KISHORE MAHBUBANI’S MOST recent book was called “Can Singapore Survive?”. Singaporeans are never allowed to forget that their country is small and its future fragile. If it does not remain exceptional, said the prime minister in that May Day speech, Singaporeans will be “pushed around, shoved about, trampled upon”.
Fifty years ago the city state was born out of a row with one of its neighbours, Malaysia. The other, Indonesia, had been waging a campaign of konfrontasi—just short of open warfare—against Malaysia and Singapore. Those days seem long gone. The Association of South-East Asian Nations, formed in 1967, boasts of its success in lowering regional tensions. Singapore’s relations with Malaysia and Indonesia are excellent. But for how long? The neighbours sometimes give Singapore reason to fret. In 1998 the then Indonesian president, Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie, was quoted in a newspaper article as saying he did not see Singapore as a friend. Pointing at a map, he went on: “It’s OK with me, but there are 211m people [in Indonesia]. All the green [area] is Indonesia. And that red dot is Singapore...
from The Economist: Special report http://ift.tt/1gDGh5Q
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