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Policy without Authority: Singapore's External Affairs Power

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 August 2009

Peter Boyce
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Extract

External affairs have exercised the minds and loyalties of a sizeable section of Singapore's politically articulate population ever since the first preparations towards self-government were taken in 1955. Even though questions of defence and foreign policy were until September 1963 the responsibility of Whitehall exclusively and thereupon transferred to the Malaysian central government, Singapore developed its own informal relationships with several foreign or Commonwealth states during those years and hotly debated international problems which seemed to impinge on the island's political future.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Southeast Asian History , Volume 6 , Issue 2 , September 1965 , pp. 87 - 103
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 1965

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References

1. State of Singapore, Annual Report, 1960 (London: H.M.S.O., 1963), pp. 36–37.Google Scholar

2. Singapore, Legislative Assembly Debates, hereafter cited Debates, Vol. 2, 07 – 12 1959, Col. 16.Google Scholar

3. Under Clause 36 of the Malaysia Act the federal list of legislative powers incorporated in the 1957 Malayan Constitution is extended, with amendments, to the whole of Malaysia.

4. See Cmd. Paper of the Singapore Assembly, No. 33 of 1961. For Lee's later reference to it see Debates, Vol. 22, No. 7, 12 12 1963, col. 425.Google Scholar

5. See Stockwin, Harvey, “Broken Threads in Malaysia”, Far Eastern Economic Review, Vol. XLVIII, No. 3., 15 04 1965, pp. 118–120.Google Scholar

6. The Times, London, 2 09 1963, p. 8.Google Scholar

7. Malaysia, Department of Information, Siaran Akhbar, 9/63/18, External Affairs release, 3 09 1963.Google Scholar

8. For British reaction see The Times, London, 3 09 1963, p. 8.Google Scholar

9. The importance of kinship loyalties may be gauged from an official admission by the Exchange Control Department in 1958 that in the year between April 1957 and March 1958 family remittances from Singapore to China amounted to 16,822,867 dollars. See Debates, , Vol. 3, No. 5, 06 1958, col. 332Google Scholar. A questioner in the Assembly suggested that for every dollar sent legally probably three were sent illegally.

10. See for example Straits Times, 1 April 1965, p. 1, for a press statement by the Finance Minister, Tan Siew Sin. In addition to the Bank of China, a branch of the China-owned Kwangtung Bank also operates in Singapore.

11. Debates, Vol. 3, No. 2, 22 04 1958, Col. 32.Google Scholar

12. Reported by Kheng, Lim Cher in Debates, Vol. 3, No. 18, 21 01 1959.Google Scholar

13. Debates, Vol. II, No. 13, 25 11, 1959, Col. 775.Google Scholar

14. Indonesian Intentions towards Malaysia, (Kuala Lumpur: Government Printer, 1964), p. 12.Google Scholar

15. Debates, Vol. 3, No. 23, 3 03 1959, Cols. 1995–6.Google Scholar

16. See successive issues for 1960–63 of Federation of Malaya, Monthly Statistics of External Trade, Department of Statistics, Kuala Lumpur. Although the breakdown of Malayan trade with the several Indonesian islands refers only to the Federation, this pattern reflected Singapore's own trade relations with Indonesia.

17. Statement by Yew, Lee Kuan, Debates, Vol. 22. No. 7, 12 12 1963, Col. 425.Google Scholar

18. Straits Times, 27 01 1962.Google Scholar

19. For Lee's press statement after this Singapore meeting see Straits Times 13 02 1963, p. 1.Google Scholar

20. David Marshall, the former Chief Minister, rebuked Lee for this scarcely veiled criticism of the central government. See Straits Times 27 02 1963, p. 20.Google Scholar

21. Straits Times, 28 09, 1963.Google Scholar

22. For a scholarly analysis of conficting estimates see Richter, H.V., “Malayan Entre-Pôt and the Indonesian Trade Ban”, in 10 1965Google Scholar issue of Malayan Economic Review.

23. The Times, London, 5 07 1960, p. 10.Google Scholar

24. Siaran Akhbar, 9/62/164, Prime Ministers Department release, 21 September 1962.

25. In September 1962 Lee Spoke of his desire to imitate Cambodian foreign policy. Straits Times, 29 09 1962.Google Scholar

26. The full transcript of Lee's B.B.C. talk on these conversations is reproduced in Straits Budget, 30 05 1962, pp 5–6.Google Scholar

27. Singapore Government Press Statement, 1 February 1964, courtesy Department of External Affairs, Kuala Lumpur.

28. Siaran Akhbar, 2/64/226, External Affairs release.

29. The Times, London, 12 03 1964, p. 9.Google Scholar

30. For Barisan Sosialis criticism of the Japanese see Debates, Vol. 22, No. 8, 13 12 1963, Cols. 497–526Google Scholar. Britain had waived the claims of Singapore and Malaya to war reparations in the Japanese Peace Treaty of 1952.

Anti-Japanese feeling in Singapore was reinforced during 1963 by accidental discoveries of mass war graves.

31. “Malaysia and the Changing Pattern of World Politics”, Radio talks presented 17 January, 18 January, 24 February, 25 February 1964, Radio Malaysia, Singapura.

32. Straits Budget, 8 01 1965, p. 8.Google Scholar

33. Osborne, Milton C., Singapore in Malaysia, Cornell University Data Paper, 1964, p. 70.Google Scholar