Updated: Blood Sand?

(Pix source: Singapore's Ministry of Foreign Affairs)

Singapore is truly pragmatic in its foreign policy. The Straits Times on April 3 played up the story that Myanmar is offering to be a long-term supplier of sand and other key building materials to Singapore.

But what has not been analysed is the expected balance of benefits in such a deal with a rogue state like Myanmar. Sand is no basic commodity in Singapore. Singapore needs plenty of land sand for its construction sector and an equally substantial amount of sea sand for its on-going land reclamation works to enlarge the physical island. But it is in short supply in Singapore following the ban on the sale of land and sea sand to Singapore by traditional suppliers Malaysia and Indonesia in the last decade. Please see earlier postings.

Therefore, Singapore is likely to take up the Myanmar offer, which is likely to come at a premium. It's probably a done deal. Diplomats don't make such announcements unless they are quite certain of the outcome.

What will Myanmar want in return? According to the Singapore MFA statement, Lieutenant-General Thein Sein, First Secretary of Myanmar's ruling State Peace and Development Council, "encouraged" more Singapore companies to invest in Myanmar.

We can definitely expect some big Singapore investments flowing to Myanmar as part of the quid pro quo with the junta regime. What is conspicuously absent in the short news report is Myanmar's status as a pariah state and the political implications of the sand deal. Singapore Patriot has mentioned some of the things I wanted to say.

Will the Myanmar sand deal be awkward for Asean? The deal with Myanmar is also coming at a time when Singapore will assume the Asean chairmanship in August this year. The grouping still can't agree on a right approach to deal with junta regime, which has hijacked democracy and refused to free iconic leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Is Singapore acting purely on its self interest, or will it be enlightened enough to use the opportunity to convince the Myanmar generals to release Aung with promises of a balance of benefits?

If successful, Singapore will earn plenty of brownie points in the international arena. It would achieve what former Malaysian Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad and others failed to accomplish.

Konfrontasi Again

While Singapore is sorting out its problems in the region, its two immediate neighbours -- Indonesia and Malaysia -- are having bigger headaches.

They have yet to fully resolve the competing claims over an oil-rich area off Borneo and were almost on the brink of a war.

According to The Straits Times this week, the Indonesian Parliament has called for a tough line on reported Malaysian military incursions, with two MPs saying Malaysians on the wrong side of a disputed border should be shot. This is definitely an escalation of earlier rhetoric.

'Once in a while we need to shoot them,' said Mr Soeripto, a member of the parliamentary commission on defence and foreign affairs at a hearing with Defence Minister Juwono Sudarsono and armed forces chiefs at the House of Representatives yesterday.

'Don't be afraid if something escalates from the shooting. We have four million volunteers who are prepared to die,' he was quoted as saying by news portal Detikcom.

The meeting was called to discuss the latest flare up in the border spat with Malaysia over the disputed oil-rich region which the Indonesians call Ambalat, in the sea off Borneo.

He said that he deployed warships to drive the intruders out, but added that the Malaysian navy also entered Indonesian waters around Ambalat 35 times last year.

The dispute over Ambalat took a turn for the worse two years ago, when Malaysia's state oil company Petronas awarded an oil concession to a subsidiary of oil giant Shell in an area where Indonesia had been granting oil concessions.

There was a standoff in the disputed area a month later, almost pushing both sides to the brink of war but tensions eased after they agreed to settle the dispute diplomatically.

We can definitely see Konfrontasi all over again should Indonesia lose its claim over Ambalat. Indonesia is still seething over the loss of two tiny islands near Ambalat in the Celebes Sea -- Sipadan and Ligitan -- to Malaysia in a legal battle in 2002.

No wonder Indonesia is so protective of its territory and its sand although it has over 17,000 islands.

PS: The Malaysia-Indonesia border dispute had translated into cyber warfare, according to this interesting article. The Indonesian phrase "Ganyang Malaysia" or "Crush Malaysia" -- used during Indonesia's resistance towards the creation of Malaysia in the 1960s -- had been used to deface some Malaysian websites. So far, there's no known instance of "Ganyang Singapura" in Singapore cyberspace.

NewSand?

There is finally a hint that Singapore, which is starved of many natural resources, may have found a solution to overcome the sand ban by its two closest neighbours.

