore Police Force, with only 17 officers are
responding all corruption complaints about the Police Force and other government
departments and agencies. The ACB cannot work
effectively because most of the police officers are corrupted that makes the
investigation work more difficult.

The case which showed
the powerless part of ACB happened in
October 1951 while a huge amount of opium was stolen, the investigation showed the
widespread of corruption in the country. However, not all officers
involved in this case were trialed. As a
result, a new enforcement agency: The Corrupt Practice Investigation Branch
(CPIB) was established in 1952 to take over
the duties that the former ACB is working on.

Since the PAP came to power in 1959, Lee
and his colleagues noticed the seriousness of corruption in Singapore. In Lee’s
memoir (2000), he remembered his history to combat corruption in Singapore.

Once Lee became the Prime Minister, he
redirected CPIB to his direct control and
gives CPIB officers more power to investigate corruption cases. In 1960, a new
legislation was passed to replace the old and outdated POCO. The new
legislation widens the definition of “bribe” not only for money but also different kinds of luxury items. The new legislation
also enhanced the power of CPIB officers while investigate the corruption
complaints. Such reform and work came off. In 1971, CPIB cracked a syndicate
involving about 250 traffic police patrollers that they receive bribe from car
owners in order to prevent to be penalized. Several important government
officials, from civil servants to Cabinet Ministers were arrested and investigated
by CPIB with corruption charges; some of them are being sentenced to
imprisonment. Because of such success, Singapore transformed to the most
transparent nation with a low corruption rate.

Besides enhance the enforcement to fight
corruption, Lee initialed the idea to raise the salary and welfare for civil
servants and cabinet ministers as an incentive to prevent them to collect
bribes anymore.

a.
Lee Kuan Yew (2000), “The Singapore Story: Memoirs of
Lee Kuan Yew, Vol. 2: From Third
World to First, 1965-2000”, Singapore Press Holdings Ltd., Singapore

b.
Ezra
F. Vogel (2011), “Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China”, Belknap Press
of Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, United States

c.
Zuraidah Ibrahim,Han Fook Kwang,Rachel Lin,Robin Chan,Chua Mui Hoong,Lydia Lim,Ignatius Low (2011), “Lee Kuan Yew: Hard Truths to keep Singapore going”, Straits Times Press, Singapore

d.
Lee Kuan Yew (2011), “One Man’s View of the World”, Straits Times Press, Singapore

e.
Sonny Yap, Richard Lim,
Leong Weng Kam (2010), “Men in White: The Untold
Story of Singapore’s Ruling Political Party”, Singapore Press Holdings Ltd.,
Singapore

f.
Jon S.T Quah, (2011), “Combating Corruption in Singapore: What
can be learned?”,http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/APCITY/UNPAN028070.pdf,
Retrieved on March 5, 2016

g. Gao, Mobo (2008). The Battle for China’s Past: Mao and the
Cultural Revolution. London: Pluto Press

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