SOUTH-EAST ASIA LEE KUAN YEW IS THE MAN IN THE FRONT LINE

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31585, 24 January 1968, Page 12

SOUTH-EAST ASIA LEE KUAN YEW IS THE MAN IN THE FRONT LINE

IBy

BRIAN BEEDHAM.

Foreign Editor of the “Economist.“J

If any foreigners could have hoped to change the mind of the British Cabinet about the defence cuts it announced last week, it was the Prime Minister of Singapore, Mr Lee Kuan Yew. Lee Kuan Yew has a very special relationship with Britain. He fiew to London in a desperate attempt to use this special relationship to keep Britain committed to Singapore’s security.

There is the old school tie. Lee Kuan Yew graduated from Cambridge with high honours and qualified as a barrister in London. He speaks the British politicians’ language with more wit and point than most of them. He speaks it so frankly that he puts the myth of the inscrutable Oriental to a quick death. Bond of Socialism So Englishmen feel they can talk to Lee. But some Englishmen feel it more than others because of the common bond of socialism. Before Singapore got its independence Lee was suspected of being a Communist, and the Left-wing of the Labour Party fought against the Tories and even the Labour Right-wing to have him recognised as a democrat. The same Labour Left-wingers supported his insistence in those days that British troops be shunted out of Singapore. Nobody except perhaps the Communists in his People’s Action Party whom he put in prison—has been diappointed in Lee’s attachment to democracy. But the Lee who came to London last week is no longer the fiery anti-colonialist who aroused the British left with his contemptuous talk about “white men with bayonets protecting yellow men.” Today Lee Kuan Yew is a much more pragmatic man. He argues that the yellow men still need the white men and their fighter planes and missiles—not for ever, but at least as long as it will take anti-Communist Asia to build up its own defences. In Singapore’s case, these defences will not be ready by 1970 or 1971 when the British now expect to leave. Lee would like them to stay until the mid-1970s by when he hopes to be running his own air force. Balanced on Vietnam In the first years after he became Singapore’s Prime Minister in 1959, Lee took advantage of the British forces there to stave off internal subversion. He thinks that if Vietnam goes right he has the internal insurgency problem licked—provided Singapore’s economy does not fall from its current mild boom into recession. But, as he has been insisting to the British Cabinet, a sudden troop withdrawal from Malaysia and Singapore could create an area of instability that would be dangerous for the whole of South-East Asia. He believes that the most important factor in the security of South-East Asia is Vietnam. If the Communist movement is allowed to succeed there, he is certain the whole region will go Communist. But if the Americans win a satisfactory settlement in Vietnam, then South-East Asia has a chance.

Local Communists backed by Hanoi or Peking are one of the potential threats that Lee perceives for Singapore. The other is Malay racialism. Malaysian Shadow Although Singapore’s relations with Malaysia have been pretty frigid since the island left the Malaysian federation more than two years ago, the present Malaysian Government of Tunku Abdul Rahman is a moderate and reasonable one. No sensible Malaysian Government, already plagued by racial tensions, could contemplate the prospect of trying to swallow Singapore with its If million antagonistic Chinese. But if the anti-Chinese elements in Malaysia, were given their head, violence could easily break out within and between these neighbour States. Malaysia by itself could be trouble enough. But the real spectre hanging over Lee Kuan Yew and Singapore is the possibility of a pan-Malay pincer movement in which the 10 million Malays in Malaysia would be joined by the 100 million Malays in Indonesia to crush tiny Singapore between them. Today any such union looks a long way off. The Malaysian conservatives are frightened by the radical ideas cur-

rent in Indonesia. They have only recently plucked up the courage to resume diplomatic relations with Indonesia. The Indonesians are much too preoccupied w’ith pulling themselves together after Sukarno to give in to any more imperialist dreams just yet Trading Partner Certainly there are Indonesian generals who would welcome a new diversion to take the place of that abortive “confrontation” with Malaysia. The strong antiChinese feeling in Indonesia might well tempt them to look toward Singapore. But for the moment anyway General Suharto seems to have the Indonesian adventurists under control. Indonesia is now turning to Singapore as a useful trading partner. Singapore does not face an immediate crisis. But Lee Kuan Yew is the man in the front line. He has kept himself in political business all these years by staying several steps ahead of his potential enemies. If he is worried for his future, his fears deserve to be listened to. It will be a bitter moment for Britain if it turns out five years from now that British weakness has pulled the rug from under South-East Asia’s best chance of democracy.