From Third World to First The Singapore Story pdfdrive com

26. Following Britain into Europe
My views of the Europeans had been much influenced by British attitudes of the
1950s and ’60s. The Europeans seemed different and somewhat strange, not as
cohesive as nations nor as constitutional-minded as the British: the French were
prone to riots and revolutions and the overturning of constitutions; the Germans
tended to use force to settle disputes. But once Harold Macmillan as prime
minister made his bid in 1962 to join the European Economic Community (EEC,
now the European Union) and was rebuffed, I believed it was only a matter of
time before a second application or a third would succeed. After Britain
announced its withdrawal from east of Suez in 1968, Prime Minister Harold
Wilson made an overture to President Charles de Gaulle. Again it failed, but it
underlined how important Europe had become for Britain.
Britain wanted to join to get out of its recurring economic difficulty of slow
growth compared to the faster growth of Germany, France, the Benelux
countries and even Italy – all members of the EEC. It was clear that the larger
market spurred growth. I wanted to build ties with this new Europe and not have
Singapore shut out when Britain joined.
As with most bureaucratic organisations, statements of principle from the top
are no assurance of a smooth relationship. I encountered protectionist policies of
“Fortress Europe” in the 1970s over our exports. In October 1977 I went to
Brussels to see the president of the European Commission, Roy Jenkins, with
whom I had kept in touch since the 1960s when he was British chancellor of the
exchequer. I had written to him earlier that their application to Singapore of GSP
rules (the General Scheme of Preferences which gave developing countries
limited import duty-free entry) had caused problems for our exports of electronic
calculators, umbrellas, projectors and plywood. Recently, even fresh orchids
were meeting objections from Dutch and Italian flower growers. I added that I
had expected problems with textiles and umbrellas but not with electronic
calculators and fresh orchids. Jenkins was sympathetic and promised to look into
this, but he could do nothing about the umbrellas. It seemed they were produced

---

in President Giscard d’Estaing’s constituency.
With the other commissioners, I discussed how to avoid manufacturing those
products that the EEC countries would find sensitive because of persistent high
unemployment. I discovered to my dismay that the list was unlimited. Any
member country with any influence on Brussels, feeling the slightest pain, could
appeal to Brussels for protection and would invariably get it. Yet the EEC denied
it was the most protectionist of all the trading blocs. I cited the experience of
Philips and Siemens, two of the best-known European MNCs; they had found it
more difficult to export their Singapore-made electronic products to Europe than
to America and Asia.
I raised two matters: first, that “graduation” leading to the removal of GSP
benefits should not be applied prematurely to Singapore; and second, that
selective safeguards blocking imports were unlikely to be effective in solving
EEC problems. I tried to convince Jenkins, as president of the EEC, that he
should formalise the promising EEC-Asean relationship in an agreement for
economic cooperation, and that a visit by him to the countries of Asean would
put the imprimatur of the commission on this goal. Instead, he sent Viscount
Davignon, the commissioner of industrial affairs. Jenkins was not fond of
travelling to the East, whose prospects he did not rate highly. Finally, with the
help of the German foreign minister, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, Asean succeeded
in getting the EEC to sign an agreement in 1980 for a Joint Cooperation
Committee to promote and review activities. Asean countries, however, still
faced endless protectionist problems with this multi-member organisation. Its
agricultural subsidies and tariffs worked against palm oil exports; its health and
safety regulation on rubber products and eco-labelling and other forms of labour
and environmental standards effectively checked Asean exports. As for
Singapore, in 1986, as part of its review of the GSP privileges, the EEC imposed
a quota on Singapore ball bearings.
European MNCs were less agile and dynamic than the Americans and
Japanese. They were missing the opportunities for global integrated production,
manufacturing different components of a product in different countries. That was
the situation in the 1980s and it was still largely true in the 1990s.
To establish ties with the French who were the moving spirit behind the
EEC, I arranged in May 1969 to meet President de Gaulle whom I had long
admired as a great leader. Just before the visit, French students took to the streets

---

and demanded constitutional reforms and more university places, in fact
challenging de Gaulle’s legitimacy. The visit was postponed. De Gaulle called a
referendum, lost it and retired. I never got to meet this stern, tall, unbending man
who had restored French pride in themselves and their country, and whose
autobiography impressed me even in an English translation.
Instead I met his successor, Georges Pompidou, in September 1970. He was
friendly and jovial, a man who enjoyed an exchange with a visitor from a strange
faraway place called Singapore. He emphasised that France was more than just
high fashion in clothes, exotic perfumes and great wines. He wanted French
quality chemicals, high-tech machinery, engineering and aircraft to be the image
the world had of 1970s France. He had a philosophical bent and engaged me for
20 minutes on Asian attitudes towards gold. Would it still be highly priced and
treasured if it became no more than a commodity and no longer a backing for
currency? I was strongly of the opinion that it would. Over the millennia,
historical experience of devastation and famine caused by drought, floods, wars
and other calamities had taught the Chinese people the value of gold,
indestructible, immutable and fungible. The three-and-a-half year Japanese
occupation of Singapore was a recent reminder. I told him that with one 
tahil
(slightly more than one ounce) of gold, regardless of hyperinflation, you could
feed a family for a month as well as buy medicine and other essentials. My
account seemed to confirm his own beliefs. I said it was a primeval instinct in
man. His interpreter, Prince Andronikov, a French Russian émigré, translated
this as