In 1987, Deputy Prime Minister & the future Emeritus Senior Minister (ESM) Goh Chok Tong started a pro-natal policy with a settler immigration supplement. In 1997, as Prime Minister, he changed the population strategy into settler immigration-centric, officially known as the foreign talent (FT) policy. (link)
In order to persuade existing citizens to accept & integrate the maximum number settler immigrants from maximum diverse backgrounds at maximum speed, the official demographic character of Singapore was changed from descendants of immigrants to that of a collection of immigrants.
The ESM & his population planners appeared to have forgotten that the 1970 Census report noted a transformation of the population from external-born to local-born.(Chapter 8 Point 15) The ESM began to reinterpret the history of the Peninsula Mainlanders in Singapore & declared them as foreign talents. The pro-PAP government mainstream media also tried to give an indirect impression that foreign talents always formed a significant minority, perhaps even the majority of the Singapore population. Full story
Also read:
Who opened the floodgates? - Seah Chiang Nee
