Singapore and the delicate art of diplomacy

The 7th of November 2015 has gone down as an unprecedented diplomatic date between two long-term civil war rivals, China and Taiwan, marked by a historic meeting of their leaders.

Less in the spotlight — and with good reason — is the third partner in the date: Singapore.

Behind every successful date lies a good meeting planner, the right setting, and the respect for the symbolism of the occasion.

For Singaporeans, the occasion serves as a reminder that foreign policy is akin to the riding of a bicycle, demanding unrelenting skill and a fine sense of balance.

It would be an exaggeration to claim that Singapore initiated or coordinated the bilateral summit between President Xi Jinping and President Ma Ying-jeou. It did not.

But what it did do was to provide a platform for showcasing the sincere intentions of both parties.

As a small state at the confluence of Asian summitry, Singapore was an attractive venue.

Its 50 years of diplomatic experience was marked by personalities of the calibre of Lee Kuan Yew, S Rajaratnam, Goh Keng Swee, S R Nathan and more recently the likes of Ambassadors Tommy Koh, Kishore Mahbubani and K Kesavapany.

Their actions and good counsel burnished Singapore’s credentials as a level-headed interlocutor.

Collectively, and consistently, these players gave voice to a diplomatic position that prioritised frank and constructive dialogue to resolve disputes over the resort to armed solutions.

Moreover, the venue of the Shangri-La hotel was itself much storied. It has hosted virtually all the major Asia-Pacific security meetings and boasts a good record for maintaining tight security.

China obviously viewed Singapore as an excellent setting for burnishing its peaceful intentions under its current President.

Likewise, Taiwan could claim that Singapore was the ideal host for avoiding any trace of collusion with China’s rivals over the South China Sea claims.

Better still, Singapore had previously hosted the first round of formal cross-strait talks in 1993 between the unofficial proxies of both governments.

This time, it was the first meeting face to face between the sitting Presidents of both sides.

Although neither side played up its intractable political baselines, the aura of the 1993 meeting was obviously not lost upon the summiteers.

Mr Xi spoke of flesh and blood relations within a common cultural family.

Without disagreeing with such a characterisation, Mr Ma suggested that China could do more to speed up the normalisation of cross-strait exchanges in education, investment and business.

In an obvious coincidence with Singapore’s image as a free trader, Mr Xi welcomed Taiwanese participation in the One Belt, One Road and Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank initiatives.

These statements can only be music to Singaporean ears since it dials down the rhetoric of confrontation and the militarisation of tensions between two extremely important trading partners measured by volume of imports and exports.

RESPECTING THE SYMBOLISM

Mr Ma commented to the press that his famous 81 seconds of handshake “felt very good. We both shook hands with a lot of strength”. He was making more than a facetious diplomatic remark.

Mr Ma was obviously concerned with sensitively representing the totality of Taiwanese public opinion in his talks with Mr Xi.

Moreover, it was a headline-grabbing gesture that required significant physical exertion.

Additionally, both men were taking tremendous political risks in meeting in person for all sorts of domestic and international reasons.

Mr Ma probably had an eye on his party’s retention of the presidency in the coming elections, along with his place in history.

Mr Xi was putting his imprimatur on the next bold statement of China’s foreign policy.

It seemed like a potential new charm offensive intended to counter recent United States and ASEAN criticisms that China was behaving like a regional bully.

Mr Xi was courageously signalling to his Taiwanese counterpart that he was making a huge overture by treating him as a near equal in diplomatic terms.

The discourse of family, flesh and blood was no mere pleasantry. It is reflective of the terminology variously employed by Mr Xi’s predecessors, notably Mr Deng Xiaoping and Mr Jiang Zemin.

In the context of the meeting in Singapore, it is clear that the island republic’s predominantly Chinese population merits the status of the outermost circle of diplomatic relatives, offering its good services as a reunion “hall” for close partners.

Of course, this must be qualified by Singapore’s official stance that it is a sovereign multiracial nation-state located in South-east Asia, and nowhere off the coasts of Taiwan or China.

At the same time, it is undeniable that Singapore thrives as a diplomatic middleman because it is equally willing to befriend each of the principal Asian-Pacific great powers of China, Japan, the US, Australia and India.

Friendships with the great powers do not have to mean binding one’s interests into a specific alliance with any one of them.

Notably, Singapore has signed a large number of Memoranda of Understanding along with free trade agreements with all of them, all short of a military alliance.

This is Singapore’s bicycle diplomacy of playing for the middle position.

A fine balancing act to be gracious and hospitable towards the great powers while impressing them with Singapore’s earnest and pragmatic approach to world order.

To talk and empathise, even in small steps, is progress towards peace under any other name.

Therefore, one can celebrate last Saturday’s date between China and Taiwan as a remarkably successful encounter with symbolic destiny.

It should be one that will usher in constructive political weather between the two hitherto estranged members of the East Asian community.

A modest player such as Singapore should do no less than to cheer them on in their quest for an all-inclusive Asian way of making peace without spelling it out.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Alan Chong is Associate Professor in the Centre for Multilateralism Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.