MGG Pillai Commentary View

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What is Singapore up to?

SINGAPORE NOW PLAYS TO the gallery in unresolved bilateral disputes, amidst negotiations. It released confidential information about the water agreement between Malaysia and Singapore in Parliament, brought a booklet of it in March, and put it on its website in June. It is upset the Malaysian media does not print its views, and that is dismissed as yet another reason the Malaysia media is at the mercy of the government. The Singapore media is not: it only reports the truth, and the truth is of a Malaysia swarming with fundemantalist Muslims out to deny Singapore a place in the sun.

But this would have had some sympathy if it had stopped there. The Singapore government has now released a recent exchange of letters between the trade ministers of Singapore and Indonesia to counter Indonesian claim the island republic was 'unfriendly' in not publishing bilateral trade figures. This claim is an old one: for years Jakarta had alleged Singapore encourages the smuggling of Indonesian exports, which were not reflected in bilateral trade figures. Jakarta argues because Singapore is less than honest in what it receives from this smuggling and other indirect imports.

Why then this sudden need to pick a diplomatic fight if Singapore was less than honest on this in the past and has not convinced Indonesia the past is past, and matters have changed dramatically? For a long time as an independent nation, Singapore was at odds with Jakarta. Many of the clashes are impinged on Indonesia's nationalist memory: the hanging of the two marines three decades ago, for instance.

Indonesia says the US$2.49 billion trade gap in Indonesia's exports is because Singapore hides billions of dollars in smuggling between the two countries, that it had asked for this data since 1973, has yet to receive them, might move its shipping elsewhere, take the dispute to international bodies for a settlement. Singapore responds to say the updated is given to Indonesia annually since 1974, allowed Jakarta to release the data but chose not to.

The issue, as with Malaysia, is not about the accuracy of data or with details but with the confidentiality of documents, and the secrecy sensitive talks demand. Singapore has broken this to force the pace, in Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur, in on-going talks. Why is understandable: the need to reinforce the incipient xenophobia amongst Singaporeans, three quarters of whom are Chinese. But it must understand it would be resisted. As it has.

There is a similar trend amongst the Malays in Malaysia, and for the same reason: the ruling parties in both find support amongst their constituency declining, and xenophobia is brought in to bring it back into the fold. A retired Singapore official, whose views I value much, tells me in an email that in this bilateral dispute xenophobia cannot be the cause of it. I argued that it is at the cultural root of the Malay in Malaysia and the Chinese in Singapore, indeed in any bilateral dispute. If this is not understood, as it is not, I fear, in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, things must get worse before it can get better.

Much historical baggage cloud attempts to bring Singapore's ties with Malaysia and Indonesia. So every issue is highlighted beyond its importance. Political factions in each raise the ante, and before long a full scale crisis is before us. A counter-reaction widens the conflict. But is there an attempt to find out why? No. Singapore insists on the sanctity of contracts, Malaysia and Indonesia tries to find a neutral ground in which there is no nose cutting and life can go on as usual.

But this xenophobia intrudes. The Chinese cannot be seen, certainly to Singapore, to be second fiddle to the Malays. The Malays would not allow the Chinese to steal a march over him. And vice-versa. This is never addressed. Instead, the two countries talk at cross purposes. Nothing is resolved. Malaysian officials bristle at accusations of Malay xenophobia as Singapore of Chinese xenophobia.

It is this xenophobia that led Malaysia and Singapore to tread different paths. Malaysia has done this more deftly than Singapore. It shows. Singapore does not understand that often for political rationalisation, Malaysian leaders must play to its gallery, with no thought that it would renege on the underlying agreeement. And expect Malaysians to accept why Singapore must. In short, neither Singapore and Malaysia understand each other when it comes to bilateral issues.

But this constant needling takes it toll. There is a hardening of attitudes in Malaysia. Singapore military aircraft routinely breach Malaysian airspace in Trengganu and Kelantan, and move smartly out to international waters when Royal Malaysian Air Force jets scramble. This needling, in the view of the armed forces command, could result in an ugly incident. I would not be surprised if it does. There is a deep suspicion in Jakarta that Singapore sells guns to Aceh. Whether it is true or not is not the issue: past history suggests it could be true. Even if it is not.

Singapore cannot overcome these suspicions by releasing confidential documents for no reason than to show the other side is not as upright, in her view, as they. Could this change? Yes, but not now. All three countries - Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia - have problems with their ground, and must be seen, to their electors, to be tough and would go to the edge if it must. But when that is taken a tad too far, as in the current disputes with Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur, she might get more than she bargained for. In Malaysia, a military conflict with Singapore is talked about before this decade is out, even amongst those who not long ago eschewed it. The officials in the three countries are schooled in nationalist hype without the intervening belief in statecraft for the common good. This cannot last. But until then, much of the same would dominate.

