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Singapore
OpinionComment
Tom Plate
Tom Plate

Opinion | Singapore, reluctant US-China go-between, should continue to be useful to both

  • Talks between Lee Hsien Loong and Joe Biden reflect Singapore’s role as interlocutor for the US in Asia, which can only be good news for a conflict-weary world
  • Dismissed by some for its size, Singapore boasts a strategic location, high GDP, and a demonstrated ability to work with China

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Illustration: Stephen Case
Tom Plate
Ever since my first meeting with Lee Kuan Yew a quarter of a century ago, Singapore has remained in my mind as special. By the time of the founding prime minister’s passing at 91 in 2015, that assessment was going global; even in Hong Kong circles, where desultory governance and economic factors, especially housing, seemed to inspire spasms of exodus, Singapore seemed an honourable option.
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It was not always thus. There was a time when Western media barely noticed the island city state, and when it did the storyline was predictably a rehash of the 1994 caning of a visiting American teenager, or of odd restrictions on chewing gum sales. No longer. Today’s Singapore storyline might be imagined as a combination of Hollywood films such as Crazy Rich Asians and Mr Smith Goes to Washington.

Perhaps even that encomium somewhat shorts Singapore. For government and political science nerds (like myself), the Southeast Asian polity offers almost textbook lessons of how to pull off professional modern governance. Employing the utilitarian standard that only better economic and social outcomes can justify government, Singapore has set exemplary standards.

People walk along Marina Bay East Park in Singapore on October 20, 2021. Photo: AFP
People walk along Marina Bay East Park in Singapore on October 20, 2021. Photo: AFP
And those outcomes – high per capita income, state-of-engineering public infrastructure, an exemplary educational system – remain on display as the city state moves to select its fourth prime minister since its 1965 founding. At this point, Finance Minister Lawrence Wong has successfully emerged as the compromise leader of the dominant People’s Action Party, tabbing him as presumed successor to Lee Hsien Loong, now 70, eldest son of Lee Kuan Yew and Singapore’s prime minister since 2004.

Not everyone is stuck on Singapore, of course. Some people persist in viewing it as a one-off oddball of a city state. Then there is scoffing at its population size: 5.5 million. So what? Prominent countries with comparable population sizes include Denmark, Ireland, New Zealand and Norway. Size is important but it’s not everything.

Some of my American colleagues trash-talk it as little more than a claustrophobic one-party state. Really? Consider Japan, arguably a one-party state embraced by the octopus known as the Liberal Democratic Party: it’s nonetheless a key ally of US (struggling, by contrast, with its non-exemplary two-party system).

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History may be nudging Singapore, with a per-capita income 1.5 times that of Japan, closer to Tokyo’s role as a Washington comfort pillow. At their joint media appearance at the White House last month, the two emphasised their bilateral connections. Midway through his carefully prepared statement, Lee noted: “Singapore is the second-largest Asian investor in the US, and the US is the largest investor in Singapore.”

He then pointedly underlined his government’s concurrence with the US’ condemnation of Russia’s military assault on Ukraine’s sovereignty: “We cannot condone any country arguing that another country’s independence is the result of historical errors and crazy decisions.” Niftily put; easily the best quip of the press appearance.

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