This research studies the political process conducted by the government of People's Action Party (PAP) of Singapore during the eighties and nineties of the XXth century to conform a project for the national ideology to legitimize the political system formed in that country after its independence. The project for the national ideology was called as "Shared Values" and it has as one of its main references to a version of Chinese Confucianism which has been adapted (and decontextualized) by the regime of Singapore to fulfill some specific purposes, such as maintaining the stability of its political system and the governing elites. The research analyzes how the project for a national ideology was related to the discourse of "Asian values", existing in East Asia, with the aim of consolidating the order, as well as progress and national identity in a country known because its multicultural diversity. As a conclusion this research attempt to explain how the addition of the "Asian values" into the official discourse of the regime of Singapore was due both to the postcolonial condition of this country and an ideological response to the Orientalist ideas that have been generated about the former Asian colonial areas since the nineteenth century. The study of the Asian values discourse in East Asia (in this case, the characteristics acquired in Singapore) during the eighties and nineties may contribute on the research of contemporary historical development of that region.
Popular Action Party; Asian values; Confucianism; Junzi; occidentalism