It is a promising sign when an
anniversary is occasion to look keenly forward as well as nostalgically
backwards.
So it is with Singapore's golden
jubilee celebrations this August. Singapore's success as a globalised
city-state owes itself in no small part to visionary leadership that used
scenario thinking to build foresight into global trends and adapt the country
accordingly, rising rapidly up the hierarchy of prosperity and respect along
the way. The next 50 years will require even more societal acuity.
As much of the Arab world crumbles
on the 100th anniversary of the Sykes-Picot agreement that laid down its
borders, and Africa and South Asia are just beginning to get their houses in
order, Singapore stands out as the world's most successful post-colonial
nation.
Rather than become complacent,
however, the Singapore Institute of International Affairs has convened over the
past two years more than a dozen dialogues and roundtables aimed at
anticipating the coming decades in Singapore's strategic environment and
internal dynamics - and gathering policy proposals for how to manage a complex
future.
Multipolar world
One major conclusion is that we are
entering an era of permanent multi-regional multipolarity, with America and
China, Europe and India, Brazil and Russia all occupying the global stage at
the same time.
Each continent is deepening its
regional integration to grow its scale, while reaching abroad in a
multi-directional (rather than Western-driven) system that is more balanced
than ever before.
In short: Every region of the world
- including Africa and the Arctic - matters profoundly in this inter-connected
system.
This does not mean that small
players will be squeezed out. On the contrary, a world of regions features many
countries with the diplomatic skill to lead and benefit from regional
integration.
Mexico is becoming an investment
sensation as it attracts ever more supply chains from America; Saudi Arabia
anchors a far more assertive Gulf Cooperation Council; and Singapore stands to
gain the most from ASEAN's emergence as a coherent sub-region.
Indeed, Asia itself is already
multipolar - with China, Japan, India, Australia and South Korea among the key
power brokers - and we foresee an ASEAN that comes into its own in the coming
decades.
Already it is the world's
fourth-largest economic area with a gross domestic product (GDP) larger than
India (with half the population) and more annual foreign investment than China.
Given its younger workforce and
lower wages, if the ASEAN Free Trade Area, ASEAN Economic Community and
Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership all come to pass on current
timelines, by 2030 or sooner ASEAN will have become the central global manufacturing
supply chain hub with robust production networks within the region and exports
spanning the world.
This means, of course, more trade
agreements such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership across the Pacific and
investment treaties to protect Singapore's expanding commercial ventures
abroad. Singapore, which is effectively the capital of ASEAN, must take a
strong role advancing all of these agreements and the integration they
represent.
These deepening economic ties must
also be leveraged to diminish the severe income inequality in the region.
From Myanmar to Laos, growing
foreign investment and infrastructure spending, together with more pragmatic
and inclusive social policy, can make Asia the first developing region to
eliminate poverty by 2030.
The present landscape of disparity
is thus an opportunity for Singapore to engage even more aggressively as an
infrastructure services provider - from sanitation to telecoms - to elevate
Asia's neglected corners into thriving markets.
Once-in-a-generation opportunity
ASEAN of course has to take on
geopolitical dimensions commensurate with 21st-century realities as well.
Traditional Cold War manoeuvring has been replaced by high-speed naval
skirmishes and Chinese island-building in the South China Sea, and environmental
challenges of deforestation and haze, and the impact of Chinese damming on the
Mekong River.
It is self-evident that ASEAN
countries - much like European ones - will continue to put national interests
first even as they aspire to "speak with one voice".
That said, each has a clear interest
in creating joint commercial ventures among littoral states (including China)
for the peaceful and efficient extraction and management of undersea resources
to benefit everyone's energy security.
This is a once-in-a-generation
opportunity to leverage America's security umbrella to resolve conflicts and
build stronger cooperative structures that minimise the risk of
miscalculations.
Though the United States has made
renewed commitments to engagement across the Pacific, Asia's stability should
be its own responsibility. The ASEAN Regional Forum and East Asian Community
have been early efforts in this regard.
