BEYOND SG

A new Cold War?

I heard an analyst on the BBC this morning that Russia's recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia independence was 'payback time' for American and European recognition of Kosovo's independence. But it was Georgia's President Saakashvili action in South Ossetia which gave Russia the reason to make this move. The BBC then reported British Foreign Secretary David Milliband's visit to Kiev where President Yuschenko has taken a strong position against Russia. Yuschenko wants Ukraine to join NATO. Russia is of course very unhappy about this. Western outrage against Russia and Russia's own grievance against the West are feeding each other. Are we seeing the beginning of a new Cold War?

Russia's FM Sergey Lavrov wrote in an op ed piece recently that the West has to choose between Russia and Georgia. Although he did not say it, everyone knows that Ukraine is far more important to Russia than Georgia. Many Russians live in the Ukraine especially in the Crimean region. We are not talking abstract principles here but realpolitik. A new US Administration will have to decide how to manage its relations with a new Russia that is flushed with money from oil and gas.

Although the Soviet Empire is no more, it would be a mistake to disregard the legitimate strategic interests of Russia. Without Russia, many problems in the world cannot be properly managed. The Russians are after all a great people. One has only to recall Russia's achievement in literature, music, science, mathematics and other fields.

George Yeo

Speech by Minister George Yeo a the Oxbridge Society-Cambridge Chapter Garden Party

SPEECH BY MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS GEORGE YEO
AT THE OXBRIDGE SOCIETY-CAMBRIDGE CHAPTER
GARDEN PARTY ON 23 AUG 2008
AT 5.00 PM AT HORT PARK

1 I am delighted to join all of you here this afternoon to celebrate the 800th Anniversary of Cambridge University and to support the University's fund-raising campaign.

2 The Singapore Cambridge alumni number about a thousand. This is only an estimate given to me. We belong to an ancient university with a proud tradition that has produced great men like Erasmus, Newton, Wordsworth, Darwin, JJ Thomson, Russel, Wittgenstein, Rutherford, Dirac, Keynes, Crick, Toynbee, Needham, Brenner and Hawking. These men became great because of their contributions to the progress of human knowledge and civilization.

3 Those of us who had the privilege of being educated in Cambridge have a responsibility to make our own individual contributions to society. For this reason, it is right that the celebration of the 800th Anniversary should also include a fund-raising effort to help Cambridge maintain its "edge in excellence".

4 Our contributions can be big or small. What is important is that we should have an affection for the University and be imbued with a sense of responsibility for its continued well-being. Monumental achievements can have very humble beginnings.

5 Cambridge itself had a humble beginning 800 years ago when a small group of students fled from Oxford. For those of you who have not read the history or who have forgotten it, let me read the first few lines from F A Reeve's account:

"The dates when students first apeared in Oxford and Cambridge are uncertain, but it is known that by 1200 there was, at Oxford, a group of scholars organised on the lines of the university of Paris. There may also have been teachers and students in Cambridge by this time. In 1209, during one of the frequent disturbances, a townswoman of Oxford was killed, allegedly by students. The mayors and burgesses, finding that those believed to be responsible had fled, seized hostages, and King John gave the townsmen leave to execute them. The other students took fright and many left Oxford for Reading, Paris, and Cambridge.

"Those who arrived in Cambridge found a town much older than Oxford. There had been an unfortified Belgic settlement on the high ground at Castle Hill, probably abandoned in AD 43, when a Roman fort was established."

6 In Singapore, we now have a sizeable alumni of students from Cambridge and Oxford, more and more of whom have taken on positions of high responsbility. Many of us were sponsored by the government and other public agencies. We meet from time to time but mostly to have fun, like boatrace dinners and to recount our university days with nostalgia. This is natural as we have pleasant memories of the time we spent there. But that is not enough. We must also help our alma mater and we also owe a special duty to Singapore. It is because of Singapore that many of us are privileged to have had an Oxbridge education. We must never lose this sense of obligation to our own people whether we are Singaporean or citizens ofother countries.

7 I think it is nice that we are establishing a separate chapter for Cambridge alumni in the Singapore Oxbridge Society because Cambridge is our primary affiliation. Reading Simon Winchester's recent book on Joseph Needham, "The Man Who Loved China", I felt myself being transported back to the University milieu, to my undergraduate days in the 70's when Joseph Needham and Joan Robinson were active in the Society for Anglo-Chinese Understanding or SACU. China was then still recovering from the chaos of the Cultural Revolution. Even then Needham was optimistic that China would recover its greatness and lived to see the great transformation now taking place. His monumental work, Science and Civilization in China, has changed forever the way the rest of the world looks at China. Winchester wrote about the Chinese characters which were beside the fireplace in Needham's old college room, which he thought should be Needham's memorial for decades if not for centuries: 人去留影 (The Man departs - there remains his Shadow). That is something each of us from that tradition should strive to attain.

