https://www.scmp.com/rss/322234/feed Bilahari Kausikan is the former Permanent Secretary of Singapore's Foreign Ministry. en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com As a contiguous, big and growing power, China will always have significant influence in Southeast Asia. But for precisely the same reasons – size, contiguity and economic weight – Beijing will always arouse anxieties in the region. Big powers have a responsibility to reassure small countries on their periphery. China has not fulfilled this responsibility. From the end of the Hu Jintao era, and even more so under Xi Jinping, China’s actions in Hong Kong, the South China and East China Seas, the... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3116137/southeast-asias-complex-dance-china-us-explored-new-book?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3116137/southeast-asias-complex-dance-china-us-explored-new-book?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 03 Jan 2021 02:00:22 +0000 The membership of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) is equally divided between mainland and maritime states. However, Asean’s strategic orientation has historically been towards the sea. Four out of the five founder members are maritime states. Asean was formed to stabilise the littoral of a vital sea route to prevent those countries being drawn into Cold War battlegrounds on the mainland. Asean’s post-Cold War expansion to include all the remaining mainland states, did not... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3093546/why-asean-should-treat-mekong-south-china-sea?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3093546/why-asean-should-treat-mekong-south-china-sea?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 17 Jul 2020 03:00:14 +0000 In 1956, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev notoriously told Western ambassadors in Moscow: “We will bury you.” The statement was emblematic of the Cold War as an existential global struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union. There seems to be a consensus that the US and China are now in or heading toward a “new Cold War”. The phase has become a trope to describe the relationship, and not just by the lazy or historically illiterate. No less a personage than Henry Kissinger warns that... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3091343/china-and-us-new-cold-war-or-not-new-cold-war?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3091343/china-and-us-new-cold-war-or-not-new-cold-war?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 01 Jul 2020 06:30:16 +0000 During the Second World War, Winston Churchill wanted the British ambassador to Spain – the somewhat unfortunately named Samuel Hoare – to press General Franco to release British pilots who had been shot down but escaped across France to Spain and were detained there. The ambassador protested that to do so would ruin his relations with Franco. “Stuff your relations with Franco,” Churchill is reported as having replied. “What do you think they are for!” In everyday conversation, to be... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3087400/chinas-zealous-wolf-warrior-diplomacy-highlights-both-beijings?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3087400/chinas-zealous-wolf-warrior-diplomacy-highlights-both-beijings?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 03 Jun 2020 21:00:17 +0000 Everything eventually ends. What will Southeast Asia and Asean look like when the novel coronavirus pandemic runs its course? Historically, all pandemics have had economic and political effects. This essay speculates about the long-term impact of the Covid-19 illness on Southeast Asia in three interrelated dimensions: economics, politics, and geopolitics. The coronavirus outbreak seems to have plateaued in China. Beijing first bungled by trying to cover up, allowing the virus to take hold in... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3076460/how-coronavirus-may-change-geopolitics-southeast-asia?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3076460/how-coronavirus-may-change-geopolitics-southeast-asia?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 23 Mar 2020 09:51:39 +0000 The Covid-19 crisis has starkly highlighted China’s strengths and weaknesses. Which other country has the political will and capability to quarantine a province of 60 million people? Which other country could build a new hospital in 10 days? But it also has to be asked: why were such drastic measures and Herculean efforts necessary in the first place? It is now abundantly clear that the reluctance of local officials to convey bad news upwards allowed the virus to take hold and spread. In... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3051661/coronavirus-was-unexpected-xi-us-trade-war-and-hong-kong-are?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3051661/coronavirus-was-unexpected-xi-us-trade-war-and-hong-kong-are?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 21 Feb 2020 00:00:30 +0000 As I write this, demonstrations in Hong Kong continue, although the extradition bill that sparked them has been shelved. This is the latest phase of protests that began in 2014 with the Occupy Central or “umbrella movement”. The proximate causes may be different, but they all arise from the disquiet of many Hong Kong people with Beijing’s sway. I do not know when the demonstrations will end. But I am quite certain about what they will achieve: absolutely nothing! I can understand the disquiet of... