Chitchat Shan slams Jah the Jing! Proud chinks please balik Cina!

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An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:

Jah the Jing is still missing since 2 Aug 2017. LOL!

Think-tanks must be objective, cannot become instruments of foreign influence: Shanmugam

SINGAPORE - Think-tanks may sometimes disagree with the Government, but they must do so objectively and not under the influence of a foreign government, Home Affairs and Law Minister K. Shanmugam said on Monday (Aug 28) morning.

He added that such organisations play an important role, which is to say and explore things that civil servants may not be able to.

His remarks at a forum held at the Asia Competitiveness Institute, which is part of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, come very shortly after an academic was stripped of his permanent residency for working with a foreign government to influence Singapore's foreign policy and public opinion.

Dr Huang Jing, 60, who was from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, had his permanent residency status cancelled earlier this month after he was identified by the Home Affairs Ministry as "an agent of a foreign country".

While Mr Shanmugam did not refer to any specific case, he said it was "unacceptable" for academics to be "suborned" and to hence project the views of a foreign country "under the guise of objectivity and academic freedom", but with a hidden agenda of influencing Singapore's policies.

He added that academics can be bribed or induced to commit an offence "either because you are working with foreign intelligence or because you are seduced by them".

He was responding to a question about the role of think-tanks and businessmen in foreign relations at the forum.

Mr Shanmugam said the late deputy prime minister Goh Keng Swee was instrumental in the setting up of think-tanks in Singapore to provide independent advice. Dr Goh believed that think-tanks helped prevent group think within government.

"Dr Goh saw the think-tank's role as being very knowledgeable, being very objective, being very clear, and putting those views to the government, which means not necessarily agreeing with the government," he said.

"Dr Goh would certainly turn in his grave if he thinks that the think-tanks he set up or was responsible for have become instruments of influence for other countries."


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