Malaysia and Singapore: a conflict of insecurities

For some 40 years now, ever since 1963, when Singapore briefly became a part of Malaysia, Singapore's relationship with Kuala Lumpur has been rocky. In the last few years, it has been getting worse. There has been a long list of issues: the railway, airspace, water supply, pension funds of Malaysians working in Singapore, land reclamation, Singapore's treatment of its Malay minority, and so on.

Many of the older generation, having grown up in a time when both were ruled by the British, with relatives on both sides of the Causeway [1], still have an inchoate notion of both countries as one society, what I've heard referred to as the "Malayan idea". It sounds anachronistic. It is. Many of the younger Singaporeans, growing up totally depoliticised by the hegemonistic People's Action Party that has formed the government in Singapore for those same four decades, have little understanding of the issues, the history or the political forces at work. Either way, young or old, the result is considerable bewilderment why Singapore's relationship with Malaysia is so knotty.

I'll try to put down here my personal views, without the benefit of any priviledged information, why the situation is as it is. I am also quite pessimistic about the future, because as I see it, some fundamental long-term trends at are work pulling both countries in opposite directions.

Even though many of the issues are of long standing, the 1997 Asian financial crisis was a departure point. In many ways, what we see here are the political effects of the economic crash, sharpening old disputes.

Broadly speaking, the relationship founders on conflicting insecurities. Singapore feels perpetually vulnerable. The ruling elite of Malaysia has begun to feel insecure after 1997, for a number of reasons which I will sketch out below.

The Malaysian polity is carefully arranged on the basis of race. Since independence in 1957, the bargain has been that the majority Malays, through Malay-based political parties, would have a near-monopoly of political power, and with it, certain priviledges and affirmative policies, while the minority Chinese and Indians would have citizenship. Thus, there are racial quotas for tertiary education, rules about who can bid for government tenders, and other kinds of institutionalised discrimination against racial minorities. Despite the inclusion of Chinese- and Indian-based parties in the government, no one is left in any doubt that there is an hierarchy of political status in place. Minorities must accept the politically superior position of the Malays in return for a slice of the economic pie.

Singapore's brief union with Malaysia was like a bull in a china shop. By being a Chinese-majority state, with an unyielding Chinese Prime Minister (Lee Kuan Yew), it threatened to upset that delicate trade-off. In less than 2 years, punctuated by racial riots, the bull had to be evicted.

But political separation didn't mean that Kuala Lumpur's conception of the universe changed. The domestic pecking order was simply extended to an international one. Just as the Chinese minority in Malaysia was expected to be submissive to the Malay majority, Chinese-majority Singapore was, perhaps subconsciously, expected to be deferential to Malay-based Malaysia. If anything, as the bird that escaped, it would grate Kuala Lumpur even more if Singapore behaved cockily.

Thus the oft-heard complaints from Malaysian politicians today, that Singapore, albeit sovereign and independent, tends to be legalistic, insensitive to Malaysian concerns, and snobbish towards Malaysian "feelings". These essentially boil down to a failure to show sufficient deference.

It didn't help that the 1997 Asian financial crisis affected Malaysia badly. The currency was savaged. Price and currency controls had to be put in place to stop the hemorrhage. Foreign investment collapsed and till now has not yet recovered.

What was worse was that the biggest domestic corporate failures were the conglomerates that the Malaysian government had been actively supporting during the last 20 years. These favoured companies were over-extended and over-borrowed. Many of the government-blessed Malay businessmen who ran them were accused of corruption and cronyism. In short, the entire edifice of Malay commercial ascendancy came crashing down. Suddenly, the steady upward trend of Malay commercial success to equal the Chinese didn't look so assured after all. This was a serious blow to pride, and it is hardly surprising that wounded pride increased sensitivities.

But of greater consequence was the mauling of the political security of the ruling UMNO elite in Malaysia [2].

The political opposition in Malaysia, particularly the Islamist party PAS (Parti Islam Se-Malaysia), surged in popularity after the economic shock. They benefitted from the stink of corruption given off by the rotting conglomerates. As unemployment rose, as living standards fell -- the Malaysian ringgit was devalued over 30% in the wake of the financial crisis – voters became more receptive to the opposition.

Many Malay voters went over to the PAS, which for decades has been promoting its vision of a more Islamic society. From its track record governing two states it has captured, this party's vision is rather anti-modern. The Prime Minister Mahathir and his party, UNMO, genuinely believe this to be a disastrous path for Malaysia. Nevertheless, nearly half the Malay voters were defecting.

Although the government won the last election handily, it was mostly solid Chinese and Indian support that helped overcome the loss of Malay votes. However, in a polity that enshrined Malay preeminence, any government that came to power on the backs of minority voters would lack legitimacy in Malay eyes, so it was imperative that UNMO regain the Malay vote.

It does not take a genius to see that nationalism would be a good card to play. A lot of the rhetoric in Malaysia against Singapore can be seen in this light. Bashing Singapore is an unspoken way of saying, "we stand up for Malays", to counter PAS' message, "we stand up for Islam." UMNO cannot bash the domestic Chinese and Indian communities to burnish its pro-Malay image, for that would antagonise its coalition partners and their voters. Bashing Singapore does not entail this cost.

Singapore's perpetual vulnerability – water [3]

I don't know if it has sunk in to a majority of Singaporeans – I don't even know if it has sunk in to our government! -- that the Malaysians really do not want to provide water to Singapore anymore, or if they do, it must be at a price that represents subordination. The drawn-out negotiations are really a sideshow. The objective is not a commercial solution, the objective is unambiguous defeat.

