Guessing Singapore's wild cards under Lee junior's leadership

Guessing Singapore's wild cards under Lee junior's leadership

Hanys Salmi, Kuala Lumpur

While the United States was renewing allegations of a possible
Iran-al-Qaeda connection in the Sept. 1l tragedy, Singapore Prime
Minister Goh Chok Tong made an unprecedented visit to Tehran
recently on a friendly mission that promised the establishment of
Iran's first-ever cooperation on a free trade area (FTA) with a
Southeast Asian country. Goh strongly believes, as he said while
in Tehran, "once you are friends, business will follow".

Goh had, in February, made a 10-day trip to Egypt, Bahrain and
Jordan that produced significant results for Singapore. Jordan
entered into an FTA with Singapore two months ago, while Bahrain,
Egypt, Oman and Qatar have expressed an interest in similar
deals.

Goh must have hoped that the five percent share that is
Singapore's total annual trade with those countries, worth close
to US$280 billion, would get a boost from his new initiatives.

Last year, Singapore signed a free trade accord with the U.S.
-- Washington's first with an Asian country. The tiny nation has
also signed similar agreements with Australia, Japan and New
Zealand, while negotiations are under way for such a deal with
India and South Korea.

All these initiatives will be enhanced and amplified in a
high-profile tone by Lee Hsien Loong, who will take over as prime
minister on August 12, when he tries to fit into his father's
(former) shoes, with Lee Kuan Yew (his father) remaining as
senior minister and Goh also assuming a similar role to boost the
new premier's international credentials.

But one major issue is likely to overshadow Lee junior's
impatient maneuvers: The attitude of fellow ASEAN nations in
responding to Singapore's close intimacy with Washington. ASEAN,
which seems to have been overtaken by events, may wish that a
"more brotherly Singapore" share its wealth through interregional
business and investment cooperation.

Politically, ASEAN would prefer to see Singapore remain as it
has been all these years under Lee and Goh, instead of seeing a
high-profile member whose foreign policy maneuvers may run off
the track, in which case the group could be (mis)perceived as an
obvious American satellite.

Countries like Malaysia and Indonesia may need to remind
Singapore's upcoming leader that since ASEAN was not meant to be
a military bloc, its maneuvers should be kept on course to
preserve whatever weight the group has so as to filter
Washington's aggressive policies for the region.

The problem is, Singapore is enjoying increased U.S.
protection and sharing the same line of foreign policy as
Washington over China, Gulf and Middle East issues. In fact, to
follow Washington's advice, its military was trained and
developed by Israel after being turned down by India.

This could be one of the reasons for Iranian President
Mohammad Khatami to have looked at Goh's trip with a suspicious
eye in spite of welcoming the trip, the first by a Singaporean
leader in almost 30 years. No wonder Khatami deemed it necessary
to use the momentum of Goh's visit to remind Washington against
face-slapping allegations of a possible Iranian connection with
the 9/11 tragedy, while emphatically urging it to look for
weapons of mass destruction "elsewhere."

These political leaps made by Goh and Lee's recent
controversial trip to Taiwan have presented substantive clues to
the range of Singapore's foreign policy maneuvers, to be
substantiated further by Lee after being sworn in.

Regional analysts are trying to establish the truth about
Singapore's high-profile leaps into Taiwan and the Gulf. Would
all these maneuvers be confined to pure business deals or would
they become the springboards from which Singapore would leap onto
a higher plateau to play the catalyst role to satisfy its big
brother's interests? Singapore has sat in the same chair as
Manila, from which to call Washington its big brother and not
just a "steady friend", as promulgated by George Shultz.

Increased military cooperation in recent years between
Washington and Singapore as well as between Singapore and the
U.S.' South Pacific bastion, Australia, has annulled assumptions
that the tiny ASEAN member will not seek larger defense umbrellas
from the U.S. against the perpetual shadow of terror and external
threats.

The greatest threat to Singapore as of today is a spilling
over of what the Christian Science Monitor describes as "the holy
terror" coming from its two giant neighbors. Malaysia is where
Jamaah Islamiyah was first identified, and the fundamentalist
organization is presumed by Washington to be the Southeast Asian
wing of al-Qaeda. Indonesia would prefer to deny that JI exists
on its soil at all. And it doesn't know what to do with it, for
reasons of political expediency.

Against the above background, it is safe to assume that Goh's
trip to Iran and the high-profile visit to Taiwan by Lee fitted
in well with Washington's strategic interests in Asia and the
Gulf.

In line with that, Singapore adopted last month a new concept
to combat terror -- the same mechanism being pursued by
Indonesian police under U.S. directives -- well-suited to
Washington's requirements, and got in return increased U.S.
support, boosting its international credentials.

With such support, Singapore is no longer a tiny republic
politically, despite the geographical reality. It is rapidly
growing -- in the words of a European diplomat here -- to be "the
superpower in a little showcase".

This position is being vindicated by Singapore's aggressive
maneuvers in business, including the takeover of strategic
industries in neighboring countries. Indonesia's giant satellite
telecommunications company, Indosat, has been partially bought by
Singtel, of which chief executive Lee Hsien Yang is Lee Hsien
Loong's brother. Temasek Holdings -- whose executive director, Ho
Ching, is Lee Hsien Loong's wife -- is playing the most powerful
role in Singapore investment decision-making and is planning to
submit a tender to take over Indonesia's Permata bank.

With all these developments, Lee will have nothing to worry
about when he becomes Singapore's next prime minister. He need
not fear becoming a lot more assertive than his predecessor even
against China, knowing that the U.S. will remain firmly behind
him anyhow.

No wonder, in reacting to Beijing's anger -- after Zhou
Xiaochuan, governor of the People's Bank of China, abruptly
canceled a scheduled visit to Singapore -- Lee sent Beijing this
daring remark: "If our relations cannot survive this episode,
then they must be shallow and brittle."

The writer is a researcher at a Kuala Lumpur-based company.
He can be reached at hanyssalmi@malaysia.com