{"id":22151,"date":"2015-08-24T06:00:57","date_gmt":"2015-08-23T20:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=22151"},"modified":"2015-09-04T10:02:04","modified_gmt":"2015-09-04T00:02:04","slug":"singapore-and-oz-mismatched-mates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/singapore-and-oz-mismatched-mates\/","title":{"rendered":"Singapore and Oz: mismatched mates"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Partnership\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Singapore and Australia have nothing in common but share much. No similarities, yet multiple places where interests and attitudes touch or chime.<\/p>\n

Geographically, they are mismatched mates: the nation with a continent to itself shares a chinwag with Asia’s city state. It shouldn’t work\u2014but often, it does.<\/p>\n

I’ve lived and worked in Singapore and have been visiting for decades so this view may merely reflect my comfort levels. Love the heat. Know the people. Enjoy the place\u2014although I\u2019m always amazed at how they constantly demolish and rebuild.<\/p>\n

The mateship is defined by the mismatch, but it can still be analysed as a long-term relationship. After Lee Kuan Yew died in March<\/a>, this column argued that a useful history of Australia’s apprehensions and aspirations in Southeast Asia over the last 75 years could be written using LKY as actor and commentator. A previous column<\/a> looked at Singapore on its 50th birthday this month, which leads to these thoughts on the strange mates.<\/p>\n

What do they have in common? Some traces of colonial experience\u2014political and legal forms\u2014but mostly English as the shared international\/regional language. After that\u2026zip. Well, zero common characteristics which are natural or obvious. The contrasts between the continent and the city state can confound.<\/p>\n

What Singapore and Oz share aren\u2019t characteristics so much as attitudes. And a strategic cast of mind emphatically expressed in the approach to the United States. Who loves the US hegemon more? It\u2019s impossible to separate the mates in their affection for the US and the 7th Fleet.<\/p>\n

A shared obsession with Indonesia matters as much. This isn\u2019t a mirror of the US fixation because the colours are so different. With Indonesia, the apprehension is shaded by differences and tinged by fear. Indonesia always gives Singapore and Australia something to talk about.<\/p>\n

The odd couple obsess constantly about China, but Singapore brings a Confucian cast of mind that Australia hardly grasps. China is a stark example of the mates staring at the same thing using the same data but different understandings.<\/p>\n

The political cultures of Singapore and Oz are worlds apart, yet one single, shared element throbs strongly. These are two intensely pragmatic operators. Rely on Australia to call a spade a bloody shovel, while Singapore will know the cost of the digging implement and the necessary size of the hole required.<\/p>\n

For a taste of the Singapore style, see the Shedden lecture<\/a> in Canberra by Singapore’s Ambassador-at-Large, Bilahari Kausikan:<\/p>\n