SM Teo Chee Hean at the Asia Future Summit 2023

“Guiding Principles for Small Countries in an Uncertain World”

Good morning. It is my pleasure to join you here at SPH Media’s inaugural Asia Future Summit. This is also the centenary of Mr Lee Kuan Yew’s birth.

The organisers have brought together a distinguished line-up of speakers from different countries and regions to share their perspectives on the key themes of geopolitics, business and the economy, and society. I thank you for your presence.

This year’s Summit invites us to consider Asia’s future amidst an increasingly uncertain and turbulent global landscape. You will have the opportunity to discuss in the coming sessions the great upheavals of geopolitics, economics, and social attitudes and values.

This morning, what I will focus on is what all this means for small countries. The implied question, particularly for small countries like Singapore, is whether we can continue to secure our place in the sun, and how we might do so in this clash of the titans.

Mr Lee said in the book One Man’s View of the World, “Singapore has to take the world as it is; it is too small to change it. But we can try to maximise the space we have to manoeuvre among the big “trees” in the region. That has been our approach and we will have to be nimble and resourceful to be able to continue doing so.”

Singapore’s approach to the world

Since independence, Singapore’s approach to the world has been guided by three principles.

a. First, subscribing to a practical rather than ideological approach. We learn from the experience of others and adapt or devise solutions that work for our context. We often start with pilots, and fine-tune as we go. This is our approach in the arena of domestic policy, and it informs our actions in our foreign relations regionally and internationally.

b. Second, supporting a global environment that is open, connected, and collaborative, which we believe is good not just for us, but because it makes for a more peaceful and prosperous region and world.

c. Third, advocating adherence to international rule of law and the principles of the United Nations charter – in particular respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty. These are existential for small countries, and we must insist on their inviolability. They provide a crucial framework within which countries can conduct relations constructively and resolve differences as they arise.

These are the principles that the late Mr Lee Kuan Yew and his team established, and they have seen us through our first half century or so of independence.

Much of our history as an independent country since 1965 has been defined by two very different periods. The first period, from our independence to the end of the 1980s, was largely characterised by the Cold War.

Some of you may recall that the People’s Action Party, the party Mr Lee founded, was once a member of Socialist International. The PAP left the grouping in 1976 as we did not want to get involved in ideological battles and chose instead to focus on practical strategies for our unique circumstances to improve the lives of our people.

We charted our own path. In a world where newly independent countries, more often than not, nationalised and protected their economies, we decided to go the other way – opening ourselves to the forces of the free market. We sought industrialisation through foreign direct investment. This was criticised at that time by some as neo-colonialism – welcoming former colonial masters back under the guise of business. But we structured the investments carefully, to allow us to benefit from the infusion of technology, access to markets, and creation of jobs. This enabled us to grow rapidly and transform our economy, and we learnt a great deal in the process.

We looked abroad for policy examples in urban planning, airport management, industrialisation, and defence, and then adapted these models to what worked for us, our circumstances, our resources, and our people. And where there were few examples to follow, we had to devise our own solutions: in public housing, retirement adequacy, education, and most critically, policies to integrate our multi-racial, multi-lingual, multi-religious society, and give our young immigrant nation a sense of common purpose and destiny.

If we are asked what were our ideological underpinnings? The answer is that we strived for practical outcomes, what works – to be logical and not ideological.

Like all small countries, Singapore did not have the luxury of focusing inwards at the exclusion of what was happening around us. As an example, in a victory for international connectedness and rule of law, Singapore’s Professor Tommy Koh played an important role in the grand balancing of interests, between coastal states and users of the sea, island states like Singapore and land-locked states, that culminated in the seminal United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in 1982. This brought order out of unilateral claims by countries for greater jurisdiction of various kinds to extensive sea areas. Bringing order to claims over sea areas remains an existential concern for us. Without this, we and other states like us would have effectively become landlocked by other countries’ expansive claims over waters which had previously been high seas. Freedom of navigation at sea, and our place in the world as a trade entrepot would have been seriously constrained. So when we are asked which side we back in maritime disputes? The answer is that we are on the side of UNCLOS. We back UNCLOS and the rule of law. That’s the principle we follow.

Hindsight is 20/20. Looking back, it may seem to some that the choices we made then were straightforward, and the right path for Singapore was always blindingly obvious. This view is mistaken. Creating a nation from meagre beginnings, amid intense ideological contestation pulling at us from all sides, required discipline in adhering to our core principles. If not for this, the Singapore of today, which in many ways, still rests on those key founding principles, could easily have looked very different.

The second period of our history came about with the collapse of the Soviet Union at the turn of the 1990s – the post-Cold War world.

This moment was famously described by one political scientist as the “end of history”: that liberal democracy and free-market capitalism had ‘won’, demonstrating themselves to be the superior ideologies that all countries should adopt and would inevitably become.

In 1994, the Uruguay Round of negotiations to reform the then-General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was concluded after seven and a half years of negotiations. Many countries joined the resulting World Trade Organisation (WTO), greatly expanding global trade. China’s entry to the WTO in 2001 was significant for the huge benefits it would have for international trade and for China in the years to follow. Joining the WTO also meant that China made great commitments to reforming and opening its own economy.

This period of growing globalisation called for different strategies and solutions from the previous period, but our underlying principles remained the same. But even then, signs of difficulties in negotiating new rounds of global trade agreements were beginning to be felt.

