Going global, staying local

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s speech in Parliament last week on the prospects of Singapore’s foreign policy carried an urgent message: While Singapore’s success hinges on its continuing to be a viable global city, Singaporeans should be extremely wary of importing emerging stresses in the global system into their domestic social and political affairs. A case in point is the problematic international situation created by tensions between China and the United States. Those tensions expose the Singapore population to emotional pulls, commercial pressures and influence campaigns waged by one side or the other to garner support for its point of view. Internal divisions – fuelled by external conflicts of ethnicity, ideology and strategic contests for power and influence – could prove lethal for the social harmony built up painstakingly after Independence. The new Cold War perhaps under way must not be allowed to split Singapore.

The way to ensure the Republic remains buffered from external challenges is for its citizens to understand the principles undergirding Singapore’s foreign policy and national interests. Singaporeans generally have developed an almost instinctive aversion to the divisive politics of identity and posturing. This social DNA will stand them in good stead as they face a centrifugal world whose fractious impulses could sap social cohesion and test their national resolve. Finding new resilience amid these tensions requires a hard-nosed realisation that we live in grave global times, as demonstrated by the Ukraine war and by systemic difficulties that arise from the prospect of protectionism undermining the multilateral trading system.