Colin Goh and Woo Yen Yen

The following piece was published in the Sunday Times on 5 November 2006. Quite by coincidence, our maiden visit to China was at the same time as PM Lee’s visit to Nanning:

Sunday Times 5 November 2006
Shanghai Surprise: Underneath the Conformity
by Colin Goh

The Wife and I are in Shanghai at the moment, and we must admit that we found ourselves agreeing with the views of the Minister Mentor, reported in Thursday’s Straits Times, that China is ‘coming up’ in a powerful way.

All the Singaporeans we met agreed too, though they expressed their concurrence in rather less restrained ways.

“Die lah,” said one, shaking his head gloomily over a breakfast of crab roe xiao long bao. “Singapore how to compete? Look at Shanghai! Some parts are even more developed than Singapore and those that aren’t, well, it’s only a matter of time. The Chinese are hungrier, cheaper, just as smart, and there are just so many of them!”

This refrain of ‘Singapore how to compete’ kept recurring, and every Singaporean we encountered, regardless of which sector they were working in, seemed to have transmogrified into Chicken Little, crying, “The sky is falling!”

Even MM Lee betrayed a hint of this apocalyptic feeling, when he recounted how a delegate at the Asean-China festivities in Nanning had remarked that the Chinese dancers were “all the same height, same fairness and same shape… We are big, small, fair and dark. How to compete?”

Probably due to my arrested development, the image that immediately sprang to mind when I read this was that of Obi-Wan Kenobi when he first witnessed the army of clone troopers.

Well, sure. I don’t think anyone disputes that China is on the rise, and that it will be an even more formidable international force in time to come. But there were a few things I witnessed here in Shanghai that make me think it might be premature for all of us to start hoisting those ‘The End is Nigh’ pickets.

The first was when we went shopping with a Shanghainese friend. We’d heard from many people that for local colour, the place to go in Shanghai was Xiangyang market – ground zero for counterfeit goods. However, the authorities shut it down earlier this year. Well, down but apparently not out.

Because when we stepped out of our cab at Qipu Road, a weaselly-looking chap in a tweed jacket sidled up to us and inquired, very politely, if perchance we would like to view some ‘jia huo’ (fake goods). Curious as to how the pirates were re-routing around the crackdown, we followed him.

He led us into a brand new shopping complex which resembled a tackier version of Queensway Shopping Centre, with smoking and spitting allowed inside. No sign of any counterfeit goods, though – all the wares on display seemed original, if extremely, um, cheena.

Our guide then led us through a maze of small shops, before arriving at a tiny empty storefront tucked away in a dingy corner, a couple of rough-looking dudes seated on crates outside, puffing away. Our increasing nervousness soon turned to surprise when our guide flipped a row of bare shelves to reveal a large hidden room, packed with fake handbags and watches, as well as shoppers from all over the world, noisily haggling away.

The next incident came when we were in a cab and trapped at a busy intersection. Another motorist cut into the path of a police car. Incensed, the policeman honked and shouted at the motorist. Very calmly, the motorist wound down his window, looked at the policeman and barked back, “Who do you think you are that no one can cut into your path?” and then drove off.

The last incident took place outside the Peace Hotel on the Bund, where we witnessed a pair of suspected shopflifters being handcuffed by plainsclothes police. Before the gathering crowd of curious onlookers, the men began protesting their innocence. They did not physically resist the arrest, but they did raise their voices. In response to their insolence, a police officer proceeded to punch and slap them in public.

I guess what I saw showed me that China isn’t just an army of clones, marching in lock-step according to their superiors’ commands. They also re-route around the law, they aren’t intimidated by authority, and that may be because the authority may not have much regard for them to begin with.

Yes, Singaporeans will face challenges as China flexes. But our response shouldn’t be to try to emulate their seeming homogeneity or obedience, because that’s a false image – a phantom menace, if you will. Rather, what is likely to spur China on is the will to power of the Chinese people, expressed in over a billion individual ways, not all of which are predictable or pleasant.

Also, remember that the clone army was eventually defeated by a ragtag bunch of rebels who were “big, small, fair and dark”.

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