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On this day when we celebrate our 59th National Day, we as a people, a nation and a Singaporean tribe are actually facing the greatest threat of losing our national identity as a distinct nation.
Due to some “unknown reasons”, the birth rate of our citizens has dropped sharply since 2021, while the excess death rate has soared.
The net effect was a dramatic drop in the total fertility rate to 0.97!
In 2023, our net “natural increase” of citizens (births minus deaths) was only 6,653, compared to 14,380 in 2021 (our year with the most deaths from Covid 19). That’s a massive 46% reduction in natural increase!
Yet, in 2023 alone, our citizen population increased by over 56,000 people. This can only mean that the government was actively issuing new citizenships to immigrants (around 50,000 people) last year alone to achieve such an incredible increase in the citizen population! And 50,000 new citizens is equivalent to 1.3% of our citizen population!
As early as the 1980s, Hon Sui Sen and Lee Kuan Yew had warned that over-reliance on foreign workers would have an impact on society and the country. Even in 1989, Lee Kuan Yew still insisted on reducing reliance on foreign workers. But after Goh Chok Tong came to power, he fully implemented the “foreign talent” policy.
It’s like we can only find “talent” in foreigners but not in Singaporeans!
As a small country, we will never develop a solid national identity if we continue to rely on offering new citizenship to foreign immigrants.
Rather than reflect on the failure of its socio-economic policies, the PAP government has chosen to blame Singaporeans for not wanting to get married and have children. They have forgotten that it was the PAP that implemented the short-sighted “Two is Enough Policy” in the 1970s that stopped Singaporeans from having children!
The PAP’s changes in HDB pricing policy from the 1980s onwards, from incorporating land prices into HDB pricing, to the unsustainable “asset enhancement scheme” to the BTO policy, have had an inflationary effect on housing prices. This in turn has created huge barriers for young couples to marry and have children early.
Since 2004, Singapore’s radical immigration policy of issuing tens of thousands of new citizens every year has only made up for the population gap, but has not helped to form strong social cohesion, let alone establish a great national identity.
I am not against new citizens, but the practice of giving priority to new citizens is distorted and illogical. In order to build a strong national identity, we need new citizens to integrate into our society as quickly as possible.
Foreign spouses of local-born citizens should be given unconditional priority to become new Singapore citizens. But many Singaporeans have complained to me that their foreign spouses are still unable to obtain PR/citizenship after decades of marriage!
On the other hand, we have found that wealthy foreigners can easily obtain PR/citizenship for their entire family just by throwing money at us!
This unbalanced and illogical population policy is not desirable for our country.
I will be delivering the keynote speech at the Rakyat annual dinner next Friday, where I will outline PAP’s population policy failures and offer Rakyat’s policy options to enable our young people to get a head start in starting their own families.
Nations are made up of the basic unit of the family. If we don’t put enough effort into developing our own native citizens, we will go extinct and self-destruct. There really is no quick fix.
It is unsustainable for a small country to rely too heavily on foreigners who have no roots in the country to become new citizens. Singapore will become a global hotel rather than a welcoming home for all of us.
We must make Singapore our home again, and we can!
Happy National Day to all Singaporeans!
Wu Mingsheng
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