Harvard crackdown: Can Singapore become its own intellectual leader?

THE US has long been a global science leader, with this best exemplified by its scientists creating a Covid-19 vaccine – amid a pandemic no less – within a year.

Given that vaccine developments typically take a decade or more, this is nothing short of a feat, and something that has been decades in the making – a result of generous state funding for research and an openness to talent, among other factors. This is why US President Donald Trump’s crusade against Harvard University and other top American institutions should give us pause, even if the fate of Ivy League colleges an ocean away may not seem, at first, to have major repercussions for Singapore.

Alongside the on-and-off-again tariffs, immigration crackdown and slashing of government budgets, some observers may regard Trump’s first 140 days as part of a natural ebb and flow in American politics. After all, the country has seen its fair share of upheavals in the last 249 years, having survived a civil war in the mid-19th century and, over 100 years later, lived through a particularly turbulent 1968 punctuated by two assassinations, heightened social unrest over the Vietnam War and issues related to values and race.