From Third World to First The Singapore Story pdfdrive com

aide-mémoire
on their discussions. The leader of their delegation had posed
two questions to Premier Zhou Enlai: first, on their policy towards the overseas
Chinese; second, on their support for the MCP. Zhou replied that the term

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“overseas Chinese” was not accurate as many had already taken up citizenship of
their countries of residence. They were conservative by nature and had become a
great problem in the PRC’s relations with these countries. The “new China” had
a new revolutionary policy towards the “so-called overseas Chinese”. It had
dissolved the Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission to discourage Chinese
overseas thinking of returning to China. China would not interfere if any country
with a Chinese population abolished Chinese newspapers and Chinese schools.
As for the MCP, the question had to be “viewed from an historical perspective”.
The PRC had always supported “liberation movements” to free themselves from
colonial oppression. But only support from inside the country, and not support
from the PRC, could make such a movement succeed. Therefore, if countries of
Southeast Asia and China had a forward-looking view, relations could be
improved and they could have diplomatic relations.
Since 1969 China had required overseas Chinese who visited China to apply
for visas, where previously they had been allowed free entry. They had decided
it was not possible to have their cake and eat it. If they wanted normal
diplomatic relations with the countries of Southeast Asia that had Chinese
populations, they had to give up their principle of 
jus sanguinis
(the law of the
blood), that any person descended from a Chinese father was automatically a
Chinese national.
In October 1971 our permanent representative at the United Nations, when
voting for the admission of the PRC, said, “There is one China and that Taiwan
is a part of China … It follows therefore that the Taiwan question is an internal
matter to be settled by the Chinese peoples including those of Taiwan.” But we
still did not have official exchanges with the PRC. After the Malaysian
government established relations with the PRC in May 1974, I thought it was
time for Singapore to initiate formal contacts with the PRC government. I agreed
to Raja’s visiting China in March 1975.
We believed that uppermost in Chinese minds was Singapore’s relations with
their bitter adversary, the Soviet Union. Qiao Guanhua, the Chinese deputy
foreign minister, had met Raja in October 1974 at the UN, and asked about
Russian ships repaired in Singapore. Raja explained that we did not discriminate
against any country that wanted to have its ships repaired; we were an open port.
But he assured Qiao that we would not allow Singapore to be used for
subversive activities against neighbouring countries, and our neighbours
included China. Raja repeated this position to Zhou Enlai when they met, adding
that as our neighbours were hypersensitive over Singapore’s Chinese majority,

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we would establish diplomatic relations with China only after Indonesia had
done so. We had to avoid any suspicion that Singapore was influenced by
kinship ties with China. Premier Zhou said China respected Singapore as an
independent state. We had a more compelling reason which they might have
guessed; we wanted to first weed out communist subversives in our Chinese
middle schools and Nanyang University. We also needed time to reduce the
number of those born in China and vulnerable to chauvinist appeals who were in
positions of influence in various associations including the Chinese Chamber of
Commerce. We had seen how susceptible the China-born were to pulls of
sentiment and blood.
Premier Zhou sent me an invitation to visit China through Thailand’s
Premier Kukrit Pramoj who visited Beijing in June 1975. I did not respond. In
September 1975, when I was visiting the Shah in Teheran, his prime minister,
Hoveida, also conveyed Premier Zhou’s invitation to me, adding that time was
short. I took this to mean that I should come soon if we were to meet; there had
been numerous press reports of Zhou being in hospital for long periods. I
decided to go. But before we could settle on a date in May 1976, Zhou died. We
announced the proposed visit in mid-April. A few days later Raja restated the
government’s position, that Singapore would be the last Asean country to
exchange diplomatic representations with China.
This trip to China was my most thoroughly discussed and prepared foreign
visit. We knew from other delegations that the Chinese were systematic and
would probe every member of the delegation for information. We settled a
common line on key issues for all senior members of my delegation. First, the
question of recognition and diplomatic relations: we could not change our basic
position, that we would move only after Indonesia had established relations; we
had to be the last in Asean. Second, Soviet activities in Singapore: we would not
allow the Soviet Union to engage in any anti-China activity, but as a free
economy we had allowed the Soviets to open a branch of their Moscow Narodny
Bank to conduct trade relations. The Chinese feared the Russians were buying
the support of Chinese business leaders. We decided to assure the Chinese that
we did not view a strong China with suspicion. We were neither pro-Soviet
Union nor pro-China. We were pro-West because that was in the interest of
Singapore and its neighbours. We were fully aware of Soviet activities in
Singapore and the region and would keep such activities under close watch.
We expected them to push for liaison offices or trade representatives and
decided to make it clear that this had to wait until they had established similar

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offices in Jakarta. However, we would concede one PRC representative of the
Bank of China to work in its Singapore branch. While we wanted to encourage
them to expand their trade with Singapore and were willing to allow relatively
innocuous cultural and sports exchanges like ping-pong and basketball teams or
acrobatic troupes, we did not want to hold out any false hopes for more, nor
should we antagonise the Soviet Union. On Taiwan, we would reaffirm our
policy of recognising only one China, namely the PRC. Most important of all, as
we expected them to characterise Singapore as “kinsmen country”, we decided
to emphasise our distinctiveness and separateness from them.
I asked for a lengthy visit to see as much of China as possible. They fixed it
for 10–23 May 1976. To make doubly sure that no one doubted we were not
going in as kinsmen Chinese, we had in our 17-member delegation a Jaffna
Tamil foreign minister (Rajaratnam) and a Malay parliamentary secretary
(Ahmad Mattar), who would be present at all meetings which would be
conducted in English.
There was no direct flight from Singapore to Beijing. We flew to Hong
Kong, took the train to Lo Wu at the border with China, and walked across the
frontier to board the Chinese special train for Canton. That afternoon we were
flown in their British-built Trident to Beijing where a welcome ceremony
awaited us at the airport. I inspected a guard of honour mounted by units of the
People’s Liberation Army, the navy and the air force after the PLA band played
the Singapore and Chinese national anthems. Then some 2,000 schoolgirls in
colourful costumes waved Singapore and Chinese paper flags and flowers,
chanting