Beyond the Handshake

The following sections are included:

• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• List of Contributors
• Contents

My starting point is that Singapore was never meant to be an independent republic. The British ruled Singapore as a colony for 140 years from 1819 until self-government in 1959. Singapore depended on its survival as a centre for trade and commerce serving the hinterland of the Federation of Malaya (Malaysia since 1963). For various reasons, including economic and security, we sought to become part of Malaysia through a merger, but we did not seek independence and, above all, become a sovereign state…

This essay draws on a few stories from my tour of duty as Ambassador to France from 1997 to 2004.

By way of an introduction, it is important to stress that the raison d’être of Singapore’s diplomacy is to help secure and expand our political, economic and security space across the globe. The opportunities for expanding our space sometimes appear through sheer serendipity, but much of the time they have to be created by careful identification, planning and the requisite nifty footwork to make it all happen. It is more often than not pure drudgery and sometimes can take years to achieve results. It is often about shooting at moving targets as priorities shift and change. Sometimes we just plain fail to bring home the goods because our competition did better and won…

The general reader may find this an odd question. Foreign Service Officers (FSO) ought to know that the answer is far from straightforward.

Diplomats do diplomacy, but what is diplomacy? There are probably as many answers as there are diplomats as the rich diversity of experiences chronicled in this volume vividly illustrates…

Some people believe that diplomats are men in lounge suits and women in glittering gowns whose jobs seem to be just savouring fine wines, aged whiskies and succulent Kobe beef at receptions and dinners. Hence, in fairness to the maligned diplomats, I have amended the Arab pun about them to read: “A camel can drink for days without working. An ambassador can work for days without drinking”…

I entered service at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) in mid-November 1974. My first three years were spent in MFA’s Regional and Economic Division and Administration Division. In 1978, I joined the Political Division and assumed responsibility as the Desk Officer for our relations with Africa, South Asia, Middle East and Latin America.

The following sections are included:

• Communist Victories in South Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos in 1975 Posed Serious Challenges to Security of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
• Indochinese Refugees and Vietnamese Boat People
• ASEAN’s Support for Thailand as a Frontline State
• Promoting Trade and Economic Relations with Thailand
• Military Training in Thailand
• Illegal Workers in Singapore
• Ambassador Chi’s Role in Strengthening Bilateral Relations
• Promoting Political, Economic and Defence Relations with Australia

I was serving my national service as a Second Lieutenant in the Ministry of Defence in July/August 1969 when I was summoned by the Director, Security and Intelligence Division Mr. Tay Seow Hua, for an interview. There, I was told that I had been identified by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), in particular by the late Parliamentary Secretary Mr. Rahim Ishak, as being suitable for the Foreign Service. I agreed to join MFA and was told to report for duty in January 1970. I had previously been a broadcast journalist covering Malaysian politics and had accompanied Malaysian Ministers on their tours, including the late Prime Minister (PM) Tunku Abdul Rahman and the late Deputy PM Tun Abdul Razak. Upon commencement of my service in MFA, I was naturally assigned to cover Malaysia.

I joined the Singapore Foreign Service in 1979 after graduation from the Law School in the National University of Singapore. Following my diplomatic postings in Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, the United States, India and Nepal, I became the 11th Secretary-General of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) from 1 January 2003 to 31 December 2007. I was based at the ASEAN Secretariat (ASEC) in Jakarta, Indonesia…

I retired in June 2004 after seven years as Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA). On 2 November, I presented credentials to Emperor Akihito at the Imperial Palace as Singapore’s ninth Ambassador to Japan.

There are occasions when a Foreign Service Officer posted abroad must handle a crisis. I was the Charge d’Affaires at the Singapore Embassy in the Philippines in 1995 when intense public outrage against the Singapore government was sparked after our Courts handed a death sentence to Flor Contemplacion, a Filipino domestic helper in Singapore. She was found guilty of killing two people — Delia Maga, another Filipino maid, and Nicholas Huang (aged 4), the child of Maga’s employer. Demonstrations were staged outside the Singapore Embassy; Singapore flags were burned and the Embassy received bomb threats. According to Professor S. Jayakumar, who was Singapore’s Foreign Minister at that time, this episode was a major diplomatic crisis and brought Singapore and the Philippines to the brink of severing diplomatic relations…

I have been blessed in my 40-year career in the Singapore Foreign Service. I met mentors and worked with colleagues as comrades to defend Singapore’s interests in crisis management and build strong bilateral relations with the great powers, Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) neighbours, the United Nations (UN) and international organisations. Our goal was to anchor Singapore’s survival as a small nation state. There are three episodes on the lows and highs of my diplomatic experiences.