[An edited version appears in my Chiaroscuro column in malaysiakini (www.malaysiakini.com) today, 11 July 2003)

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@mgg.pc.my

|
| I read your commentary on water talks: pot calls kettle | black - with interest. however i find puzzling your claim | that both malays and chinese have cultural xenophobia towards | each other - and that the dominant political party in each | must prove its xenophobia and nationalism to stay in power. |

Dear ....:

If you look at the relations between Singapore and Malaysia and now Indonesia, Singapore's one-upmanship cannot be an accident. The xenophobia is there: the Chinese against the Malay and the Malay against the Chinese, and is reflected in various often subtle forms. I cannot give you chapter and worse for these things cannot be codified. It shows itself when a Malaysian civil service talks of Singapore or when a Singapore civil servant talks of Malaysia, especially when they talk to you in private. And this has now come to the surface amidst officials in both countries who do not have a shared past as in the early years of independent and separation. However much the Tengku and LKY hated each other, they could still negotiate with a warmth that made is possible for problems to be resolved. That cannot happen now. There is little love lost between officials of the two sides. Who is to blame for this? Both. The PAP and UMNO has to resort to xenophobia and nationalism to strengthen their own ground. That is as serious in Singapore as it is in Malaysia. Singapore would not have released the documents but for this. It needs to tell the Singaporean Chinese, as UMNO must to the Malay, that it looks after their interests far better than anyone could.

| If there is such xenophobic suspicion of each other then why | is it wrong for Singapore to come up with a booklet | containing the statements made in Parliament and documents | released by the government, on the water talks, | to put across its case, which the Malaysian media had | consistently refused to carry. | How do you cure both of their cultural xenophobia, if indeed | it exists.?

I did not say it was wrong for Singapore to come up with a booklet, only to question why they did it at this time. The documents are old hat. They were released in Parliament. But when Singapore regularly brings it out, like a mantra, then more serious problems are at hand. Governments should not bring break the confidentiality of communication and documents in the midst of talks. Singapore did. You could justify putting those documents before Parliament, but not if you then collect them and regurgitate it to damn the other country. Now Singapore has released documents with Indonesia. What is Singapore up to? Does it mean what it says? That it would release documents of governments who cannot agree to it? That she would conduct foreign policy and negotiations through the press?

You say the Malaysia media does not carry the official Singapore view. Tell me, why should it? The matter is under negotiations. What purpose does it do to argue these points in public when the talks are not complete? There is no requirement that one country's press must carry the view of the other government in a bilateral dispute or discussions. Singapore, in the Malaysian view, is browbeating Malaysians to a decision. This Malaysia would not do. Singapore wants to score points in a dispute it has lost ground. The origins of the water dispute is not in the price of water or how much water Johore supplies Singapore or indeed any of the justifications and criticisms that each has lobbed on the other but in the talks over renewing the water pact in the 1980s in which the Singapore official in charge - I think it was Ngiam Tong Dow - messed up the talks. This led to Lee Kuan Yew coming to Kuala Lumpur, meeting Dr Mahathir in the Hilton Hotel, and losing ground.

>From then on, as Singapore mounted the pressure the Malaysians sidestepped it. They would continue to do so. There is seriously no interest in Malaysia, as far as I can see, in resolving this matter. Not when Singapore releases documents as it has. The Malaysians have hardened their position in ways I find frightening. Some of the more serious options they consider is military hostilities, which one man I have immense respect for says could be in five years. There is already a feeling here that rational discussions are no longer possible. In this connexion, the Lim Kok Wing article is a Malaysian psywar move can be ignored. KL knows this would gladden Singapore that there are still sane voices in KL. But would that article have been carried if the government did not want it?

If this water agreement must be put to rest, the Singapore Prime Minister must come to Kuala Lumpur and reach agreement with the Prime Minister. It cannot be Dr Mahathir. No agreement he agrees with foreign countries would be honoured by Pak Lah. So GCT must wait until Pak Lah is safely in power - which is after the UMNO GA next year. If they then he is in power - which I doubt - then GCT can talk about a water deal. If the new PM is - as I think - Tengku Razaleigh, then it is a new dimension altogether. You would find him much tougher to negotiate.

| What are the deep-rooted problems that have nothing to do | with sanctity of contracts and laws? .