George Yeo

Photos from Dominic Soon, with thanks!

Minister Yeo's speech at the Indonesia National Day reception

REMARKS BY MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS GEORGE YEO AT THE RECEPTION TO CELEBRATE INDONESIA'S
63RD INDEPENDENCE DAY (19 AUGUST 2008)

Ambassador Wardana,
Your Excellencies,
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

1. I am delighted to join Ambassador Wardana and all of you this evening for the celebration of Indonesia's 63rd Independence Day.

2. Indonesia is Singapore's immediate neighbour and a very close friend. When Indonesia fought for independence against the Dutch, there were many supporters in Singapore and Singapore was a base for some of the independence fighters. Indonesian nationalism inspired Malayan nationalism which included Singapore, although there was a clash of nationalisms in the early 60's.

3. After 1965, under the leadership of President Soeharto, a new regional spirit developed which led to the establishment of ASEAN in 1967 and since then Indonesia has been the anchor of ASEAN. Last year, ASEAN celebrated its 40th Anniversary with the signing of the Charter.

4. Bilaterally, the relations between Singapore and Indonesia are excellent. Our political relations are founded on shared strategic interests in regional integration and an ASEAN that is neutral and friendly to all the major powers. Our economic relations are deep and broad. We are each other's most important source of visitors. Culturally, we share much in common and there is a strong reflection of Indonesia in Singapore. At the individual level, our leaders and ministers know each other well. There has always been much inter-marriage between our peoples.

5. With devolution in Indonesia, Singapore's links with the provinces of Indonesia are also growing in an organic way, especially with those close to Singapore. I am happy to announce that later this year, we will be opening a Consulate in Batam because of our expanding relations with Batam, Bintan and Karimun.

6. Ambassador, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, on this happy celebration of Indonesia's Independence, it gives me great pleasure to propose a toast to His Excellency the President of the Republic of Indonesia.

George Yeo

Well done! Team Singapore!

I do not have a habit of watching sports. I often feel that the idea of a few individuals representing the masses is quite misguided because hey if Beckham is good, it REALLY has nothing to do with you despite how many Manchester United stuff you don. If Man-U wins, I don't see how it translates to your well being. You dont get richer unless you take side bets. The girls won't find you a micro shade more attractive. The boss will give you the same workload. Ops I just offended 1/4 of the male population in Singapore. This is just a personality quirk. None of my hedge fund partners at Foundation Capital watches sports but they are very active sportsmen. Besides, we often joke that Man-U and Liverpool have the best branding names in history because you can pronounce their names. Imagine Man-U is called Manchaustenlbrokwosky. You need more brain cells to be able to pronounce complicated words. After all, one of the most successful French wines is named Fat Bastard. No kidding. It is not from the Austin Powers movie. It is a very successful product. Check Google.

But when it comes to Singapore Olympic's bid for a medal, I guess I have to break my own rule. It is indeed uplighting to watch the Singapore flag being raised and our athletes standing on the podium. Many of my Malaysian friends laughed good-humouredly and said that last night's Table Tennis match is China versus China as our team were all born in China. Fair point but in today's context - it is a cosmopolitan world. The best cities will attract the talents and larger populations will have their natural advantage called Law of Large Numbers. There will be an aquaman Michael Phelp in a large country. There will be a tall giant Yao Ming from another large country. Where they decide to train their talents - that is another issue.

No matter how we look at it. The Beijing Olympics is a proud and fun event for all Asians. Not only China did well. But Asians did well too. Our Malaysian friends got a silver at the Badminton. Our girls in the Table Tennis Team got a silver too. Nice. Happy for all the winners!

Last night, my pal threw a "Watch the Singapore Team" party at his place. We all met in Boston quite a few years ago and I felt very grateful and happy because after all these years, we are still together. We devised many drinking games and excuses to consume alcohol. Whenever our team scored, we drank. Whenever Li Jia Wei did her angry pout or did a spin whenever she lost the ball, we drank. Whenever the Chinese team member did a technically perfect, Teminator-like attack, we drank. But we all kept quiet when the Singapore flag was raised. And everybody looked at the screen. Lets hope we are still around when the flag is raised again commented by my friend's wife. With the right incentives and world-class training facilities, i think we do not need to wait another 48 years for the next medal.