In the coming months - to say
nothing of the coming decades - they will have to become far more responsive
and influential if Asia is to achieve the kind of internal stability other
global power centres enjoy. The fate of the region cannot be left to US-China
strategems and proxy competition alone.
Capture upside of rivalry
There are geopolitical dynamics far
out of Singapore's control; such is the nature of being a small state, a
price-taker as it were in a great power system. It was ever thus.
But fatalism is not good strategy.
The question for Singapore is how to be more opportunistic, capturing the
upside from the scenario of unabated rivalry.
Remember that while historical pride
and national reputation are strong drivers of tensions in Asia, the solution
lies in diminishing the incentives for escalation.
There is opportunity to do so, as
the world is in the midst of a phenomenal energy revolution that is removing
the centuries-old quest for secure oil and gas as a driver of conflict.
To reduce its reliance on fuel
imports from the Persian Gulf, Asia can harness and use its collective
endowments to build shared infrastructures to pipe and transport liquefied
natural gas around the region.
Viewing Singapore as part of an
Asian hinterland, and not just as an island city-state, can change our lens of
the future. So while some view the trend towards circumventing the Malacca
Strait as the greatest long-term strategic threat to Singapore's geographic
relevance and its port hub status, the truth is that the role of geography
changes over time.
With the proposed high-speed rail
that will extend to Kuala Lumpur, and beyond that to Bangkok, and perhaps Laos
to Kunming, Singapore will become ever less an island. One day, a bridge or
tunnel to Sumatra and the Sunda Straits Bridge to Java will make Jakarta
reachable by car.
Already, Singapore has expanded
industrial planning across the "Growth Triangle" with real estate and
ship-building projects from Johor to Batam.
Even as trans-shipment through the
Malacca Strait declines, it is Singapore's role as a gas trading hub that will
equally suit the region's integrated energy markets. Singapore has modestly
grown its physical geography through reclamation - but it can still massively
expand its economic geography.
Indeed, if there is one truism for
the 21st century, it is not that World War III is inevitable but that this is
will be a connected age of thriving city-states.
Singapore will never sit at the top
of the geopolitical hierarchy but it is already Asia's most well-rounded
capital with plenty of potential still to exploit.
Commercial tentacles
Singapore's commercial tentacles are
beginning to expand confidently beyond its long-established comfort zones.
Look at North-east Asia. Where
Russia, China and the Korean peninsula come together, the potential
reunification of North and South Korea portends significant dynamism in
commodities and industry.
As the North looks to build more special economic
zones to stimulate economic activity, it looks to Singapore for lessons.
Further north, a recent joint
Sino-Singaporean delegation visited the Russian Far East to invest in food
processing and other industries.
Perhaps most significantly,
Singapore hosted last month the international gathering of countries joining
the Chinese-led Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank, showing how even the
Chinese superpower looks to Singapore to lend expertise - and credibility - to
its controversial new multilateral body.
That said, the next 30 years of
Sino-Singaporean relations will not be the same as the last 30. There will be fewer ambitious new
industrial parks such as Tianjin Eco-City or Guangzhou Knowledge City, and
China is rapidly climbing the value chain with its own industries.
That is why Singapore must
opportunistically move forward with playing a similar role in India that is
still bereft of quality infrastructure on a national scale.
Singapore has already completed
phase one of building a new capital city for the Indian state of Andhra
Pradesh, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has effectively invited Singapore to
play a key role in his scheme to have 100 new cities planted across the
country.
In a connected world, Singapore must
be concerned about dynamics as far as Latin America and the Middle East.
Growing trade with the former and radicalism spreading from the latter are
immediate realities to which Singapore must adapt.
Then there are the constant high
stakes of being an ally of America and friend of China. And yet, whether in the
past half-century or the next 50 years, the principles of steadfastly
maintaining stability at home while building connections abroad will continue
to guide Singapore into a successful future no matter which scenarios come to
pass.
Source: AsiaOne
