Is a wind of change blowing across Singapore? It seems so, if unprecedented moves on its political front are to be believed.
These range from a possible cut to its million-dollar ministerial salaries, to a trimmer cabinet without Lee Kuan Yew. In its drive to embrace reform after a poor electoral performance, the People's Action Party (PAP) has sworn to leave no stone unturned. All save foreign affairs, that is.
Judging by the tack taken by some members of its younger and leaner cabinet, foreign affairs is possibly the one area where liberalisation seems wanting.
Singapore's new foreign minister, K. Shanmugam, appeals to realpolitik's darker side when he describes international relations as being in a 'jungle with animals of different sizes' where 'the biggest and fiercest are usually the kings'. His strategy of manoeuvring around this dog-eat-dog world is premised on dispensing equitable deals that 'leave something on the table for everyone'.
The same conservative stance typifies the discourse of acting minister for the arts, Chan Chun Sing. On the campaign trail, the PAP's poster boy for its next generation of leaders raises the spectre of Singapore's vulnerability by likening it to a yacht sailing precariously among supertankers in the turbulent waters of global developments.
Having spent three years in Jakarta as a military officer, Chan depicts the 'happy relationship' Singapore has with Indonesia as 'unnatural' if one considers that the latter 'reproduces one Singapore per year'.