Asian Angle | What Singapore is saying by expelling China hand Huang Jing

To understand the Lion City’s motives, look to the ton of bricks that fell on an outspoken academic – and the experience of an American diplomat nearly 30 years ago

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Expelled: Professor Huang Jing. Photo: AFP

Published: 10:15am, 12 Aug 2017Updated: 11:22am, 15 Aug 2017

Older Singaporeans travelling beyond Asia are all too familiar with encountering ignorance about their country’s geography. “You’re from Singapore? Is that part of China?”

Being the only Chinese-majority state outside Greater China and being no larger than a city, some confusion about Singapore’s status is understandable. After 52 years, Singapore still finds itself needing to educate the world that it is a sovereign republic.

One lesson was delivered a week ago. On August 4, Singapore announced it was expelling a China-born American professor for trying to influence the city state’s foreign policy on behalf of an unnamed foreign government. Huang Jing, an expert on United States-China relations at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, was accused of passing “privileged information” to senior Singapore officials with the intent of influencing their decisions.

“He did this in collaboration with foreign intelligence agents,” the statement said. “This amounts to subversion and foreign interference in Singapore’s domestic politics.”

Lanterns in Singapore’s Chinatown. Photo: Xinhua

It marked the first time in more than two decades that Singapore had publicly booted out an alleged functionary of a foreign power for interference in its domestic affairs.

Singapore did not name the country Huang Jing was supposedly working for, but most people assume it is China, the country of his birth. The affair has sparked intense discussion and speculation. Since such expulsions are invariably symbolic, the question is what Singapore is trying to communicate.