From Third World to First The Singapore Story pdfdrive com

24. Ties with Australia and New Zealand
Japan’s sudden invasion in December 1941 dramatically changed Australia’s
memories of Singapore. Some 18,000 of its troops with no combat experience,
together with 70,000 British and Indians, had to fight without adequate air cover
against a battle-hardened Japanese Imperial Army. By the time Singapore fell in
February 1942 about 2,000 Australians had been killed, over 1,000 wounded and
some 15,000 captured.
More than one-third of the prisoners of war died from malnutrition, disease
and ill-treatment, especially along the infamous Burma Railway. Many
gravestones stand at the Kranji Commonwealth War Cemetery in Singapore,
mute testimony to their sacrifice for king and country. The capture of thousands
of their soldiers by the Japanese Imperial Army in Singapore will forever be
seared into Australia’s national memory, a disaster second only to Gallipoli. But
Singapore is nearer home and strategically more relevant to Australia. Hence,
after World War II, Australia continued its old links with Britain and its troops
returned to Singapore to help put down communist insurgency in Malaya.
An Australian contingent was stationed in Malaya until Britain announced its
withdrawal from east of Suez. I urged Australia’s Prime Minister John Gorton to
stay on in Malaya. While in London in January 1969 for a Commonwealth prime
ministers’ conference, Gorton held a preliminary meeting with British Defence
Minister Denis Healey, New Zealand Prime Minister Keith Holyoake, the Tunku
and myself to discuss new defence arrangements for Malaysia and Singapore.
Gorton was highly strung. His fidgeting and voice showed he was not keen to
take on this responsibility, which he knew would fall mainly on Australian
shoulders as the British would be phasing themselves out of the region.
We agreed to postpone the decision to our next meeting, in Canberra that
June. But in May violent communal riots broke out in Kuala Lumpur,
jeopardising Australia’s continued participation in defence arrangements for
Malaysia and Singapore. I have described earlier how this was resolved.
Gorton’s doubts notwithstanding, we agreed on the Five-Power Defence

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Arrangement (FPDA) by an exchange of letters in December 1971. His more
stout-hearted defence minister, Malcolm Fraser, was against any backing off as a
result of communal riots in Kuala Lumpur. In the end Gorton decided to
withdraw his forces from Malaya before 1971 and move them to Singapore. The
Australians feared their capabilities might not be adequate for the
responsibilities. They knew that only a small contingent from New Zealand
would remain with them in Singapore. Their only source of comfort in a crisis
was the United States, through ANZUS, the Australia, New Zealand, US treaty.
From the beginning, we had close rapport with both the Australian and New
Zealand governments because there was a convergence of views on regional
security; the Vietnam War was getting difficult. I had easy relations with Harold
Holt and his successors, John Gorton and William McMahon. In 1972 Labor
governments came into power in both New Zealand and Australia. Prime
Minister Norman Kirk had a sturdy approach to security issues and did not
change New Zealand’s defence position. But Australia’s prime minister, Gough
Whitlam, was uneasy about his country’s defence commitments both in Vietnam
and in Malaya/Singapore. He decided soon after he won the 1972 election to
withdraw his troops in Singapore from the FPDA.
In the 1970s, when we first asked Australia for permission to use their
training areas for military exercises, they were not forthcoming. New Zealand,
on the other hand, readily agreed. Australia changed its policy in 1980, allowing
us to have land exercises, and in 1981, air force training at an RAAF base. When
Paul Keating was Australia’s Labor prime minister in the early 1990s, he went
further and allowed expansion of Singapore Armed Forces training in Australia.
John Howard’s Liberal-National coalition government has continued this policy.
Australia’s geo-strategic goals are similar to Singapore’s. We both view a US
military presence in the region as vital for maintaining the balance of power in
the Asia Pacific region and good for security and stability, without which the
rapid economic growth of the region would not have taken place. Viewed
against this larger backdrop, our differences over trade and other matters were
insignificant.
I spent years trying to persuade Malcolm Fraser to open up Australia’s
economy to competition and become part of the region. I had explained to him
and his minister for foreign affairs, Andrew Peacock, that they had made
Australia an important player in the region through their active involvement in

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defence and security and their aid programmes. But their protectionist economic
policies cut them off from these growing economies which could not export
simple manufactures to Australia because of quotas and high tariffs.
Intellectually they accepted my arguments; politically Fraser did not have the
strength to oppose his unions or his manufacturers, both of whom wanted
protection.
At the Commonwealth Heads of Government Regional (Asia/Pacific)
Meeting (CHOGRM) in 1980 in New Delhi, Fraser was crusading against the
European Economic Community’s (EEC) protectionist policies which shut off
Australian agricultural exports. I cautioned him that he would gather little
support from the developing countries because they saw Australia resorting to
the same policies to protect its own industries that had lost their comparative
advantage. Furthermore, Australia would become increasingly irrelevant to
Asean countries because when they had to decide on major policies, Australia
did not appear on their balance sheets.
Succeeding Australian governments have brought their country closer to
Asia. Paul Keating, who became prime minister after Bob Hawke, was
convinced that economically Australia needed to plug into Asia, and personally
pushed a closer-to-Asia policy. With a good mind, a strong grasp of economics
and geopolitical sense, he had served as treasurer (finance minister) for many
years under Bob Hawke. But what he could do as a Labor Party prime minister
was limited by the powerful influence of the Australian trade unions over his
party.
One other minister who made a special effort to get closer to Asia was
Gareth Evans. He had a sharp mind and, when challenged, a sharper tongue, but
a good heart. As foreign minister under Hawke and Keating, Evans implemented
a radical change in foreign policy. He set out to make Australia a part of the
action in Asia, and so share in its economic growth. He did not want Australia to
remain just an exporter of raw materials to Japan while the Japanese made cars
and electronic products in Australia with Japanese technology. Evans developed
close personal relations with the Asean foreign ministers. This must have been
quite an effort because of their totally different habits. In Asean serious
differences were often resolved not across a table but in between hitting a golf
ball. So he chased the golf ball with them.
In the early years of Hawke’s Labor government, I thought his Asia policy
was yet another public relations effort. When Keating also pursued this policy, I
concluded this was a major policy shift. The Australians had revised their

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assumptions and assessments. They might have been an offshoot of Britain and
Europe, but their future was more with Asia. They saw that the economies most
complementary with theirs were those in East Asia. These countries – Japan,
South Korea, China, Taiwan and Asean – would need Australia’s agricultural
products and minerals and would also find its wide-open spaces, golf courses,
resorts and beaches great for holidays. America, although a powerful ally for
political and security reasons, would compete against Australia as an exporter of
agricultural products.
At a conference in Sydney organised by the