In the 19^th Century many Chinese moved into Nanyang and quite a few were attracted to Singapore. The British colonial government left these immigrants to look after themselves and the education of their children. So Chinese community leaders built Chinese schools, brought Chinese teachers from China and Chinese newspapers grew with the population.

In the 1950s there were several morning Chinese newspapers in Singapore.

Even before self-government in 1959, parents began to choose English schools for their children’s education. After independence in 1965 the flow away from Chinese medium to English medium schools increased as parents realised that their children’s future prospects were better with an English language education.

In 1966 we introduced bilingualism, English in Chinese schools, Chinese and other mother tongues in English schools, and so with Malay and Tamil schools.

Finally in 1978, we changed Nanyang University’s language of instruction from Chinese to English, when NU and SU were placed in a joint campus at Bukit Timah, later to become NUS. We also phased out Chinese medium primary and secondary schools. However it was important that we keep the language alive.

Eventually there were only two main Chinese newspapers – Nanyang Siang Pau and Sin Chew Jit Poh, and some evening papers.

To fight for this diminishing pool of new Chinese educated readers every year, Sin Chew and Nanyang engaged in a war which was unproductive and ruinous.

If the government ignored these trends, the result would be a prolonged and futile struggle for survival between the Chinese papers that would damage them and their workers. As in the case of Nanyang University, I could not sit by and see them destroy themselves.

My worry as Prime Minister was how to preserve at least one quality Chinese newspaper and sustain it over the long term, when the trend in education was towards English.

My first attempt was to encourage the two Chinese papers to merge and also start an English paper that would have a growing readership. I also encouraged the Straits Times to buy a Chinese paper, so that we would have two publishing houses competing in both English and the Chinese newspapers.

NYSP and SCJP merged in 1983, a year after the Singapore News & Publications Ltd (SNPL) was formed to take in both papers. SNPL started the English language Singapore Monitor that year with the backing of three big banks, OUB, UOB and DBS. But it could not break the Straits Times’ hold on the English language readership. SNPL did not have enough experienced English newspaper managers and editors with knowledge of the local industry and were not ready for the competition. The banks decided to fold the company up. To rescue it, I encouraged the merger of the two companies, which was done in 1984 when SPH was formed.

This means that there will now be a financially sound media company with the resources of the growing readership in the English press to sustain the Chinese press in spite of its declining readership. So instead of the Chinese newspaper workers, printers, journalists, and editors getting less and less pay as their readership declined, they will be able to get equal wages from the holding company.

It has worked out that way. There is no danger of the Chinese press having to close down for lack of resources or their workers getting second-class wages. After nearly 20 years, the problem now is how to maintain standards.

There have been attempts to simplify the language to keep up the readership of Chinese newspapers, as Friday Weekly and Thumbs-up for students, Shin Min, Wan Bao, You Weekly, catered for various segments. But the decline in readership is not only in the Chinese press but also in the English press. Fewer of the younger generation read newspapers. Instead they watch television and surf the internet.

Something remarkable and unexpected has happened with our bilingual policy. TV news and TV programmes in Chinese have higher viewerships than those in English. Our population is comfortable talking and listening in Mandarin. When it comes to reading, they prefer to read English newspapers.

It is mainly because Singapore’s working language is English and most find reading English much easier and faster.

What of the future?

Trends may change.

The Chinese media will develop in China and become more attractive. TV in Mandarin available on SCV could lead to an increased popularity of spoken Chinese. I am not sure whether this will be reflected in a higher readership of Chinese papers. More Singaporeans will need higher levels of spoken and written Chinese to do business in China.

Meanwhile Zaobao.com has gone on-line and has a strong following in the Chinese reading world. Daily pageviews of Zaobao.com peaked at 4.5 million recently but it had to be capped at 3 million to save bandwidth cost. The bulk of this on-line readership is in China making Zaobao a brand name in China.

Whatever the outcome, it is in our interest as a nation to maintain at least one high quality Chinese language newspaper, and that paper is ZaoBao. This is a national project which we must do our best to promote. Those who manage ZaoBao must be practical and keep abreast with the interests of younger readers. Attract as many of them as possible to read ZaoBao. Standards of the editorial pages can be maintained because there will be a regular influx of Chinese reading businessmen and workers from the Mainland, Taiwan and Hong Kong. And a growing number of immigrants from China will take permanent residence and ultimately become citizens. They will constitute a core of Chinese readers with high literary tastes.

There is no risk of a vanishing Chinese readership for ZaoBao. The hard part is to maintain as high a literary standard as is compatible with the standard of the Chinese in Singapore.

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