If we are not going full-steam ahead with desalination as the solution, we are being foolish. The first of two water agreements runs out in 2011, less than a decade away. Recently, someone wrote to the Straits Times, arguing for nuclear power plants to be considered to provide energy for desalination plants. It sounds like a good idea. The best available technology is quite safe. Over 70% of France's electricity supply comes from nuclear power, the outcome of a determined drive to reduce dependence on Middle-east oil since the oil-price peaks of the 1970s.

It has also been pointed out that even if this generation of politicians can pull a rabbit out of a hat and come to a new water agreement, we would be deluding ourselves to think that this issue would ever go away. We will always be hostage to domestic crises in Malaysia. As it is, for whatever reason, perhaps poor infrastructure planning, there is water rationing in some parts of Malaysia right now. Singaporeans must be politically deaf and dumb not to appreciate that it is political dynamite to continue to sell water, even raw, untreated water, to Singapore while Malaysian politicians' constituents go without. This is where our depoliticisation in Singapore boomerangs back on us. People here don't sense the acuteness of the problem because our political arena is nowhere as competitive as Malaysia's.

Besides water, there are many more areas where Singapore feels insecure. Geography underlies most of these. Singapore is extremely small, surrounded by much bigger neighbour and their territorial waters. We need to trade voluminously with the rest of the world to survive, yet all ships, planes and undersea cables must go through others' space.

The result is a permanent siege mentality and a relentless military build-up. The Central Intelligence Agency of the US estimates that Singapore spends about US$5 billion annually on defence (4.5% of our GDP), while Malaysia spends US$1.7 billion (2.0% of their GDP). Jane's Defence Weekly reported in June 24, 2001 that "The next 10 years will see a continuation of a major shift by the SAF (Singapore Armed Forces) to introduce new military capabilities that should make it the region's strongest fighting force."

Will this trigger an arms race? Malaysia is beginning to look around for new tanks and fighter aircraft. Where will all this lead?

Singapore too was affected by the 1997 economic crisis. We had our own recession, but security-wise, were also affected by events in Indonesia. The whirlwind of destruction unleashed on Indonesia's economy led to the downfall of President Suharto.

Suharto had headed an extremely corrupt system, but he had been a master autocrat. He had nearly complete control of sprawling Indonesia, and for most of his 31 years in power, was completely secure. Being so secure, he had no designs on Singapore. If anything, he and his cronies needed Singapore exactly the way we were, an international financial centre that asked no questions about the sources of Indonesian funds flowing in.

The Singapore government had warm relations with Suharto, and Indonesia was not a security concern.

Post-Suharto Indonesia is a very different place. Five years on, the country is still on the brink of an abyss. Internal violence waxes and wanes. Investment is virtually nil. Hundreds of thousands of economically desperate refugees are just beyond Singapore's horizon. Politicians jockeying for power in Jakarta find it useful now and then to bait and bash Singapore, to score domestic points. While there is no immediate threat, the sheer instability and unpredictability in that huge country would make any neighbour nervous.

Here, the side benefit from hosting American military forces becomes clear. When the Philippines booted out the Americans from Subic Bay and Clark Airbase, Singapore offered facilities to the Americans. Most Southeast Asian countries realise that in the longer term, when China is a blue-water power, it would only hurt themselves not to have the Americans stick around to balance Chinese strength, but few Southeast Asian countries can so openly support American forces without domestic opposition as Singapore.

Thus, there is little criticism of our playing host to US forces. But in turn, Singapore benefits from the implicit insurance that the US provides for our own security, vis-à-vis our bigger immediate neighbours, Malaysia and Indonesia.

We should not exaggerate the military aspects of the Singapore-Malaysia relationship. On the other hand, I think economic divergence is of greater concern.

Foreign investment is well below pre-1997 levels, and as China continues to dazzle investors, Malaysia may not see those levels again for a long time to come.

The Asean Free Trade Area (AFTA) is miserably unambitious, weighed down with protectionist exception after protectionist exception. Singapore has virtually given up on it, and instead is focussing on free trade agreements (FTAs) with major economies around the Pacific rim, such as the US and Japan. Malaysia is very critical of Singapore's strategy, and sees FTAs as "Trojan Horses" for developed countries to get around Asean tariff barriers, thus "recolonising" Southeast Asian economies.

Asean as a stabilising institution is on its deathbed. Its political value vanished with the end of the Cold War, its political will gone with the demise of the Suharto era, and internal consensus diluted to meaninglessness with the admission of pariah Burma. It has not found a new economic rationale.

Sooner or later, there'll be new disputes, and without an overarching commonality of interests, they may be difficult to keep under control, let alone resolve. Add this to the brew of racial suspicions, our historical baggage and a habit of mutual prickliness on both sides, and it is difficult to see how the future relationship can be markedly better than the present.

© Yawning Bread 

Footnotes

1. The Causeway is the road and rail link between Singapore and Malaysia, across the Straits of Johore.
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2. UMNO is the Malay-based party that has been the fulcrum of the government in Kuala Lumpur since independence. UNMO forms the government in coalition with Chinese, Indian and other communal parties, in order to give the government a broader base.
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3. Densely populated Singapore can only meet about 40% of our water requirements from domestic sources. The rest is imported from Malaysia.
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Addenda

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