Singapore-Malaysia relations under Abdullah Badawi PDF
Preview Singapore-Malaysia relations under Abdullah Badawi
Singapore- Malaysia Relations Under Abdullah Badawi The Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) was established as an autonomous organisation in 1968. It is a regional research centre for scholars and other specialists concerned with modern Southeast Asia, particularly the many-faceted issues and challenges of stability and security, economic development, and political and social change. The Institute’s research programmes are Regional Economic Studies (RES, including ASEAN and APEC), Regional Strategic and Political Studies (RSPS), and Regional Social and Cultural Studies (RSCS). ISEAS Publications, an established academic press, has issued more than 1,000 books and journals. It is the largest scholarly publisher of research about Southeast Asia from within the region. ISEAS Publications works with many other academic and trade publishers and distributors to disseminate important research and analyses from and about Southeast Asia to the rest of the world. 00 S'poreM'sia Relations Prelim 2 6/7/06, 12:23 PM Singapore- Malaysia Relations Under Abdullah Badawi SAW SWEE-HOCK K. KESAVAPANY INSTITUTE OF SOUTHEAST ASIAN STUDIES Singapore First published in Singapore in 2006 by Institute of Southeast Asian Studies 30 Heng Mui Keng Terrace Pasir Panjang Singapore 119614 Internet e-mail: [email protected] World Wide Web: http://bookshop.iseas.edu.sg All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. This book is published under the Malaysia Study Programme funded by Professor Saw Swee-Hock. © 2006 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore The responsibility for facts and opinions in this publication rests exclusively with the authors and their interpretations do not necessarily reflect the views or the policy of the Institute or its supporters. ISEAS Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data Saw, Swee-Hock, 1931– Singapore-Malaysia relations under Abdullah Badawi / Saw Swee-Hock & K. Kesavapany. 1. Singapore—Foreign relations—Malaysia. 2. Malaysia—Foreign relations—Singapore. I. Kesavapany, K. II. Title DS610.47 M3S27 2006 ISBN 981-230-378-2 Typeset by Superskill Graphics Pte Ltd Printed in Singapore by Seng Lee Press Pte Ltd 00 S'poreM'sia Relations Prelim 4 6/7/06, 12:23 PM Contents Preface vii Foreword by Professor Shamsul A.B. ix About the Authors xiii Background xv 1 Resolving Bilateral Issues 1 2 Intensifying Official Visits 15 3 Developing People-to-People Contacts 23 4 Deepening Public Sector Economic Links 29 5 Expanding Private Sector Economic Links 39 6 Renewing Educational and Sporting Events 49 7 Uplifting Future Relations 55 00 S'poreM'sia Relations Prelim 5 6/7/06, 12:23 PM vi Contents Appendix A: Speeches by Malaysia’s Agong and Singapore’s President, Kuala Lumpur, 11 April 2005 61 Appendix B: Speeches by Singapore’s President and Malaysia’s Agong, Singapore, 23 January 2006 71 Appendix C: Malaysians’ Comments on Singapore-Malaysia Relations 81 Appendix D: Singapore Businessmen’s Comments on Singapore-Malaysia Relations 91 Index 97 00 S'poreM'sia Relations Prelim 6 6/7/06, 12:23 PM Preface Ever since Singapore departed suddenly from the Federation of Malaysia on 9 August 1965 to emerge as an independent sovereign state, relations between the two immediate neighbours have not always remained on an even keel, sinking to the worst level during the later period of the Mahathir administration. It was not until Abdullah Badawi assumed the position of Prime Minister on 30 October 2003 that the strained bilateral ties began to take a clear turn for the better. The purpose of this book, a project undertaken under ISEAS Malaysia Study Programme, is to document the series of important events that have taken place in the last twenty-eight months which have contributed to the warmer relations presently enjoyed by the two countries. Building good neighbourliness, viewed in a wider context, among two or more members of ASEAN will help to hasten the process of economic integration in bringing peace and prosperity to the 550 million population in the region. The book has been structured in such a manner as to incorporate eight chapters dealing with background, bilateral ties, official visits, people-to-people contacts, public sector economic ties, private sector economic ties, educational and sporting events, and future relations. To add an extra dimension to the book, we have decided to include four 00 S'poreM'sia Relations Prelim 7 6/7/06, 12:23 PM viii Preface appendices, with the first two containing the speeches by the Yang di- Pertuan Agong of Malaysia and the President of Singapore on the occasion of their state visit to each other’s country and the other two containing the comments of some personalities from the