At a ceremony in the Élysée Palace on 21 January 2011, then President Nicolas Sarkozy, turning to his then Foreign Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie, asked teasingly in French, “Et si nous invitons Singapour au G20 cette année… (what if we invite Singapore to the Group of Twenty (G20) this year)?” Without hesitation, I said that it would be an honour for Singapore to work with France during its G20 Presidency. They smiled. At the brief reception which followed, I sought Sarkozy’s then Diplomatic Adviser Jean-David Levitte’s insight. He shared that France had just proposed to G20 its special guests, including Singapore…

As diplomats, our responsibilities include protecting and promoting Singapore’s strategic and security interests in our host countries. The following are two examples of my contribution to that effort.

When you fly over Saudi Arabia (KSA or the Kingdom), the thing that strikes you is the vast, barren landscape of sand dunes, rocks and undulating escarpments. That was my first impression as I descended into King Khalid International Airport to take up the post as Singapore’s Ambassador to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on a languid afternoon in March 2013…

After independence in 1965, Singapore sought to establish diplomatic relations with most countries. In our early post-independence days, the Singapore Ambassador in Washington was concurrently accredited to serve as the Singapore Ambassador to Brazil, thus blazing the trail for our bilateral diplomatic relations with the Americas, North and South…

The following sections are included:

• Feeling Safe
• Meaningful Engagement
• Capability Development Efforts
• Laying the Path towards Connectivity
• Collective Advancement
• Talents Return, Faith Restored
• An Encouraging Future for Bilateral Cooperation

Fifteen years of my four-decade-long career in Singapore’s Foreign Service were spent in India. I deem it my distinct privilege to have served in all three of Singapore’s Missions in India (New Delhi, Chennai and Mumbai). I spent more years in India than any other officer of Singapore’s Foreign Service to date…

In the mid-1980s, Singapore Airlines (SIA) was expanding its international routes and flight frequencies in keeping with the country’s attempts to establish itself as a major tourist destination and aviation hub. We were also encouraging other national airlines to come into Singapore under what was mooted as an “open skies” policy, a concept well ahead of its time in a highly regulated and protected aviation industry. “Open skies” in its simplest terms just means that airlines should be allowed to fly anywhere they wish and pick and drop off passengers at all their stops if they want to do so. One can see the immediate advantage of such an aviation regime to a small country like Singapore with a limited population base…

On 18 June 2020, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR) issued a report “In Singapore, an Already Unfair Vote Undermined by COVID-19”. The report argued that the lack of independent oversight, the group representation constituency system, strict media restrictions and the short campaigning period created insurmountable difficulties for opposition candidates. The report also claimed that the COVID-19 pandemic and electoral measures introduced in the light of the pandemic had failed “to ensure a fair campaigning process during the pandemic, or protect the voting rights for specific groups, particularly the sick and overseas voters”. The report re-hashed well-trodden ground in criticising the Singapore government’s approach to periodic general elections and did not address the increasing participation of Singaporeans in domestic politics despite the restrictions. The drafters of the report also appeared to have failed to recognise that the “hundreds of new daily coronavirus cases” were foreign workers living in dormitories without the right to participate in the elections. This report highlights the highly contextual nature of human rights in Singapore and ASEAN.

One of my life-long aspirations is peace: peace in the family, peace in the country and peace in the world. It is my good fortune to have been asked to make peace in all three domains.

My career in diplomacy spanned 40 years with postings in Asia, Europe and America. When I joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) in 1979, I did not think that I would stay so long. Looking in from the outside, the work of diplomats appears to be glamorous and prestigious. As representatives of your country, diplomats are expected to dress well, carry themselves with dignity and be given privileges and immunities in their countries of posting to help them do their job well. However, behind it is a lot of hard work, long hours, travels and disruptions to yourself and your family caused by alternating between home and overseas postings. A diplomat’s work involves dealing with an unpredictable international environment both when he is home and at overseas postings. So, it is in a sense a 24/7 job…