History of Singapore
Singapore Island originally was inhabited by fishermen and pirates, and it served as an outpost for the Sumatran empire of Srīvijaya. In Javanese inscriptions and Chinese records dating to the end of the 14th century, the more-common name of the island is Tumasik, or Temasek, from the Javanese word tasek (“sea”). Rajendra Chola I, ruler of the southern Indian Chola kingdom, attacked the island in 1025, and there was another Chola raid in 1068. In 1275 the Javanese king Kertanagara probably attacked Temasek when he raided Pahang on the east coast of the peninsula. According to a Chinese traveler, Wang Dayuan, just before 1349 about 70 Tai (Siamese) war boats besieged Temasek for a month but had to withdraw. The Javanese epic poem Nāgarakṛtāgama (written 1365) includes Temasek among the conquests of the Javanese empire of Majapahit. At the end of the 14th century, Temasek fell into decay and was supplanted by Malacca (now Melaka). Yet in 1552 it was still a port of call from which St. Francis Xavier dispatched letters to Goa, and João de Barros described its busy shipping activity in his history Décadas da Ásia (1552–1615).
Rajendra may have named the city Singapura (“Lion City”), later corrupted to Singapore, or the name may have been bestowed in the 14th century by Buddhist monks, to whom the lion was a symbolic character. According to the Sejarah Melayu, a Malay chronicle, the city was founded by the Srīvijayan prince Sri Tri Buana; he is said to have glimpsed a tiger, mistaken it for a lion, and thus called the settlement Singapura.
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East India Company
In January 1819 Sir Stamford Raffles of the English East India Company, searching for a trading site, forestalled by the Dutch at Riau, and finding the Carimon (Karimun) Islands unsuitable, landed at Singapore. He found only a few Chinese planters, some aborigines, and a few Malays and was told by the hereditary chief, the temenggong (direct ancestor of the sultans of present-day Johor, Malaysia), that the company could purchase land. The temenggong, however, was a subordinate of his cousin Abdul Rahman, sultan of Riau-Johor, who was under Dutch surveillance. Furthermore, Abdul Rahman was a younger son and not a sultan de jure. Raffles, disobeying instructions not to offend the Dutch, withdrew his own recognition of Abdul Rahman’s suzerainty over Singapore and installed Abdul Rahman’s elder brother, Hussein (Husain), to validate the purchase of land there on behalf of the company. The Dutch protested. In London the company’s court of directors, though it decided that Raffles had contravened instructions, took no action.
In 1824 an Anglo-Dutch treaty left Malaya and Singapore in the British sphere, and in August the whole of Singapore Island was ceded to the British for a monetary payment. Two years later Singapore, Penang, and Malacca (Melaka) were combined as the Straits Settlements to form an outlying residency of India. In 1830 they were reduced to a residency under Bengal, and two years later Singapore became their capital. When the East India Company lost its monopoly of the China trade (1833), it also lost its interest in Malaya. The settlements were transferred to the direct control of the governor-general of India in 1851. In 1867 they were made a crown colony under the Colonial Office in London.
Development of the port
Meanwhile, Singapore’s trade had suffered after 1842 from British development of a rival port, Hong Kong, as later it was to suffer from the French occupation of mainland Southeast Asia and their development of Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) and Haiphong in Vietnam and from the establishment of Dutch ports and shipping lines in the Dutch East Indies (present-day Indonesia). With the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 and the advent of steamships, however, an era of prosperity began that led eventually to the construction of 3 miles (5 km) of wharves at Tanjong Pagar and finally, in 1921, a naval base. The economic growth of the Malay states after they became British protectorates enlarged transit trade.
The demand of the industrial West for tin and rubber was what made Singapore one of the greatest ports in the world. After World War I, steps were taken to modernize Malayan defenses and, with the lapsing of the Anglo-Japanese alliance, to build a large naval base in Singapore.
World War II and the end of colonialism
In early December 1941 the Japanese landed in northern Malaya and southern Thailand on the Malay Peninsula. They quickly gained air and naval superiority in the region, and by the end of January 1942 they had overrun the peninsula and were opposite Singapore Island. The Japanese crossed the Johor Strait on February 8, 1942, and the British command surrendered the island and city one week later. Singapore remained in Japanese hands until September 1945.
Postwar British political plans for Malaya excluded Singapore from a proposed Malayan Union and later from the Federation of Malaya, mainly because it was thought that Singapore’s predominantly Chinese population would be an ethnic obstacle to common citizenship. As a separate crown colony (from 1946), Singapore made constitutional progress despite the communist insurrection in Malaya. Elected ministers and a Legislative Assembly with an elected majority assumed government responsibility in 1955, except for matters of defense and foreign policy. In 1959 the official and nominated elements were eliminated, and Singapore became self-governing, although Britain still retained control of defense and foreign policy.
First decades of self-government
Singapore joined the Federation of Malaysia on its formation in September 1963. The ruling People’s Action Party (PAP), led by Lee Kuan Yew, had refused in 1959 to form a government until extreme left-wing leaders of the party who had been detained by the colonial authorities were released. Those leaders opposed the concept of Malaysia and broke away from the PAP to form the Socialist Front (Barisan Sosialis), which was accused of being a communist front organization. The PAP faced fresh dangers of subversion when Indonesian opposition to Malaysia took the form of military and economic confrontation (1964).