two countries on the current status of bilateral ties. These comments reflect the new climate of bilateral relations. We hope the book will interest readers who seek a closer understanding of the marked improvement in friendly relations between Singapore and Malaysia under Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi. We would like to thank Professor Shamsul Amri Baharuddin, Director, Institute of the Malay World and Civilization, Universiti Kebangsaan, Malaysia, for contributing the Foreword and the other Malaysian personalities for sharing their thoughts on bilateral ties included in Appendix C. At ISEAS, our thanks go to Ms Ng Boon Yian, Research Associate, for assisting in the preparation of the manuscript and Mrs Triena Ong, Managing Editor of the Publications Unit, for overseeing the publication of the book. Any opinions and shortcomings in the book are entirely ours. Saw Swee-Hock and K. Kesavapany March 2006 00 S'poreM'sia Relations Prelim 8 6/7/06, 12:23 PM Foreword When ISEAS was established in 1968, it was only three years after the separation of Malaysia and Singapore. It was to be expected that the relationship between the two countries at that stage was not at its best. There was much unhappiness in the air on both sides of the Causeway, not only at the level of government-to-government (G to G) but also at the people-to-people (P to P) relations. It was not really about ‘love lost’ between the two countries but ‘lost for words,’ so to speak, in their attempts to reinvent their deep historical ties in a redefined political scenario. In Malaysia, the height of this unsettling unhappiness about Malaysia-Singapore relations was articulated publicly during the political campaign leading to the 1969 general elections. We all now know what happened on 13 May 1969 in Kuala Lumpur. The ethnic riot was a dark episode in Malaysia’s history, one that all Malaysians wish to forget and still trying to, as the Malay saying goes “luka hilang, parut tetap ada” (lit. “the wound is gone but the scar remains”). Since then, Malaysia has been conducting a serious exercise of solidarity-making amongst its people of different ethnic groups, through the creation of numerous top-down policies, some popular and others not. During the launching of the 9th Malaysia Plan, recently, the Prime 00 S'poreM'sia Relations Prelim 9 6/7/06, 12:23 PM x Foreword Minister, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, re-emphasized the fact that Malaysia’s ‘national mission’ remains ‘national unity.’ Singapore, on the other hand, since 1965, has been involved in a mega ‘modernization project,’ both in terms of economic development and nation-building. Nothing, indeed nobody, was spared in its effort to achieve that goal. By world history standards, Singapore achieved its ambition in super quick time, but not without its cost. Therefore, in the last 40 years, Malaysia-Singapore relations have been defined very much by the different trajectories of the modernization paths that each has chosen and taken. At times, Malaysia and Singapore have been fierce competitors. In other situations, they have been close allies. However much both have wanted to be different, the historical- structural umbilical cord that binds them has never been severed, especially at the P-to-P relations. Indeed, whatever happens in the G-to-G relations, conflicting or consensual, it is the P-to-P relations that has become the stabilizing factor, rich in goodwill guided by a deep sense of sensitivities and sensibilities. For two decades, especially, during the Mahathir regime, the G-to- G relations between Malaysia and Singapore were bereft of the kind of sensitivities and sensibilities that informed the P-to-P relations. Indeed, they were times during this period that even the latter was threatened. What Abdullah Badawi has done in the last two years, since becoming the Prime Minister of Malaysia, is to revive and inject the G-to-G relations between Malaysia and Singapore with a heavy dose of sensitivities and sensibilities, which, in turn, has had an immediate spillover effect in the enhancement of the P-to-P relations. Nonetheless, the impact of the two decades of the G-to-G tense and difficult relations remains. Many are yet to be resolved. Abdullah Badawi, himself a former Minister for Foreign Affairs, knows, more than any other in his present Cabinet, what it means to live peacefully and harmoniously with the immediate neighbour. Sometimes the neighbour is more important than one’s own kin who lives faraway. What everybody forgets in this whole episode of ups and downs in the Malaysia-Singapore relation, since 1965, is the quiet role that ISEAS has played in maintaining an intellectual and academic sanity, 00 S'poreM'sia Relations Prelim 10 6/7/06, 12:23 PM
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