The past and future of Singapore’s foreign policy

“From its founding, the city had to defend itself against attack, and balance carefully its relations with big neighbors like Java and Siam,” wrote the late John Miksic about 14th century Singapore’s foreign policy. More than half a millennium later, Lee Kuan Yew, S Rajaratnam, and Toh Chin Chye, key first generation (1G) leaders of the People’s Action Party (PAP), articulated something similar: “opportunistic non-alignment”. Non-aligned because Singapore would steer clear of cold war rivalries; opportunistic in that it would wring economic benefit from both sides whenever possible. And so, even as it became a workshop for American ships and the playground for American sailors during the Vietnam war, it also made commercial deals with merchant ships servicing the Soviet Pacific fleet.

Another half century on, there are imprints of this opportunistic non-alignment across the foreign policy of a new administration led by Lawrence Wong and his “4G” comrades. None clearer than Singapore’s contradictory approach towards the genocide in Gaza. Even as it publicly condemns Israeli aggression, sends aid to Palestinians, and funds the education here of bright Palestinians, it fetes and enables Israeli arms manufacturers and Zionists, and helps supply the weapon parts crucial to the devastation. 

But it’s not business as usual. Unlike his predecessors, Wong has to contend with a wholly new international environment: everything from the “rupture” in the global order, in the words of Canada’s Mark Carney at Davos last week, to an irrepressible desire by ordinary Singaporeans to have more of a say in this city-state’s foreign affairs—armed with new technology to pressure an hitherto aloof and impenetrable elite. What are the forces that might govern his actions?

By then, the US relationship was already maturing; its origins going back to the immediate post-world-war-two era, when a nascent US-led security order in East Asia paved the way for the pan-Asian supply chain that enriched Singapore and the other three “Asian tigers”, and later China too. The security the US has provided since Britain’s withdrawal in 1971 is priceless. (And conversely, from Vietnam and Israel to Iraq, Singapore has been a reliable ally.) As the hegemon at the head of a neoliberal international order following the Soviet Union’s collapse, it has been in American interests to keep regional sea lanes open and regional conflicts limited. This has jived perfectly with needs of a tiny but vital trade hub in a neighbourhood with bigger powers that don’t always get along with each other, or it. Since the 1990s, Singapore has hosted naval forces that allows the US to project power in South-east Asia and beyond. Its own formidable military prowess relies heavily on US software and hardware; the purchase of 20 F-35 fighter jets from Lockheed Martin only the most recent reminder of a military dependency stretching back at least to 1969.

The fruits of these relationships can be seen in the bountiful merchandise trade with both countries, and additionally with the US, the huge services trade and foreign direct investment inflows. (Given that Singapore is an entrepôt where goods flow in and out, it’s tricky to compare its dependence on China and the US with other nations—suffice to say they’re both vital strategic partners.)

Beyond ensuring that the superpowers hold some stakes in its survival and prosperity, Singapore has wrapped itself in dense layers of multilateralism. It helped found ASEAN in 1967, hoping the bloc would provide enough diplomatic grease to prevent large-scale war, and in that very basic but existential aim, ASEAN has mostly succeeded. (East Timor, Myanmar, and Cambodia-Thailand are some flashpoints where it’s arguably been found wanting.) The ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), launched at the 1993 Singapore summit, brought the US, China, and India into regular security dialogue; the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, another ASEAN-driven initiative headquartered in Singapore, nurtured a wider Asia-Pacific trading community. The half-century old Five Powers Defence Arrangements with Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK are yet more examples of Singapore’s facility for embedding itself into powerful collectives. 

More broadly, the country’s full-throated participation in the United Nations (UN) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) among others shows regard for a rules-based global order, and recognition that membership in these orgs lowers transaction costs, reduces geopolitical friction, and confers a degree of juridical equality that would otherwise elude small states. 

Most thought that the threat to that order would come from China. At the turn of the millennium, Michael Leifer, among the foremost international relations scholars in South-east Asia, warned that China remained “highly problematic” despite increasing integration into trade and dialogue mechanisms, thanks to its “irredentist assertiveness” and “rising nationalism.” 

Indeed, Beijing has thrown its weight around since, making expansive claims in the South China Sea in violation of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), and at times playing fast and loose with WTO rules. But then, the US hasn’t ratified UNCLOS, and has effectively crippled the WTO dispute resolution mechanism for nearly a decade—a period that includes both the first Trump and the Joe Biden administrations—by refusing to appoint new members to its appellate body. The refusal persists despite China recently eschewing the tariff and subsidy benefits it receives as a self-declared developing country, something the US had grumbled about for years. 

Heedless, the second Trump administration has not only further antagonised China, it has set alight the global rulebook. Those who loathed his isolationist tendencies must now be longing for them, given his actions in Venezuela, Nigeria, and Qatar, and his gathering threats against Iran, Colombia, and Denmark. Elsewhere, his mercantilism has turned allies into clients; and his infantile grasp of trade has upended an economic order that the US shaped to the benefit of so many for so long.