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3018003/harsh-truths-hong-kong-protests-will-not-achieve-anything?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3018003/harsh-truths-hong-kong-protests-will-not-achieve-anything?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 10 Jul 2019 06:15:34 +0000 This is an edited excerpt of an interview with Singapore’s ambassador at large, Bilahari Kausikan, by the international affairs magazine Global Brief. Bilahari served as the permanent secretary of the Lion City’s foreign ministry from 2010 to 2013. He has held various senior positions in the ministry, including as the city state’s permanent representative in the United Nations and ambassador to Russia. The original article can be found here. ON NORTH KOREA Question: How should we understand... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/geopolitics/article/2111039/what-would-china-do-if-north-korea-and-united-states-go-war?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/geopolitics/article/2111039/what-would-china-do-if-north-korea-and-united-states-go-war?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 13 Sep 2017 11:00:00 +0000 The American media has a penchant for describing diplomatic relationships as if they are sporting events where a win for one side is necessarily a loss for the other. Some commentators have said Donald Trump’s victory benefits China. The American journal Foreign Policy for example carried an article the day after the election headlined “China Just Won the US Election”. It argued Beijing would reap geopolitical gains as other Association of Southeast Asian Nation (Asean) countries would follow... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2045249/what-does-trump-presidency-mean-china?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2045249/what-does-trump-presidency-mean-china?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 13 Nov 2016 04:02:55 +0000 The 21st century global order is becoming more uncertain. Events are unfolding at an accelerating pace and with greater unpredictability, underscoring the role of chance and contingency in international affairs. Chance in international relations is not a matter of statistical probability: of odds that are calculable. International affairs are conducted by sentient beings who observe, think and respond so that our every effort to act or comprehend alters what we seek to comprehend and every... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/article/2044015/hong-kong-umbrellas-chinese-maoism-trump-duterte-and-brexit-whats-link?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/article/2044015/hong-kong-umbrellas-chinese-maoism-trump-duterte-and-brexit-whats-link?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 08 Nov 2016 08:00:45 +0000 East Asia is an extremely diverse region, not known to easily agree on many things. But nobody thought that the consequences, in particular the economic consequences, of Brexit could be anything but bad: bad for Britain, bad for the EU as a whole, and bad for the world. Official statements from, among others, China, Japan, the United States, Australia and India – and the last three are in a political sense East Asian countries, members of the East Asian Summit – displayed a rare unanimity in... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/geopolitics/article/2019360/real-reason-brexit-could-influence-east-asias-great-game?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/geopolitics/article/2019360/real-reason-brexit-could-influence-east-asias-great-game?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 14 Sep 2016 10:34:55 +0000 The South China Sea disputes have severely challenged Asean. At the Asean-China meeting held in Kunming (昆明) in June 2016, a senior Chinese official, sitting beside Foreign Minister Wang Yi (王毅), bluntly told Asean foreign ministers that, as far as China was concerned, Asean (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) was not central to the issue. In 2012, the 45th Asean Ministerial Meeting, under Cambodia’s chairmanship, failed to issue a joint statement for the first time in Asean’s history... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2009574/lesson-hong-kong-must-learn-south-china-sea?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2009574/lesson-hong-kong-must-learn-south-china-sea?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 28 Aug 2016 02:03:34 +0000 US-China relations set the tone for East Asia: when they are stable, the region is calm; when they are roiled, the region is uneasy. In time, the same will hold true, I believe, for other regions as well. US-China relations will certainly be a, if not the, central pillar of any new post-cold-war international order. READ MORE: In a fundamental shift, China and the US are now engaged in all-out competition US-China relations are mature: it has been 44 years since president Richard Nixon’s visit... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1917152/insecurities-and-bluster-roots-distrust-between-china-and-us?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1917152/insecurities-and-bluster-roots-distrust-between-china-and-us?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 26 Feb 2016 08:58:00 +0000