<i>The Business of Politics and Ethnicity: A History of the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry</i> (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Business of Politics and Ethnicity: A History of the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry Yow Cheun Hoe The Business of Politics and Ethnicity: A History of the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry. By Sikko VISSCHER. Singapore: NUS Press, 2007. Pp. xviii, 372. There are two features that put Singapore on the world map. First, Singapore is the only viable political entity outside the PRC (comprising Mainland China and the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau) and Taiwan with a high concentration of ethnic Chinese. Second, it has attained spectacular economic success initially as a trading port under the British colonial administration and subsequently as an industrialized and modernized nation under the government established by the People's Action Party (PAP). How the interactions between the ethnic Chinese and successive governments have made up Singapore's success story is definitely an important topic in the studies of Chinese overseas and of nation building and state formation. As an academic work that traces the formation and transformation of the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCCI), Sikko Visscher's The Business of Politics and Ethnicity is an important piece of work; it shows that neither the Chinese community nor the ruling regime can pursue a linear course when a nation is moving ahead on a track where ethnicity, economic development, and political power are intricately intertwined. Published in 2007, the book is a timely revisit to the SCCCI which had celebrated its 100th anniversary in the preceding year. Examining closely the SCCCI as an institution guarding the interests of the ethnic Chinese, Visscher has made a critical reappraisal of Singapore history in which ethnic Chinese individuals and organizations played significant roles alongside the successive ruling regimes. As he has stated very clearly, the book is meant to be accessible at three levels: as "a history of the SCCCI," as "an alternative reading of the history of Singapore," and as "a story of how Chinese networks actually work" (p. xii). To guide the readers through these three interconnected realms, he has attempted, successfully and convincingly, to weave together various historical facts and interpretations revolving around ethnicity and politics in Singapore. The book is neatly structured chronologically. Chapters 2 to 6 provide an in-depth analysis of the liaison that the SCCCI made with the ruling regimes from 1945 to 1997, a period in which profound changes and restructuring were taking place. The first 39 years of the institution, from 1906 to 1945, are condensed in Chapter 1 while the most recent years from 1998 to 2005 are dealt with briefly in the Epilogue. Chapter 1 sketches the colonial setting in which the colonial government's development of Singapore as a trading port and the arrival of Chinese immigrants provided the backdrop to the emergence of the [End Page 154] business elites as leaders of the Chinese communities. The SCCCI was founded in 1906 as an institution that was to represent all the cohorts of the Chinese communities in dealing with the colonial officials under the leadership of the Chinese business elites. The book is primarily rewritten from Visscher's PhD dissertation, "Business, Ethnicity and State: The Representational Relationship of the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce and the State, 1945–1997." This partially explains why the essential part of the book is about the changes that occurred between World War II and 1997. Visscher also justifies his brief account in the Epilogue by stating that from 1998 to 2005, "nothing has happened that would contradict the main themes of the narrative and analysis of the chapters or the salient points presented in the conclusion" (p. 311). Chapters 2 to 6 are devoted to a detailed account of the history of the SCCCI after World War II. Each of these chapters addresses a particular phase of the SCCCI trajectory in Singapore's drive to build a nation through industrialization and modernization. Visscher has pinned down the main features in each phase, particularly those associated with the SCCCI leadership and constituency, and the Chamber's relations with the retreating colonial government and subsequently the ascending and powerful PAP state. Chapter 2 covers the years from 1945...