SINGAPORE (July 10): Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong ended two days of debate in Parliament on the dispute over 38 Oxley Road expressing hope of an eventual rapprochement with his siblings.

During his speech, he recalled the emotional week he endured following his father’s passing in March 2015, turning misty-eyed as he remembered his own eulogy at the state funeral: “When I recounted how when I was about 13, my father had told me: ‘If anything happens to me, please take care of your mother, and your younger sister and brother.’”

Singapore was in the throes of separation from Malaysia when the elder Lee made those fatherly comments to his eldest son. “My father did not tell me, but he knew his life was in danger,” PM Lee recalled in Parliament this past week.

Lee Kuan Yew and his comrades survived the turmoil of those early days, and after some years of uncertainty, set this little red dot of a country on a path to achieving enormous wealth and global respect. This was, in no small measure, as much about determined and skilful management of Singapore’s foreign affairs as its domestic matters.

With the elder Lee and his colleagues at the helm, Singapore garnered international influence disproportionate to its size, which came to be known as “punching above its weight”.

Now, more than two years after the passing of the elder Lee, disagreement seems to have broken out over the appropriate way for Singapore to conduct itself in the international arena.

In a recent newspaper column, Kishore Mahbubani, dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, said the embargo imposed on Qatar by its neighbours held lessons for Singapore. Among them is that, in the post-Lee Kuan Yew era, Singapore should behave like a small country and be restrained in commenting on matters involving great powers.

A former diplomat with a career stretching back to the early 1970s, Mahbubani went on to say that one of the things he learnt from Lee as well as Goh Keng Swee and S Rajaratnam is that a small state needs to be truly Machiavellian in international affairs.

“Being ethical and principled are important in diplomacy. We should be viewed as credible and trustworthy negotiators. But it is an undeniable ‘hard truth’ of geopolitics that sometimes, principle and ethics must take a back seat to the pragmatic path of prudence,” Mahbubani said in his column.

Mahbubani’s views drew a swift and sharp rebuke from Bilahari Kausikan, one of six “ambassadors-at-large” at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In a Facebook post, he called Mahbubani’s arguments “muddled, mendacious and indeed dangerous”. He added that Singapore would not have survived and prospered if its leaders had behaved like the leaders of a small state. “They did not earn the respect of the major powers and Singapore did not survive and prosper by being anybody’s tame poodle.”

K Shanmugam, the Minister of Home Affairs and Law, weighed in with his own Facebook post shortly after that. “By definition, almost every country, including our neighbouring countries, are all bigger than us. We treat each other with mutual respect. Once we are shown to be ‘flexible’, then that is what will be expected of us every time.”

Shanmugam was Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2011 to 2015. Vivian Balakrishnan, the current Minister of Foreign Affairs, also seemed in favour of Singapore maintaining a firm stance. “Small states must always fiercely guard our independence and sovereignty. Nobody owes us our freedom. Small states are only relevant if we are successful and united. The world does not owe us a living,” he said in comments on July 4, which were not made with any reference to the views expressed by Mahbubani.

“The words of small states only count if they are credible, constructive and consistent. We have to be prepared to speak in support of this rules-based system and our vital interests,” he added.

So, what should Singapore do? Perhaps the answer lies in observing how the country expressed its foreign policy principles before its survival was certain, and before it began “punching above its weight”.

In September 1965, Singapore’s first foreign minister, S Rajaratnam, addressed the United Nations. He made no pretence of being a leader of anything but a small, developing country — indeed, he alluded to it a number of times. He said developing countries should cherish independence but not embrace “the dangerous myth of absolute sovereignty”.

He expressed support for the peacekeeping effectiveness of the UN. Yet, he added that the UN was not able to assure the security of small countries, and that Singapore would need to find “temporary solutions”. Even so, he pledged that the country would try to live in peace with its neighbours, because it had a great deal to lose if it went to war. “We have no wish to interfere in the affairs of other countries or tell them how they should order their life. In return, we ask other countries to be friendly with us even if they don’t like the way we do things in our own country.”

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