Our approach remained pragmatic. Where it was not yet possible to attain global or even regional agreements, Singapore worked with like-minded countries to create the building blocks that could hopefully, over time, get us closer to that outcome.

We pursued and concluded many bilateral Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), and later advocated for multilateral trade agreements, participating actively in what was called the P4, the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement (TPSEP), with four very small economies – Singapore, Brunei, Chile and New Zealand. This would serve as a pathfinder for the open and inclusive regional trade agreements that we have today.

We have worked on bilateral collaboration projects that brought value to others and ourselves. Our collaboration with Indonesia, in the Batam Industrial Park was an early example. We have our long-standing partnership with China on key government-to-government projects – the Suzhou Industrial Park, the Tianjin Eco-city, and Chongqing Connectivity Initiative. And our collaboration with Vietnam on the Vietnam-Singapore Industrial Parks (VSIPs), the first of which was set up in 1996, just a few years after Vietnam opened up. There will soon be 17 of such VSIPs, including four new ones that were announced a month ago.

Guideposts in a turbulent and uncertain world

We find ourselves now in a new phase, beyond the so-called “end of history”. The pendulum seems to be swinging back, albeit in a different context. The actors may have been reshuffled since the Cold War, but we are once again in a period of intense contestation.

Competition among countries has intensified, with nationalism and protectionism impinging on free trade. There is a brutal war in Europe, reminiscent of the First World War more than a hundred years ago. Strategic trust between the US and China is at an all-time low. Trade, investments, supply chains and technology access are increasingly driven by geopolitical considerations rather than economic ones.

Small countries – typically price-takers in the global economy – once again find themselves caught in the middle, being pressured to take sides, in a world where narrow self-interest and zero-sum thinking pervade.

What should our guideposts be in this new world? How can we collectively look forward to the future, and for Singapore, secure our place in the world? Once again, our strategies and solutions may change, but the principles that underpin them remain.

We cannot afford to close ourselves off. Across the cycles of history, we know that periods of openness and cooperation create the most prosperity for the world. But openness should not be unfettered either. A pragmatic approach must include a system domestically to ensure an equitable distribution of the benefits, as well as robust and fair mechanisms internationally to resolve the disputes that will inevitably arise.

We must continue to respect territorial integrity and sovereignty for all states. We voted against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at the United Nations General Assembly, just as we voted against the US’ invasion of Grenada in 1983. We must insist on this principle, or we will find ourselves in a world where might is right, and the law of the jungle prevails.

Global forces are often beyond the control of small countries, and as I quoted Mr Lee Kuan Yew earlier, “Singapore has to take the world as it is”. But Mr Lee also believed, and Singapore’s history shows, that small countries, like Singapore, are not without agency.

Many global issues of the day require collective action, such as in mitigating climate change, fighting cross-boundary and cyber-crime, and managing space and cyberspace as global commons.

There are opportunities to influence and shape outcomes. We can do so by speaking our mind, offering innovative pathways, nudging, and working with like-minded partners through platforms like the Forum of Small States (FOSS) and the Group of 77.

We can play a meaningful part in facilitating international action, quietly leveraging on our reputation as an honest, trusted, and well-informed broker, to combine the collective strengths of likeminded countries. Singapore facilitated consultations among countries for key aspects of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change. We did the same again in 2021, to arrive at the Article 6 rules for carbon markets under the Paris agreement. In both cases there were major sticking points among countries that we helped to overcome. More recently, our Ambassador Rena Lee headed the negotiations that led to the adoption of the BBNJ (Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdictions) Agreement in June this year – a landmark agreement on a new oceans treaty to protect marine biodiversity on the high seas. This will become an increasingly contentious issue.

Smaller countries should continue to do our part to keep the world open and interconnected. For example, we were a key player in the 11-member CPTPP (the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership), which will soon have 12 members. With our ASEAN partners, we are part of the 15-member RCEP (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership) which includes China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand and of course, our ASEAN partners, constituting some 30% of global GDP. These regional agreements complement our existing network of bilateral free trade agreements – 27 in all. They are designed from the outset to be inclusive and open, and we hope to bring both sides of the Pacific closer together both in trade and geopolitics.

One might describe this as Realpolitik, but for small countries.

Too many countries today are focused on narrow self-interest and a zero-sum view of the world. We hope to join hands with likeminded countries to engender a commitment to enlightened self-interest: where we grow the pie; not simply fight over how to share it. Countries can be open and inclusive, working toward a common greater good, balanced with our need to serve each of our domestic polities better.

Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy was founded in 2004 to promote the serious study of public policy for practical outcomes. As the Minister for Education then, I was involved in drafting the guiding documents and persuading Mr Lee to lend his name to it. But the intention was never to preach Lee Kuan Yew ideology. There was no “white book” to wave; he would be the first to dismiss such an idea. The intent has always been to demonstrate the value of taking a practical, evidence-based approach: to adapt and devise appropriate solutions for the day, contextualised to our own countries or region, having rigorously analysed each new circumstance, with a realistic appreciation of one’s resources and capabilities.

Singapore today is better equipped than before in terms of human capital, know-how, material resources, and international networks, to play a part in nudging the world in the direction of openness, inclusivity, and enlightened self-interest, both for our own benefit, for the region, and the world as a whole.

Today’s summit is one means of facilitating constructive and open dialogue to help us make sense of the world and find common ways forward. Singapore as always hopes to play a small part by serving as a platform for such dialogue. I look forward to engaging all of you and hearing your perspectives. Thank you very much.