Letting go without letting go?

I'm glad I've been slogging through the papers I missed while on vacation. There are interesting stuff I wouldn't want to miss.

An intriguing commentary piece was penned in The Straits Times by China bureau chief Peh Shing Hui on June 1 (page A2). Headlined "China misreads Singapore model", his thesis was that (a) the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) -- after flirting with various political/economic models, continues to find the Singapore "one-party" model attractive; (b) however, the Singapore model is not quite what the CCP leaders would like to think it is, as the recent "watershed" general election showed, ie, the rule of law here ensures a "greater plurality of voices" than the CCP would want China to have.

Hmmm. As Zhou Enlai (who died in 1976), when asked to comment on the 1789 French Revolution, reportedly quipped, "It is too early to say".

The Chinese model may well turn out to become more democratic; if so, only after great turmoil. The Singapore model is still a work in progress, and it is "too early to say" how it will proceed.

But I like a recent cheeky Noose episode (the Ch 5 programme that aired Tuesday nights) that featured a "visit" by North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il to Singapore to learn how to "let go without letting go".