From Third World to First The Singapore Story pdfdrive com

particular the DAP leaders. He undertook not to interfere with Singapore’s
Malays. I said we would live and let live, that I had not kept up contact with the
DAP. He said clearly that he accepted an independent Singapore and had no
intention of undermining it. My reply was that on this basis we could build a
relationship of trust and confidence. So long as we believed they wanted to do us
in, we would always be distrustful, reading sinister motives into every
ambiguous move.
He was different from his predecessors. The Tunku, Razak and Hussein Onn
were from the aristocracy or the traditional ruling families associated with the
sultans. Like me, Mahathir is a commoner – a trained professional doctor and a
self-made politician. I believed I had satisfied him that I was not interested in
outmanoeuvring him, that I wanted a businesslike relationship. It was as well I
initiated this dialogue and developed a working relationship. Had we carried our
old antagonisms into the future, both countries would have suffered.
As prime minister, he visited Singapore in December 1981. He had advanced

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the time for peninsular Malaysia by half an hour so as to have one time zone for
West and East Malaysia. I said Singapore would do likewise for the convenience
of everyone. This put him in a good mood. He explained that he had had to
educate his Malaysian officials to get them to reverse their opposition to
Singapore Airlines flying to Penang. Subsequently, hotels in Penang were full
and both airlines had profitable loads, benefiting from cooperation. He had asked
his ministers and officers to learn from Singapore. No other Malaysian prime
minister or minister had ever publicly said they had anything to learn from
Singapore; Mahathir did not suffer from this inhibition. This open-minded
attitude of learning from anyone whose success he wanted to duplicate in
Malaysia distinguished him from his predecessors.
During our one-on-one meeting, he said people in Johor were jealous of
Singapore. He advised me to lessen the envy by socialising at an official level. I
said his foreign ministry, Wisma Putra, had objected to such fraternising. He
said he would tell them this was his proposal. This was a significant change of
policy. In a matter-of-fact way, Mahathir said that there was resentment among
Malaysia’s Malays against Singapore as a prosperous Chinese city, just as they
resented the Chinese in the Malaysian towns. But the people at the top in Kuala
Lumpur understood this problem.
I expressed my hope to establish sound and steady relations so that our
problems would not be blown out of proportion. He wanted an open and frank
relationship, one that would be fair and equitable. He had ordered the lifting of
the ban on the export of construction materials to Singapore. It was not being
announced, but he had told the Johor authorities that this was a federal matter in
which they could not interfere.
We then joined our officials and ministers. On Malaysia’s claim to Pedra
Branca, a small rocky island Singapore had owned for more than 100 years and
where it had built a lighthouse, he said both parties should sit down and sort it
out. We could exchange papers and settle the issue. I agreed. On the Straits of
Johor, he wanted the Thalweg line (the line along the deepest channel between
the two shores) to be fixed and not to shift with the shifting of the channel. I
agreed. I requested the return of a military camp they were occupying and the
acquisition of a portion of Malayan Railway land at Tanjong Pagar Station for an
expressway extension. He agreed. After dinner, he said with satisfaction,
“Nearly all bilateral issues have been resolved.” I replied, “Let’s keep it like
that.” It was a good first meeting. We had established a relationship.
Shortly after, our high commission in Kuala Lumpur reported a perceptible

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improvement in attitudes among Malaysian ministers, MPs and civil servants
towards Singapore. They were willing to learn from Singapore and were open
about it. They praised Changi Airport and hoped that Subang would be half as
good. There were increased visits to Singapore to study our productivity, urban
planning and other matters.
I visited Mahathir in Kuala Lumpur the following year, in 1982. In a two-
hour one-on-one meeting, we moved from just solving bilateral problems to
negotiating new areas of cooperation. On the Five-Power Defence Agreement
(FPDA) and the Integrated Air Defence System, Mahathir said they would
counterbalance the Soviet bases in Vietnam. I told him we were buying four
American E2C Hawkeye surveillance aircraft to give advance warning of any
aerial attack on Singapore. Together we briefed our ministers and officials on
items we had agreed upon, including Malaysia’s affirmation that they would
honour the 1962 Water Agreement to provide 250 million gallons per day to
Singapore.
The meeting was decidedly warmer than the last. Mahathir’s approach to
Singapore was more pragmatic. At a press conference, I said there had been a
meeting of minds, that we were on the same wavelength. Improved relations
spread to warmer personal relations between officers of our armed forces where
previously there had been almost no interaction.
The thaw did not last long. Antipathy for and envy of Singapore always
tempted Malay leaders to seek popularity with their Malay grass roots by hitting
out at Singapore. Worse, the Malaysian government resumed taking actions that
hurt Singapore. In January 1984 they imposed a RM100 levy on all goods
vehicles leaving Malaysia for Singapore.
I asked Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Musa Hitam in Singapore two
months later why they took action which would discourage the relocation of
industries from Singapore to Malaysia by Japanese and American MNCs. These
MNCs had set up electronic assembly plants in Johor to have the products sent to
Singapore for more complex operations. The RM100 levy was a signal that such
a relocation was not favoured. Musa replied it was part of a learning process. He
believed someone had suggested this as an easy way to get revenue but they
would discover the wider implications. But Musa had no influence over
Mahathir’s policy. Instead of cancelling the levy they increased it to RM200 to
discourage the use of Singapore’s port.
In October that year Malaysia reduced its import duty on a variety of
foodstuffs, mostly from China, provided they were imported direct from the

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country of origin into Malaysia. We told their finance minister, Daim Zainuddin,
that this violated GATT rules, and that we would have to report it. He amended
their policy to exempt duty on goods imported via sea and airports but not via a
land route, like the Causeway. It was clear that the measure was aimed against
Singapore.
In 1986 our ministry of foreign affairs announced that Israeli President
Chaim Herzog was to make a state visit that November on the invitation of our
president. There was an outcry in Malaysia, with demonstration rallies and
protests outside our high commission in Kuala Lumpur, in their states and at the
Causeway. They protested officially. Daim, who was close to Mahathir, told our
high commissioner that the visit was an insult to Malaysia and the Muslims. He
said that although Mahathir had said in Parliament that they would not interfere
in another country’s affairs, privately he was very unhappy. I told our high
commissioner to explain that we had announced the visit and could not cancel it
without damage to ourselves. Mahathir recalled the Malaysian high
commissioner in Singapore for the duration of President Herzog’s visit, saying
that relations with Singapore were no longer as good, but that ties were far from
tense.
From time to time, whenever the Malaysians wanted things their way, even
on matters strictly within our domestic rights, relations with Malaysia were
strained. What they wanted is called in the Malay language an