I mentioned this in the answer above. What about Batu Putih/Pedro Branca; the Singapore request for overflights; the Singaporeans raising the cost of living in Johore Bahru and other peripheral issues. The water talks cannot be taken in isolation. The LKY-DZ points of agreement is just one more impediment the Malaysians put into the pot for Singapore to stir. Singapore fell for it. And now tries to wriggle out. I have always suggested to every Singapore high commissioner and many an ambassador from elsewhere that if they want to understand Malaysia and its government, you have to read the Sejarah Melayu. For that provides the cultural roots of how Malaysia is governed. Few as far as I know have. But the suggestion that well-educated presidential scholars must read some fable to understand Malaysia is too much for many of them. You cannot get to understand how Indonesia works if you ignore the predictions of Joyoboyo. I have yet to get one books which lists them but it as important to Indonesian polity as Nostradamus is to the modern European. So the Sejarah Melayu to understand the Malay psyche. Singapore wants its views accepted by the Malay on her terms. That cannot succeed unless its request put in the Malay way to accept it. The bull in a china shop approach would not work. Indeed cannot.

| It is interesting that you also place their xenophobia within | the fundamentalism of global politics(presumably ala Bush).

Singapore is so confident of dealing with its neighbours because it believes it has the US on its side. Many senior Malaysian politicians and civil servants believe it. Singapore's Islamophobia is another. Its foreign policy position re Iraq and Muslim nations is another. Globally, Singapore is in the US camp and Malaysia is not. This will continue. I do not think Malaysia is in a mood to let Singapore have the water they want without getting some thing important - not materially but culturally that would put Singapore not on par with it. If Singapore is so serious about telling its people about all it does, said a Malaysian minister to me the other day, then why does it not tell the Singaporeans of the details of the secret pact LKY signed with the United States in Tokyo some years ago? Talks are a process not a one-off thing.

| If it is so entrenched how do you see Singapore becoming a | Malaysian state again by2061(as implied in the last | sentence)?.

| I would think that that would come about only if both sides | abjure polemics and playing to their political galleries and | start looking at each other as two partners and close | neighbours with shared interests over a broad spectrum | including defence and security; so that those existing issues | can be resolved administratively within a framework of give | and take.

You assume that there would be negotiations for Singapore returning to Malaysia. I believe Singapore would ask to be included, and it would come in on Malaysia's terms. I also believe Singapore, in the coming years, would look at the Malay world as Israel looks at the Middle Eastern Muslim world. And come unstuck. I shall give you just one example, albeit an irrelevant one but symptomatic of the wider issue. In the KL Sentral there is a block of flats, most of which are bought by Singaporeans. Now the Singaporeans pressure the Malaysians who bought it to sell it to them. Most of the Malaysian residents are chinese. Singapore believes that with its money it must be treated by Malaysia as Malaysia treats foreign tourists who come her to stay invest and stay. You might say this is a clear sign of the flat is available and a Singapore bought it. But that is not how it is regarded here. So the underlying Malay xenophobia for the Chinese is entrenched. And with hundreds of similar examples, it forms the basis of official policy. A similar view works in reverse in Singapore.

| I thought that was the basis on which the Points of | Agreement were signed by PM Lee Kuan Yew and Daim Zainuddin | the day before LKY stepped down as PM ( Nov 90).

| Could Dr M not make a last effort to revisit and sign a | fresh Points of Agreement with PM Goh before both step down, | instead of leaving this historical baggage for their | succesors next year? (Why is Dr M so sour towards both GCT | and LKY?)
|

As I said, MM cannot. Nor could AAB until after the UMNO GA in June 2004 and if he is returned with his wings not clipped. There is no question of a Malaysian PM visiting Singapore for a fresh POA. That was like the LKW article yet another poison pill. And as I said it may not be AAB even but TR. And he would be much more difficult for Singapore to deal with, especially if his number two happens to be a fellow not wheelchair bound in Sungei Buloh. This is talked about so often that I do not discount that any more. Malaysian politics, like Singapore's, is in flux. There is more to the water talks than meets the eye.

with warmest regards and more meeting when you are next here. Since I cannot, as you are aware, come down.

MGG

| I was pleasantly surprised to see The New Straits Times on 1 July publishing an OpEd article on how bilateral relations | between Malaysia and Singapore could be improved - headlined "Separate Siblings Bicker" by Lim Kok Wing - | should we read anything into that article? Is that a smoke signal or kite sent up by LKW on behalf of either | Dr M or Pak Lah? Your insightful comment would be welcome. | | With warm regards as always | |