Major speeches by PM Lawrence Wong and SM Lee Hsien Loong offer a clear-eyed view on global transition and commitment to multilateralism, and link political stability to diplomatic strength.
By Bhavan Jaipragas, The Straits Times, 19 Apr 2025
If this were a routine April – not the tense run-up to what could be a bruising general election – the back-to-back heavyweight foreign policy speeches from Singapore’s top two political leaders would still have those who watch the Republic closely sitting up and taking notice.
Singapore’s friends and partners near and far are surely watching for clues about how the long-time stewards of this city-state – resource-poor and smaller than New York City – intend to navigate the accelerating decline of the world order under which it has risen to become one of the world’s wealthiest, most stable societies with the ability to underwrite its own defence.
For that purpose, the speeches – first by Senior Minister Lee Hsien Loong in a dialogue with union leaders on April 14, and then by Prime Minister Lawrence Wong at the S. Rajaratnam Lecture on April 16 – offer, between them, as complete a picture as practicable to a public audience on the ruling PAP’s view of geopolitics and its foreign policy approach.
Both addresses, along with Mr Wong’s speech at the April 17 PAP manifesto launch – which also touched on the state of the world – are meaty enough to be studied from various angles.
For me, three important observations stand out.
Govt’s clear-eyed perspective
First, it is quite clear that Singapore’s leadership rejects a simplistic reading of the global landscape. Despite Washington’s current erraticity under President Donald Trump – with sweeping tariffs announced then suspended, threats of sectoral tariffs, and adamance that America will no longer be the world’s policeman – the Singapore Government does not view this as a neat pendulum swing of power.
My interpretation of Mr Wong and Mr Lee’s remarks is unambiguous: the establishment firmly rejects the notion that the crumbling of the US-led global rules-based order automatically crowns China as the new leader, or that we can expect a comfortable multipolar balance, with China and other powers harmoniously filling the vacuum.
This stands in contrast to certain domestic voices that have begun flirting with a more optimistic view – that Singapore and other Asian nations might actually benefit from this geopolitical disarray, that there is some inherently benign quality to what they claim is an organised multipolar order taking shape.
The perspective championed by countries like India, particularly through its erudite Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar, who has voiced considerable optimism about a new multipolar world order – arguing that “the virtues of the old world order are exaggerated” – has gained notable traction here in Singapore.
Yet what works for a middle power like India cannot be transplanted to Singapore’s context. For a small trade-reliant nation thoroughly integrated into the world economy – and critically dependent on both China and the US – adopting such a view borders on the foolhardy.
Mr Lee’s speech crystallises this reality.
Even as America retreats from its global policeman role, there remains firm bipartisan consensus among its political elite that China represents a “pacing challenge”.
Consequently, American policymakers “are trying very hard to stay ahead of China and to prevent China from overtaking them”. This intensifying great-power competition will inevitably inflict collateral damage on trade-reliant countries like Singapore.
The speeches offer no comforting illusions that whatever emerges from this messy transition will necessarily benefit us.
The Prime Minister’s assessment is sobering in its clarity: Mr Wong noted that “nobody can tell” what world order we are transitioning towards, even though we know that transition is under way.
Indeed, even as we witness daily evidence of transformation through market turbulence and policy pronouncements from Washington – met with counter-responses from other capitals – there remains simply too much uncertainty. We cannot predict global conditions one month from now, let alone a year ahead or by the end of Mr Trump’s term in January 2029.
Mr Wong put it like this: “America is stepping back from its traditional role as the guarantor of order and the world’s policeman. But neither China nor any other country is willing – or able to – fill the vacuum.”
He added: “So nations are turning inward, prioritising their own narrow interests. The once-rising tide of global cooperation that defined the past decades is giving way to one of growing competition and distrust. And as a result, the world is becoming more fragmented and disorderly.”
