BOTH the US and China publicly say they do not want to make countries choose between them.

“We’re not asking anyone to choose between the United States and China,” said US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Similarly, China claims it adheres to its longstanding foreign policy of non-interventionism, including mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, and non-interference in other countries’ internal affairs.

Nonsense, Bilahari Kausikan contends in his latest collection of essays, Singapore Is Still Not An Island.

They do want countries to choose.

However, it will not be possible for Singapore to choose between the United States and China, said Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

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This second collection from Singapore’s well-respected, highly experienced “undiplomatic diplomat” provides a front-row seat to the US-China competition to be the dominant player in a global system in which both are vital, irreplaceable components. It also outlines why balancing between China and the US is Singapore’s toughest and most imperative challenge.

Now with the freedom of being a self-described “pensioner”, Bilahari provides unvarnished insights and analysis that are of value to practitioners of geopolitics and those impacted by it.

‘Multiracial meritocracy’ challenged by China’s view of Singapore

Bilahari outlines Singapore’s challenge as “the only sovereign state outside Greater China with an ethnic Chinese majority population”. He describes Singapore’s “conscious and open political choice made in 1965” in the aftermath of decolonisation to organise itself as a multiracial meritocracy based on Lee Kuan Yew’s vision of an independent state.

Being a multiracial meritocracy “is the foundation of the social compact on which Singapore rests”. As such, the Singapore government will go to any length to protect these “essential values”, where one race will not be pitted against another.

The People’s Republic of China, however, has its own impression of Singapore as a Chinese state, which Bilahari observes is inconsistent with Lee Kuan Yew’s vision and the reality of Singapore itself. He notes: “Chinese expectations of Singapore may have been unrealistically high because as any experienced Singapore diplomat should know, China, despite our consistent denials, constantly insists on referring to Singapore as a ‘Chinese country’.”

China’s unrealistic expectations that Singapore’s foreign policy align with Beijing’s because of ethnic affinity is an underlying source of tension between the two states. China regularly seeks to influence Singapore’s policy choices, often using coercion and pressure.

Numerous examples show how “the Chinese influence apparatus was activated and soon went into high gear to pressure the government to change positions”, such as the 2016 Terrex armoured personnel carriers incident – military vehicles en route back to Singapore from Taiwan were seized by China “under the flimsiest of excuses” – and the influence operation pressuring Singapore to side with China against the Philippines, an Asean member, in a 2016 arbitral ruling. This resulted in an ethnic Chinese public intellectual being ejected from the country.

Bilahari observes that the periods when China applies the strongest pressure on Singapore often coincide with a change in Singaporean leadership. The arbitral ruling and Terrex episodes occurred when Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong made public his intention to step aside and pass power to the next generation. China likewise put considerable pressure on Singapore in 2004 when then-Deputy Prime Minister Lee made an unofficial visit to Taiwan before succeeding Goh Chok Tong.

Bilahari foreshadows the potential of new pressure campaigns to coincide with the transition to Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong and the fourth generation of leadership.

Bilahari’s comments to The Washington Post – typically blunt – last month on China’s influence campaign in Singapore highlights the city-state’s ongoing challenge.

“If too many Chinese Singaporeans are foolish enough to subscribe to Xi’s version of the ‘China Dream’, the multiracial social cohesion that is the foundation of Singapore’s success will be destroyed,” he said. “Once destroyed, it cannot be put together again.”

The essay How China Messes with Your Mind in the book illustrates the country’s attempts to influence and shape the Singapore identity, as well as that of other nations.

Bilahari warns that “Chinese attempts are particularly invidious and dangerous because they attempt to foist a Chinese identity on multiracial Singapore”.

But just because Singapore will not side with China, the US should not expect that Singapore will go with it when it comes to the US-China competition.

Choosing in accordance with Singapore’s interests

Working with the United States is very different under the Biden administration, with its return to multilateralism and partnering with like-minded countries, than it was under the Trump team. Bilahari argues that Singapore needs to be prepared to work with any US president, asserting that Singapore’s foreign policy choices should reflect that reality. “There is only one America and we have to work with it, whatever its shortcomings.”

While no one can predict the 2024 US presidential election outcome, Bilahari posits “that will not be the last time we will experience a Trump-like political phenomenon”. As such, the US government should expect pushback any time Singapore can even be perceived to have to take a position siding with the US and against China. Bilahari notes that “without engagement with China, the US may well take us for granted”.

“What we really mean when we say we do not want to choose is that we will choose in accordance with our own interests,” Bilahari put forth in a recent speech.

As an illustration of Singapore following its own interests, Bilahari describes the strong US-Singapore defence cooperation. The countries’ 2005 Strategic Framework Agreement brings their defence cooperation to a level far beyond that of US formal treaty allies such as Thailand or the Philippines. Bilahari shows that, in this regard, Singapore has in effect “chosen” – although that choice does not preclude it from making other choices in different domains, such as regarding the definition of “democracy”.

Indeed, he notes that he knows of “no country that is without concerns about some aspect or another of both American and Chinese behaviour”.

With regard to Chinese behaviour against Singapore’s interests, he offers how the then-Chinese ambassador to Singapore told people that “she was disappointed that while Singapore condemned Russia for violating Ukraine’s sovereignty, (Singapore) did not do the same for Nancy Pelosi’s violation of China’s sovereignty by her recent visit to Taiwan”. China, the ambassador reportedly said, would judge Singapore’s “‘friendship’ by our consistency”.

Bilahari described this as operating “in cahoots with our old friend, the Double Standard”, and that Singapore would not back down in its opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, or conversely take positions on Taiwan.

He consistently reminds readers that Singapore has no tolerance for foreign interference from anywhere, observing that Singapore expelled an American diplomat in 1988 for interfering with Singapore’s domestic politics.

There are less-known examples where Singapore deals unambiguously with challenges to its sovereignty and domestic politics using quiet diplomacy, including when it involves the United States.

While not mentioned in these essays, such examples include the Singapore government’s reactions in August 2022 to then-Speaker Pelosi’s meeting with the US business community in Singapore to support the local lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community, as more American companies set up offices here. There was also a US Embassy proposal to have its Fourth of July celebration at the Padang national monument, which never came to fruition.

Singapore did not loudly condemn the two incidents but dealt with them quietly and diplomatically.

Bilahari’s essays make clear the essence of Singapore’s foreign policy when it comes to both the US and China: “Small states should NOT behave like small states.”

This collection leaves the reader with a better understanding of today’s geopolitics, especially in the context of US-China relations, as well as with the certainty that Singapore will not behave like a “small state” and will continue to consistently exercise its agency and adapt to the new multipolar world.

The writer is a senior adviser for geostrategic consultancy McLarty Associates, CEO of Singapore-based APAC Advisors, and chair of the AmChams of Asia Pacific. A resident of Singapore for 20 years, he served in the Clinton administration.