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