A View from the Bridge: Great Power Relations from a Southeast Asian Perspective
As an undersized country punching above its weight, Singapore occupies an intriguing position in the international system acting as a sort of ‘middle power’. Moreover, despite its geographical location in Southeast Asia (SEA), as a former British colony it has retained Western capitalist and socio-political influences, and has thus historically been a ‘bridge’ between the East and West. When so much of contemporary discourse is dominated by great power rivals and their allies, debate is often overwhelmingly adversarial and zero-sum. Introducing and amplifying the voices of ‘middle powers’, small states on the periphery of great power influence is important in the aspiration for de-escalation and cooperation.
In 2018, Singapore’s Foreign Affairs Minister Vivian Balakrishnan made a speech titled ‘New Realities for Southeast Asia’, introducing a Singaporean lens for forecasting the current geopolitical climate and some upcoming challenges. There are three main points of concern raised by Balakrishnan: the advent of the digital revolution, increasing trade protectionism, and the dangerous trends in great power relations.
The prospects emerging from the digital revolution and more recently the role of AI have been met with alarm and caution. Indeed, the data sector is one of the fastest growing sectors in terms of wealth share as Credit Suisse’s 2022 Global Wealth Report highlights its growth from 4.5% of global wealth in 2000 to 12.5% in 2020. Balakrishnan identifies this growth as a source of widespread, globalised anxiety that is fuelling national populism and international suspicions. This is in part due to economic competition which is not necessarily detrimental but also due to realist concerns over the ‘dual-use’ capabilities of most modern technology. Governments have witnessed the increasing convertibility of commercial material to serve a military or surveillance function. The Sino-US Chip Wars and recent increase in trade disputes exemplifies the polarisation and globalisation of the digital technological revolution.
Balakrishnan’s cautionary forecast has held true to a significant degree; since 2018, these initially domestic concerns have escalated into a jarring rivalry between China and the US, drawing in other state actors, both voluntarily and involuntarily. Globalisation and the digital revolution have spurred demands not only for new methods of value extraction, but also the identification and resolution of complex multi-dimensional challenge that require transnational efforts. In essence, Singapore believes that this issue is also an opportunity to re-emphasise the government’s responsibility to ‘make data available, to break down walled gardens, to enhance transparency… [to obtain] new channels for getting wealth’.
The role of neutral or third parties, should it be continued, calls for the recognition of this point that is ultimately desirable for the US, China, and other states. If states are fixated on adversarial measures and political paranoia, transboundary issues such as illegal technology transfers, scamming, and disruptive technologies will proliferate, siphoning and causing disparities in any value derived from the digital revolution. Thus, Singapore’s strategy is one that emphasises pragmatism reflected in robust governance and economic incentive.
Regarding protectionism, Singapore draws on its developmental experience to underscore the need for other states to play an intermediary and diplomatic role in the Sino-US economic relationship. A ‘grand bifurcation’ of technological and economic systems between the two largest economies will not only raise tensions and elevate suspicions but also detrimentally impact other countries which rely on an open economy and resilient, globalised supply chains. However, as Balakrishnan details, ‘when China joined the WTO, it was only about 5% of the global economy. Today it is 15% and growing and the concessions that were made to China when it was only 5% do not seem appropriate.’ Hence, Singapore acknowledges the ‘rising East wind’ in the global dynamic is inevitable.
Middle and neutral powers are limited in their capacity to ease Sino-US economic tensions. However, Singapore’s interconnected approach to economic-technological challenges and managing great power relations holds promise. Singapore’s case once again denotes pragmatism by urging these states to remain engaged on common issues and to leverage collective bargaining on issues of divergence so as to not become beholden to any superpower, bloc, or camp. Cultivating a diversified network of ‘medium-sized’ partner states shelters third parties from the fallout from great power manoeuvres and can facilitate coalition-building to increase the institutional voice of underrepresented states while retaining the vital connections to both China and the US.
Although it might seem like an impossible task for smaller states to remain impartial on polarising issues and non-aligned while ensuring development, the Singaporean case is proving otherwise. According to the World Bank, Singapore’s GDP per capita was $82,808 in 2022, a 6.5% increase from the previous year. However, Singapore is neither reliant on China nor the US in either its economic structure or political commitments and maintains its policy of friendly but firm engagement with both.
A 2022 survey found that Singapore was one of the few countries in SEA that viewed China and its president Xi Jinping in favourable terms. Despite its population being mostly ethnically Chinese and sympathetic to China, the Singaporean government has called for the cultivation of a distinctly Singaporean identity. It has also taken steps like enacting the Foreign Interference Act (FICA) to protect its citizens from hostile foreign influence and misinformation campaigns in its domestic sphere.
This cautious balancing of relations with China does not mean that Singapore is warm with the US. Despite closely cooperating with the US on many issues and being a key partner in the Indo-Pacific, Singapore actively distances itself from alliance narratives. In April 2022, its Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong underscored this dynamic, stating in a speech in the Singapore’s relationship with the US ‘does not mean we fight your wars or that we are expecting you to ride to our rescue should something happen to us’. In this, the Singaporean PM’s position is abundantly clear: to the US other states may be allies or friends, but it is Singapore who ultimately dictates its own status as a major security cooperation partner.
SEA has become a contested hotspot for great power rivalry, but Singapore’s diplomatic stance remains firm in its commitment to build ‘overlapping circles of friends’ and not be bullied or coerced into following one camp or the other. Pragmatism underlies this strategy which informs Singapore’s behaviour in cooperating on areas of agreement, understanding areas of compromise and of strict divergence, but ultimately not letting these issues seep into and hinder the progress that is cultivated from cooperating on separate work.
For this strategy to be successful, resources and efforts must also be dedicated to the sustained cause of international law, rules-based multilateralism, and the peaceful resolution to disputes. Middle powers must make explicit their interest and commitment to these goals, through supporting confidence-building mechanisms such as regularised channels of communication at varying levels, as well as trust and good-will gestures like high-level visits, information sharing, technical and policy guardrail workshops.
Balakrishnan’s speech reminds other neutral states of their vulnerabilities from the Sino-US rivalry and the need to develop and pursue interests that are often distinct from superpowers. From a Singaporean perspective, ‘middle powers’ are in the best position when asserting themselves with ‘quiet confidence’ adopting a diplomatic style that is friendly, pursuing active engagement with a politically diverse pool of actors, but also when they are firm in bargaining processes and make clear a desire for autonomy.
Image Courtesy of U.S. Department of State via Wikimedia, ©2023. Some rights reserved.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the wider St. Andrews Foreign Affairs Review team.