It was under stress even before Trump’s return. As the Chinese economy matured and slowed through the second decade of the 21st century, its diminished ability to spur global growth stressed the ageing liberal order, political scientist Ja Ian Chong told Jom. The fact that both global powers are now trading normative garbs for naked self-interest has sent small and middle scurrying for new kakis or forced them into formalising ties with old ones. Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have signed a wide-ranging security agreement; Canada is cosying up to China; and the EU has signed momentous trade agreements with Latin America and India that were decades in the making.

For Singapore, the irony is strong. Leifer wrote that it got more grief from the US when the Democrats were in power because they tended to stress civic rights and social freedoms. Republicans didn’t really care about domestic authoritarianism as long as trade flowed. Wong and his lieutenants may thus have been shocked by a 10 percent tariff on all goods, despite the US’s bilateral trade surplus. Or maybe not. The MAGA ideology is a virulent new strain in American politics that is unmoored from its 20^th century traditions. 

Closer to home, ASEAN, long perceived as little more than a bunch of smiley-face emojis in batik, holds more weight now. Already, it has announced plans to harmonise trade standards, deepen financial integration, and broaden co-operation in digital and green economies. Members have pledged to sign bilateral tariff deals with the US only if they do not harm other members; an act of unprecedented co-operation, apt for unprecedented times. On his YouTube channel, Wong called for the region to merge into one “seamless” market to attract investment in a fractured global economy. 

Singapore’s freshly inked Comprehensive Strategic Partnerships with Australia and New Zealand anchor its engagement with democracies further afield. In September, Wong met Narendra Modi, prime minister of India to sign agreements on green energy, space, semiconductors, and space cooperation. Economic ties between the two nations have been deepening since India began liberalising in the 1990s, and the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) was signed in 2005. Trade in goods exceeded S$30bn in 2024, dwarfed still by the US and China, at S$132bn and S$170.2bn respectively, but its value goes beyond numbers. As the semi-conductor battle heats up, India could become a key link in the global supply chain with Singapore’s help; and as its hungry graduates find themselves shut out by the US, more could find opportunities here. For Singapore, India is yet another anchor in a turbulent geopolitical sea; strong bilateral ties with “middle powers” offer some stability when great powers become unpredictable.

“We are clearly moving into a direction where the world would be more multipolar, more contested, less coordinated,” Wong told the Wall Street Journal. Even though he has repeatedly insisted that small states have agency, they don’t have much. As it has done since the 14th century, Singapore has to create new ties without snapping old ones. But Chong cautioned that this may not be sustainable. “Not reacting effectively or in a timely manner can defeat the purpose of hedging and lead to significant losses.” Wong’s government will have to be wary of straddling too many stools. 

Besides, some are wobbly. ASEAN’s continued impotence in Myanmar as the junta basks in a sham electoral win, and its failure to cool Thai-Cambodian tempers has revived criticism. If it cannot contain regional conflicts, can it retain a semblance of coherence if wider ones break out? And for all the chatter about unity, each member has negotiated separate deals with the US. Chong told Jom that Singapore will have to be clearer and more decisive about how much it wants to commit to the bloc, versus relying on minilaterals and other bilateral relationships, knowing that they will not be fully compatible with each other. “We need to understand where our equities lie and to invest in protecting them.” The other agreements, good as they seem on paper, are suffused with uncertainty and fears of reneging. Trump’s shenanigans and Chinese moves have degraded geopolitics to a game of Risk where alliances are formed and shed expediently, promises are broken often, and a zero-sum condition prevails. 

Even those not thusly inclined may soon start to feel the effects of these tectonic shifts. Singapore’s prosperity rests not just on free trade but also on the very air, sea, and undersea cable routes—the plumbing for the information economy—that make such trade possible. A less connected world would be perhaps even less lucrative for us than for others, with fewer opportunities at an individual level. Indeed, if the US and China came to loggerheads, each could see Singapore less as conduit and more as a “chokepoint” to cut off the other’s access. (A version of this “great game” is already playing out in the travails of China-born, US-owned tech start-up ManusAI). The possibility may seem remote, but already unlikely threats—to our communications grid and other critical infrastructure at home—are becoming likelier, feeding into the general unease. 

Amidst all this, an incipient xenophobia is already apparent. The latest agreements with India sparked huge backlash on forums like SGRabak—one of the fastest growing Singapore-related subreddits until it was banned last year for violating the site’s rules on hate speech. It’s tougher to police emotions. The discourse on SGRabak was toxic, racist, and inflammatory, it’s true. It’s also true that at least some of it was born of helplessness in the face of an ongoing and quickening social, economic, and cultural disorientation. 

What does it mean to be a Singaporean in the world? What does it mean to be a Singaporean at home? What changes and dislocations await us? For society to collectively engage with these issues, Chong believes the government should raise domestic political and foreign policy awareness, partly by enhancing democratic engagement and enabling public discourse, so that Singaporeans aren’t hobbled by simplistic ways of thinking about ourselves and the world. (A tall order, he recognises, given current political realities.) Wong and his team will have to articulate them with more clarity than their predecessors ever had to.

Abhishek Mehrotra is Jom’s head of content.

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