That is how we do things and let's celebrate and cheer our sporting heroes! Thanks Team Singapore! (let's not forget to thank the coaches, the associations, Tao Li, the unsung heroes - the aunties and uncles who clean the training facilities.. thats why it is called Team Singapore).

And yes I am a bit wrong about not watching sports. It can be fun among friends!

Harold Fock

Wow!

It is hard to recall or imagine a more spectacular performance than the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. All those who saw it on TV would have been impressed by the discipline, organisation and creativity of the Chinese people. As I watched the faces of world leaders in the stadium, I wondered what went through their minds. Zhang Yimou's production was so lavish, he must have been given a blank check. The fireworks that night were eye-popping.

This is an event which marks the arrival of China among the first rank of nations. Recalling the achievements of 5000 years of Chinese history makes this not only natural but almost inevitable. No ethnic Chinese could have watched TV that night without being filled with a deep sense of cultural pride. Joseph Needham would have observed all this without surprise.

It was nice that the crowds cheered all the national teams with gusto, the American and Japanese teams in particular. Singapore's team also received a warm response although Singaporeans must have been disappointed that the version we saw on TV did not show MM. China's theme of 'one world, one dream' fitted the times.

George Yeo

At the Singapore National Day Parade 2008- a flashback in time, flying rubbish bags and a cool Sergeant Major

I was one of the lucky 27,000 people who got tickets to the National Day parade. (Thank for the tickets!!!) Amazingly, despite my grand old age at 39, I have never attended a single National Day parade until yesterday. Like many, I feel that television broadcast is good enough and I am not silly enough to brave the traffic and fight the human crowd. I do, on occasions, stand at home when the National Day anthem is played and recite the pledge (which is one of the coolest pledges in history - think about it.. which country adds "happiness" as  a worthy pursuit for a nation?) Techno geeks behave like that.

When I was a GESSIAN

The last time I was at the parade was as a participant when I was in Gan Eng Seng School (GESS). We were known as GESSIANs. We used to joke we were so good at scamming and guessing we dont even know how to spell GUESSIAN with a "u". As a businessman and fund manager now, I think we were prescient at that age :-)

We were in Secondary One when our principal, the super cool dude Mr Robert Tan - he was a statistical anomaly at that time because he was visionary cool and a real leader of men even when coolness was not invented yet, told us that our school was selected for the Youth Day Mass Display Performance and that means the National Day Performance too. We were the underdogs because we were an all boys school. We are too cool to hold props like flowers, silk strips and color-coded umbrellas. The designers at our school came up with this brilliant idea - as a boys school, we can rough it out on the Parade ground and we became the props. For months, we formed mass display items and did punishing routines like free fall pumping position and did all that stunts with John William's Star Wars theme. Is that cool or what? During the rehearsals, we did poorly because our costumes were not ready. The Youth Day organizers put us as an insert in the Mass Display item. As in all such occasions, the crowd pleasers are often placed in the opening item and the finale. We were the insert item. "Carelefare" in Cantonese speak.

When the costume arrived, space age and two tones - so that our star jumps, free falls, one hand flips and all the punishing routines becomes a computer-like pixel display. Each of us was the pixel. It was visually awesome. On both occasions, we were "moved up" to become the grand finale items. Best of all, it gave us the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to meet an alien specie called GIRLS. There were no cellphones numbers to exchange or facebook accounts to add. Meeting them were good enough.

Best Display Items

Back to the present. It is grander and more techno these days. I love the Silat segment most in which the traditional Malay self-defense art, Silat martial arts practitioners had their shadows projected on several silkscreen. It was stylishly done. And I was awed by the Black Knights. My daughter loved the fireworks and the inflatable hand gloves.

Unforgettable NDP Moments

My NDP unforgettable moments came after the parade.

This year the organizer came up with a smart way to encourage Singaporeans to bag up their rubbish, put it in a recyclable plastic bag and dump it in a big bin. And because there is a number tag, you may win yourself prizes. It is a truly smart and innovative way to encourage Singaporeans not to litter after the parade. Here is the ugly bit. As the crowd surge out of the exits, they realize there are quite far away from the bins and they started throwing their rubbish bags like basketballs over the heads of the crowd into the bins. And you can probably guess what happen. A few hit the poor folks walking next to the bins. I saw one aunty threw a week throw and it slammed onto a young man's face and she giggled and laughed and RAN away. I chased after her in the crowd and shouted at her to apologise to the young man. But my 3-year old daughter was with me and I could not reach. It is time like this you wish you had a Force-controlled Lightsaber... or Darth Vader's Invisible Choking powers :-)

But the golden moment came. At the road exit, I spotted a SAF Sergent Major ("Encik") standing proudly and wishing everybody good night as the people strolled out. I walked up to him and said the show was spectacular and thanked him. He beamed back with pride. It lifted my spirits.

