Green with envy over a red dot

The Straits Times, February 23, 2007
By Janadas Devan


ACCUSATION: Indonesia's Parliamentary Speaker Agung Laksono says Singapore's reclamation projects could affect his country's maritime borders.

Facts: Singapore had a land area of about 580 sq km in the 1960s. By 2000, it had 660 sq km. That 80 sq km increase came at the expense of 80 sq km less sea for Singapore. Its reclamation works served to recover land from sea, not sea from land. And under international law, a country's sea territory cannot expand as its land territory expands.

This point can be best illustrated by comparing small things to great. Take a look at a map of the United States. Continental US terminates on its west coast in California. But out there, in the wide blue yonder that is the Pacific Ocean, are the Hawaiian islands, and even further out, Guam. Just because the US has sovereignty over these islands does not mean that it also owns the huge chunk of ocean that lies between California and Hawaii or Guam.

Similarly, just because Changi Point, or whatever passes for Changi's 'Point' today, is now a few thousand metres closer to Indonesia's Batam than it used to be 40 years ago, does not mean that Singapore now owns a few thousand more metres of sea.

If it were possible to extend a country's sea territory so easily, Singapore could build a lighthouse at the edge of its current maritime boundary, claim a further 22km of sea from that point as its territorial waters, build another lighthouse at the edge of the new boundary, claim a further 22km of sea...and with a few more hops and jumps, the country's maritime boundary could extend all the way to the North Pole.

Mr Laksono, relax. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea does not work that way. As an Indonesian expert, Professor Hikmahanto Juwana of the University of Indonesia, has pointed out - and as any number of other experts would too - Singapore can reclaim land only at the expense of its own sea territory.

Singapore's necessary trade-off of sea for land has to occur within its existing maritime boundaries, or it cannot occur at all. Singapore used to buy sand from Indonesia till recently, but it cannot get sea - ever.

Accusation: Johor Menteri Besar Abdul Ghani Othman said a few weeks ago that the floods in his state, including in Kota Tinggi, were caused by reclamation works off Singapore's Tekong island.

Facts: Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak has dismissed this claim, so there is no need to go on about it at great length. Just one small point here would suffice: As one writer to The Straits Times' Forum page put it: Kota Tinggi (which means 'high fort') is called what it is because it is situated at a high elevation. Water cannot possibly flow upwards from Kota Bawah (which is what Singapore is in terms of elevation) to Kota Tinggi.

Gravity, Menteri Besar Abdul Ghani, causes apples to fall down. It cannot make apples, let alone water, fall up.

Accusation: The head of Thailand's Council for National Security, General Sonthi Boonyarataglin, claimed that Singapore's Temasek Holdings' control of Shin Corp's mobile phone and satellite operations would jeopardise his country's national security.

Facts: It took a while, but Thailand's own Minister for Information and Communication Technology Sitthichai Pookaiyaudom pooh-poohed this claim on Tuesday.

He admitted on Thai television what the Singapore authorities have been at pains to explain for weeks now: That it would not be 'worth it' for Shin Corp to eavesdrop on its customers; that to do so would be to risk an awful scandal; and in any case, eavesdropping would require the cooperation of Thai managers and engineers at Shin Corp - and they 'would not be willing to do so'.

Mr Sitthichai might have explained further that if Temasek had indulged in such activity in Thailand, it would have risked its telecom investments elsewhere in the world, including in Australia and the US. Temasek-owned telcos cannot invest anywhere in the world if they did not play by the rules everywhere.

Our neighbours know all these things. For every Mr Laksono in Indonesia, there is a Prof Hikmahanto; for every Datuk Abdul Ghani in Malaysia, a Deputy Prime Minister Najib; for every conspiracy theorist in Thailand, a sporadically rational Mr Sitthichai. Why are the sensible voices being drowned out?

There are any number of reasons, 'envy' being one, as some Singapore Members of Parliament and The Economist have suggested. Nationalism is another, as is clearly the case where Thailand is concerned.

But there is another, more worrisome, reason - and that is globalisation. For better or worse, Singapore, as the most economically dynamic country in Asean, has become globalisation's chief proxy in the region. And again, Thailand is Exhibit A.

Temasek's purchase of Shin Corp undoubtedly triggered a political upheaval in Thailand, leading finally to the downfall of its then-prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, whose family controlled Shin.

But whatever one might think of the wisdom of the Shin deal in retrospect, the deal was the occasion, not the cause, of what transpired.

Ten years ago, during the Asian Financial Crisis, the objects of blame were global financial markets and the International Monetary Fund; today they are Singapore and Temasek. The precise identity of the globalising agency does not quite matter. The fundamental problem here is that the Thai elite are confused about what to do about globalisation.

They want to be able to eat their cake and have it; they want the benefits of globalisation, but fear losing control; they want foreign investors, but only if 'my assets', as Gen Sonthi described Shin Corp, remain 'mine' and 'Thai'.

This confusion extends beyond Temasek. Since taking power in a military coup, Thailand's interim government has rattled investors by imposing capital controls, spoken vaguely of what it calls the 'sufficiency model' of development, and amended its Foreign Business Act to limit foreign ownership of Thai companies.

The new Thai elite have tried to command, as of old, a country that had already globalised to a significant extent since the introduction of market-oriented policies following the 1997-98 financial crisis. Predictably, the result is that foreign investment has ground to a virtual halt and the economy has slowed.

Nationalism - and its ugly cousin, envy - are the mirror-images of anti-globalisation. So long as Singapore remains committed to globalisation, it will remain the object of accusation and blame. Till the region as a whole decides to accept the logic of globalisation, this is the price Singapore will have to pay.

Unfortunately for our neighbours - and ultimately, for Singapore as well - our neighbours are likely to pay an even heftier price for their failures.

janadas@sph.com.sg



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THE FLOW OF LOGIC
Just because Changi Point is a few thousand metres closer to Batam than it was 40 years ago does not mean that Singapore now owns a few thousand more metres of sea.

CONVENIENT TARGET
Nationalism - and its ugly cousin, envy - are the mirror-images of anti-globalisation. So long as Singapore remains committed to globalisation, it will remain the object of accusation and blame.