Najib says Malaysia-Singapore jousting is over. Is it really?

Relations between the once bickering neighbours have warmed under leaders with personal chemistry. But it’s not all smiles and handshakes

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Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak with Singaporean counterpart Lee Hsien Loong. Photo: Xinhua

Published: 6:30pm, 20 Jan 2018Updated: 7:30pm, 20 Jan 2018

In a different era, the tempestuous weather that gripped Singapore and Malaysia this month would have been the perfect metaphor of the bilateral relationship between the two neighbours.

For decades after the end of their acrimonious post-independence union in 1965, the former British colonies publicly bickered over everything; the ownership of a railway station, water supplies, rocky outcrops in the sea, airspace and even the provenance of a shared cuisine they both call their own.

The squabbles hit a crescendo during the tenures of Singapore’s late founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew and Malaysia’s Mahathir Mohamad, who served as premier from 1981 to 2003.

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad, right, with Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew in 2001. Photo: AFP

But is all that bad blood now firmly in the past? The answer is yes, if you ask the current Malaysian leader Najib Razak.

Najib’s dovish comments about the Lion City this week, during an annual summit in the city state with Singaporean counterpart Lee Hsien Loong, underscored the near decade-long detente in place between the two countries.

The period of relatively warm relations coincides with Najib’s ascension to the premiership in 2009.

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