In whatever society, there will be irresponsible humans who have little regards and lovingkindness for their fellow human beings. And yet there are shinning examples of people who take pride and do their duties to make their place a better home for all. On this National Day, I want to say thank you to each and everyone of you who make Singapore a better nation and home for all.

Harold Fock

My daughter getting excited when the parade started

The Marina Bay stage is beautiful as night falls.. wish I knew the singer's name, her vocal is good

The grand "finale"

   

The stage seen from my seating position...

The fireworks!

Happy National Day!

I've just celebrated Singapore's 43rd National Day at MFA this morning. It was a hectic year but we have easons to be grateful. For big and small things, Singapore is now a significant provider of aid and assistance to other countries. We do a lot behind the scene to build a stronger ASEAN and a more peaceful Asia.

On National Day morning itself, I'll join residents at Bedok Reservoir for flag raising and a nasi lemak breafast. This has become a little tradition for us.

Even though threatening clouds are gathering on the horizon, we have much to celebrate. I can never forget a side conversation with the Foreign Minister of Sierra Leone at the Commonwealth Meeting in Malta almost three years ago. He pointed out to me that in the early 60's, Sierra Leone and Singapore had the same per capita income! Stunned for a moment, I asked: what happened? Many in Africa are now studying the Singapore model to our surprise.

The last song we sang at MFA was Dick Lee's Home, which is my favourite.

George Yeo

The Man Who Loved China

The Man Who Loved China

I've just finished reading Simon Winchester's recently published book on the Cambridge scientist-historian Joseph Needham. It was such a good read, I took in as many pages as I could every spare moment I had in the last week - in the car, in the toilet, in bed while waiting for my wife to tuck in. I did not know that Needham had such a complicated marital life and was a nudist.

He had a profound influence on me since my Cambridge days in the 1970's. Two collections of his essays and speeches - Within the Four Seas and The Grand Titration - I had read more than once, providing interesting material for my own speeches. Science and Civilization in China was of course his lifework which I went through in the two-volume abridgement by Colin Ronan. I bought many volumes of the original years ago in Taiwan, cheap, all sitting pretty on my book shelf, all still unread. Last year, Dr Lee Seng Tee gave me the latest volume on Ceramics which was dedicated to him. A few days ago, I found out that Dr Lee's wife, Betty, had met Joseph Needham, his wife Dorothy and his Chinese mistress Lu Gwei-djen, twice before.

I saw the great man once, hair all white, at a distance in Cambridge when he was the Master of Gonville and Caius. He and Economics Professor Joan Robinson (who wrote Theory of Monopolistic Competition) were strong supporters of China even during the Cultural Revolution. They were the two leading lights of the Society for Anglo-Chinese Understanding (SACU).

Winchester's biography was written with great affection, not only for Needham but also for the Chinese people. In the last chapter, Winchester wrote:

"Within this (Chinese) framework of changelessness there is also, entirely discernible, something else that resists change - something that can only be described as an attitude. It is a Chinese state of mind, and one which outsiders - and all who are non-Chinese are very much outsiders here - may occasionally find infuriating and insufferable, but which certainly exists, and at no great depth beneath the Chinese skin. It is an attitude, one might argue, that has been born of the very achievement which Joseph Needham attempted to catalog and describe in his series of books. It is an attitude of ineluctable and self-knowing Chinese superiority, and it results from the antiquity and the longevity of the Chinese people's endeavors."

Beside the fireplace in Needham's old college room are the characters 人去留影. Winchester believes that this will be Needham's memorial "for decades, maybe for centuries".

George Yeo

Joseph Needham

Flickr Photo link:
Joseph Needham in Chinese robes

Solzhenitsyn

Alexander Solzhenitsyn's death marked the passing of an era. There is a certain pathos in his life which expressed the great drama of Mother Russia. He fought in the war against Hitler, suffered under Stalin's repression, was exiled first to the gulag, then out of the country, and returned to be honoured by a new Russia, only to be subsequenty ignored. As a student, I read 'One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich' and 'The Gulag Archipelago', both depressing accounts of life during the Stalinist era.

Like an Old Testament prophet, the full meaning of his life will only be appreciated long after he has passed away. Russia is vast and forbidding. Everything about it is writ large, the many time zones from Europe to Kamchatka, the extremes of climate, the scale of its victories and defeats, the strengths and weaknesses of its leaders. In Russian music and literature, there is an epic quality reflecting the intensity of Russian history. Solzhenitsyn follows in the tradition of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky.

George Yeo

Alexander Solzhenitsyn