Singapore diplomacy’s walk on the wild side

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Nazry Bahrawi

The writer is a socio-cultural critic pursuing doctoral research at the University of Warwick.

The United Nations HQ at New York City

The United Nations HQ at New York City

Is a wind of change blowing across Singapore? It seems so, if unprecedented moves on its political front are to be believed.

These range from a possible cut to its million-dollar ministerial salaries, to a trimmer cabinet without Lee Kuan Yew. In its drive to embrace reform after a poor electoral performance, the People’s Action Party (PAP) has sworn to leave no stones unturned. All save foreign affairs, that is.

Judging by the tack taken by some members of its younger and leaner cabinet, foreign affairs is possibly the one area where liberalisation seems wanting.

Singapore’s new foreign minister K Shanmugam appeals to realpolitik’s darker side when he describes international relations as being in a “jungle with animals of different sizes” where “the biggest and fiercest are usually the kings”. His strategy of manoeuvring around this dog-eat-dog world is premised on dispensing equitable deals that “leave something on the table for everyone”.

The same conservative stance typifies the discourse of acting minister Chan Chun Sing. On the campaign trail, the PAP’s posterboy for its next generation of leaders raises the spectre of Singapore’s vulnerability by likening it to a yacht sailing precariously among supertankers in the turbulent waters of global developments.

Having spent three years in Jakarta as a military officer, Chan depicts the “happy relationship” Singapore has with Indonesia as “unnatural” if one considers that the latter “reproduces one Singapore per year”.

While Singapore has always taken a practical view of foreign affairs, these analogies belie a deeper sense of suspicion on diplomacy than that practised by George Yeo, its former foreign minister who was ousted after losing his group representation constituency at the recent election. Yeo’s tenure was not perfect, but it was characterised by an atmosphere of intense goodwill, culminating in the signing of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations charter in 2007 when Singapore was chair of the regional grouping.

Yet the PAP’s stark disregard to liberalise foreign affairs should come as no surprise given that this was not an election issue.

At a time when Singaporeans are feeling threatened by the high influx of migrant workers, the opposition parties would not have won much sympathisers had they campaign on foreign issues. As Singaporeans look to protect their own amidst the widening income gap, concerns over high ministerial salaries are more pertinent.

With little impetus to make any real change, it seems that the PAP’s foreign policy looks set to stay conservative even as all else are being liberalised. Why fix something that is not seen to be broken?


This article was first published on 27 May 2011 by the South China Morning Post.

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