Confrontation ended in 1966, but Singapore had seceded from Malaysia in 1965 (at the invitation of the Malaysian government) because of political friction between the state and central governments. That conflict had ethnic overtones and continued to affect relations between Singapore and Malaysia until the mid-1970s, when relations became more cordial.
In January 1968 the British government had announced that all British defense forces would be withdrawn from East and Southeast Asia (except Hong Kong) by the end of 1971. In April Singapore’s unprepared major opposition parties boycotted an election called seven months before it was due. The ruling PAP termed its sweep of all parliamentary seats a mandate for its plans for reducing the economic effects of the British military withdrawal.
At the end of October 1971, British military presence in Singapore came to an end. The Anglo-Malayan treaty concluded in 1957, which had committed Britain to the defense of the region, was terminated, and in its place a five-power defense arrangement—involving Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, and Singapore as equal partners—came into force.
Beginning in the 1970s Singapore pursued an aggressive policy of economic growth based primarily on export manufacturing and trade. Gradually, it also took a more active role in regional diplomacy. Singapore was a founding member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 1967, and by 1980 it had emerged as one of ASEAN’s leaders. The PAP continued to dominate Singaporean politics after Lee stepped down as prime minister in 1990, and between 1981 and 1991 opposition parties gradually increased their number of seats in Parliament from one to four. Yet, despite the country’s phenomenal economic success, resultant high standards of living, and subsequent goal of internationalization, the government’s policies of developmental paternalism bred some discontent among those who had come to expect greater openness to new ideas and a freer flow of information.
Annajane KennardThomas R. LeinbachSingapore since 1990
Goh Chok Tong, who for several years had served as Singapore’s deputy prime minister, succeeded Lee as prime minister in late 1990, although Lee remained in the government and powerful behind the scenes as a “senior minister” in the cabinet. The PAP maintained firm control of Parliament through a succession of elections. After opposition candidates won four seats in the 1991 legislative contest, their numbers in the 1997, 2001, and 2006 polls dropped to two each time. Opposition parties were granted a small but increasing number of constitutionally mandated appointed seats, but the PAP continued to enjoy an overwhelming legislative mandate.
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The economy continued to do well during most of Goh’s tenure in office, although the country was seriously affected by the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s. Growth resumed in the early 2000s, however, buoyed by a strong manufacturing sector. At the time that Goh became prime minister in 1990, Lee Hsien Loong, Lee Kuan Yew’s son, was named deputy prime minister. The general understanding was that the younger Lee was being groomed to eventually succeed Goh. Such a transition took place in August 2004, when, following Goh’s resignation from office, Lee was named the country’s new prime minister. Goh became the new senior minister, and the elder Lee was designated to the post of “minister mentor,” both still influential cabinet positions.
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Lee Hsien Loong presided over successful legislative elections in 2006, with the PAP retaining its commanding presence in Parliament. Two years later, however, Singapore was caught in the global recession of 2008–09, from which it began to recover only in 2010. Important to that recovery was the growth of the services sector, notably tourism, which benefited greatly after two large resort complexes that included newly legalized gambling casinos opened in 2010.
When Lee took office in 2004, he appeared to be willing to relax somewhat Singapore’s rigid libel laws and proscriptions against dissent and to allow greater freedom of expression. However, like his father had done before him, he continued to bring libel and antidefamation lawsuits against detractors and political opponents, which earned him disapproval internationally and stirred discontent at home. He and the PAP were therefore surprised by the relatively strong showing by opposition parties in the 2011 parliamentary elections, which won six seats outright. Later that year, Tony Tan, the PAP-backed candidate for the largely ceremonial office of president, barely won election over his three opponents.
In the wake of the 2011 elections, the Lee administration began to explore ways of being more responsive to citizens’ concerns. Helping to pave the way for a change in outlook were the resignations from the cabinet in 2011 of both Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Chok Tong, a tacit admission by the government that their presence there was hampering new approaches and styles of governance. Reforms were subsequently explored that were intended to make health care, public housing, and education more affordable for lower-class Singaporeans. One of those measures, a compulsory national health care plan, was to go into effect at the end of 2015. The government, however, remained determined to protect the integrity of political officeholders, which included Prime Minister Lee’s successful libel suit in 2014 against an Internet blogger.
Singaporeans witnessed two milestone events in 2015. In March Lee Kuan Yew died at the age of 91, and his passing elicited widespread mourning in the country. In August the country observed the 50th anniversary of its secession from the Federation of Malaysia with a gala celebration throughout Singapore. At the end of that month President Tan dissolved Parliament and called for early elections, which were held in early September. The PAP again won overwhelmingly, garnering 83 of the 89 contested seats.
Singapore’s diplomatic relations with its immediate neighbours improved in the 21st century. Agreements were reached with Malaysia on territorial disputes and on concerns over water supplies and transportation access, although some issues regarding water remained unresolved. Singapore and Indonesia concluded a pact in 2006 that established special economic zones on islands off the Indonesian coast, and in 2010 an agreement went into effect between China and six ASEAN countries (including Singapore) that established a largely tariff-free trade zone in the region.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
