Singapore's history of new world orders

 Singapore's history has been marked by larger geopolitical events. Transitions between eras.

Singapore's founding has been about Raffles having a turf war with the Dutch, trying to land grab parts of Indonesia while the Dutch were getting battered by Napoleon.

We've always felt the ripple effects of other large geopolitical events. China's century of humiliation was also about the growth of Singapore as a colony. China's loss was Singapore's gain.

It's strange to see that Singapore has its World War 1 monuments, because that was the one thing that never affected us.

For the first 120 years, it seemed that the British empire would last forever. But WW2 was obviously the big black swan event. Only 2 months separated Japan's attack on pearl Harbour from the fall of Singapore. And with the fall of Singapore, the only thing standing between Japan and the oil fields of Indonesia.

After WW2 was the second round of wars. The wars of independence. The Japanese occupation triggered Indonesia to rebel against the Dutch. Indonesia and Vietnam throwing off the Dutch and the French was pivotal. One by one, the dominos fell to end the European colonialisation. The Malayan Emergency was the last great triumph of the British empire, that enabled the British to leave Malaya on terms that were favourable to them. But that marked the end of colonialism and the beginning of the Cold War.

The other Cold War conflicts were brewing. The Korean war was brutal because the USA was appalled that they “allowed” the Communists to win in China. Malaya was a win for the West and the “free world”, but it triggered a reaction from the Indonesians, the Konfrontasi, when the British tried to join Singapore, East and West Malaysia in a union. Singapore split from Malaysia for reasons largely unrelated to the Konfrontasi,

As an aside, the Konfrontasi is a good illustration of why archipelago geopolitics is different. If we were not an archipelago, the Konfrontasi would have found its way to Singapore and we might have been dragged into a second conflict after the Japanese Occupation.

The backlash to the Konfrontasi was the CIA abetting Suharto to overthrow Sukarno in a brutal civil war that ended up with Suharto becoming the dictator of Indonesia. This began the era of the US backing brutal dictatorships all over Asia. Strongmen in the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand (the King), military Juntas in Taiwan and South Korea. And in Singapore, the best bloody Englishman in Asia. The Vietnam War did not go well for the USA, but when it ended, it seems that that was the last hot conflict in Asia during the Cold war.

The 70s saw the rise of Japan and the 4 tigers: Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea. Some of these countries were embattled, smaller and more developed parts of larger hinterlands which may not be friendly. Hong Kong and Taiwan had uneasy relations with the mainland. South Korea was still at war with the North. And Singapore's position as a sovereign nation is never secure. There is an echo of this in Poland becoming the tiger of Central Europe decades later.

The 1980s saw the political liberalisation after the economic development. Philippines, South Korea and Taiwan transition from dictatorship to democracy. The cold war mentality was fading away. The paranoia in Singapore was easing. The reform era in China was still very low key but it was definitely happening. Nixon “opening up” China had shades of Commodore Perry “opening up” Japan 100 years earlier.

The end of the Cold War was only slightly less tumultuous in East Asia as compared to Eastern Europe. The uprisings in Tiananmen were quashed. The uprisings in Eastern Europe led to the communist bloc being toppled. The 90s were an era of great trade liberalisation, globalisation, new markets, neo-liberalism. Vietnam had a more low key reform era. ASEAN used to only have the western aligned countries. Taking in Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos was a very big thing for ASEAN, and helped shape ASEAN's character. Unlike in Europe, we didn't lean on the new entrants to be more like the founding members. It was just a club where you were welcome to talk and trade, and what you did was largely your own business.

The Asian financial crisis marks the moment that our region joined the middle income trap. The first wave of rapid economic growth was over for many countries. Indonesia overthrew Suharto and went through a few tumultuous years when we worried that the years of living dangerously were coming back, but remarkably, Indonesia now has some kind of democracy.

The 00s were the “business as usual” years. China rising and biding its time, while benefitting from US security guarantees and an international trading system which had very favourable conditions for its economy to grow rapidly. It became a superpower in record time. US was busy squandering its hegemonic moment with a remarkable series of self destructive behaviours. Unnecessary wars in the Middle East, and allowing the Great Recession to happen.

The 10s were the rupture between the previously cordial relationship between US and China. US is beginning to realise that enabling the rise of China isn't good for them. In fact, it's realising that enabling everybody else's rise is not good for them. China installs Xi Jinping as the supreme leader, and he turns out to be a hawk on everybody. He enables wolf warrior politics, builds artifiial islands in the South China Sea, poisons the minds of its citizens with anti-Western propaganda.

Of the crazy things that have happened in the 20s, only COVID has affected Asia, and East Asia has weathered it better than most other Western countries. But it was a series of events where the West had abdicated its leadership. They had shining moments, like when they defeated the Japanese and graciously allowed them to survive and thrive. They were the architects of a good post war international system that allowed East Asia to grow through free trade, although free trade is something that's native to maritime Asia basically.

But the forever wars and the financial crises have tarnished the reputations of the West. The abdication of responsibility during COVID, the social unrest, the rise of right wing populism. And finally, the decay of the Western Alliance, which was strained when the USA and Europe had to join forces to deal with Russia and the Ukraine war.

The 3 great powers are declining. Russia is declining the most ignominously. It failed to make a suitable post communism transition, like China did. It didn't build institutions. Instead, it had a mafia state. A petrostate in a world where China was leading the green energy transition. The USA is quite possibly not having a great downfall, and no matter how MAGA messes up the USA, it might have the muscle memory to build back the institutions that made it great in the first place. But the USA is a country of lawyers facing China, a country of engineers, in this compelling new idea by Dan Wang. And it's startling to hear him criticise lawyers for obstructionism because it sounds like institutions are the problem rather than the rock upon which society is founded.

China is and always will be some kind of enigma. They always had to deal with the tightrope, ruling with an iron fist and getting its people alongside. But they have problems. They mismanaged the COVID lockdowns, are bad at diplomacy, have high youth unemployment, and are on the brink of a disastrous war against Taiwan. The USA also has a lot of problems.

The thing is, these countries always thought that they would be carving up the world between them. They thought that it was going to be like the ages of colonial power where only a handful of countries mattered. But we're no longer in a colonial world. It's become a very crowded world, and we might be headed towards a G minus 3 world, where the rest of us middle powers will have to figure out how to get by without the large behemoths.