There is a brief mention of the so-called NewSand today in a column in the pro-government The Straits Times, which analyses the current bad blood between Singapore and its neighbours:

After all, just look at how the Republic responded to the relentless Malaysian threats to curb its water supply. It came up with Newater, which some mocked or scoffed at initially, but which is now a multi-million-dollar industry, with Singapore's know-how now sought after from Australia to the Middle East.

Perhaps next will come NewSand, a synthetic equivalent which some are already talking about as the next adversity-turned-to-advantage answer to a shortage, not just in Singapore but elsewhere too, such as in China with its can't-get-enough construction boom.

Is it said in jest? Or is there really a substitute to the crucial building block of many societies? Will there be revelation of NewSand when the Singapore Parliament sits on Monday? Four MPs will ask questions on the implications of Indonesia's decision to ban sand exports last month, according to ST today. Singapore was the biggest buyer of Indonesian sand.

Whatever the real situation or solution, a line will clearly be drawn in the sand.

Letter from Singapore

By Uncle Cheng

Singapore may not seem the most obvious place for Hong Kong people to choose for a holiday but that is where I found myself for family reasons last Christmas and new year. It was a revealing experience and I kept on making comparisons in my mind between Singapore and Hong Kong.

The first thing I learnt, and which becomes obvious in discussions with Singaporeans, is that Singapore is on the verge of an economic boom. After years of slow growth there is great optimism that new government policies are lifting both the economy and peoples’ spirits.

Property prices are rising markedly, foreign bankers are flooding in, huge public infrastructure projects are underway, and investment capital is streaming into local bank accounts from such local nations as Indonesia and even from distant Europe. Suddenly all the ingredients for economic growth are looking good.

One of my sources is a nephew of mine who is in a favourable position to know such things as his work keeps him in close touch with business and economic prospects in Singapore and the nearby region. I was especially interested to hear him explain how the government’s decision to reverse decades of anti-gambling policy and licence two super-casinos has transformed the economic horizon. It reminded me of how Macau’s economic fortunes were totally transformed by the decision to end the old casino monopoly and open the gambling market to virtually open competition.

One argument always used by people who oppose casinos is that they attract crime, triad activity and get poor people into financial difficulty. But as everyone knows the Singapore government has always prided itself on its low crime rate and its very tough treatment of all criminal behaviour. How, I wondered, will the government be able to square its anti-crime reputation with the new casinos. Well, as usual, Singapore has thought the issue through and announced a range of measures which it says will keep the casinos free of crime.

Yet despite its great wealth, efficient government and highly disciplined society Singapore’s miniscule size remains its greatest disadvantage. You cannot flex impressive muscles when you are a dwarf. The city state’s prosperity has to depend on the friendliness of its neighbours.

No neighbour is more crucial than Malaysia for it is from there that Singapore imports fresh water and daily foodstuffs, especially vegetables. It reminds me of Hong Kong’s dependence on the Mainland for the same things. Incidentally, the worst floods in the state of Johor for many years threaten large increases in Singapore vegetable prices through the lunar new year.

An irritating problem between Singapore and Malaysia has been the disagreement about a bridge to replace the existing solid earth Causeway. When no agreement could be reached about the proposed bridge which Malaysia favoured, the Malaysian government decided to spend millions on building new extravagant immigration facilities at its border. As Malaysia had made the case for an overhead bridge, which would have opened up the waterway to small shipping, Singapore hesitated and raised other issues such as the sale of sand and the use of Malaysian air space. Indeed the bridge became such a prickly issue that at one stage Malaysia came up with the bizarre suggestion that the bridge should be built without Singapore's approval. Presumably that would result in the bridge stopping in mid-air at the Singapore border!

Next week I will continue my look at Singapore and in particular I will make some comparisons between Hong Kong and Singapore — comparisons that, I regret to say, are not favourable to Hong Kong.

Sophie's note: Please see Singapore's marketing pitch for Marina Bay, the centrepiece of the Lion City.

Singapore Besieged

fairypoint

Singapore has probably never felt so besieged.

Indonesia is the latest neighbour to be cross with the tiny island nation after squabbles with Malaysia and Thailand.

Yesterday, Jakarta Post and other Indonesian papers reported the Indonesian government's decision to ban the sale of land sand, which effectively deprives Singapore the bulk of its sand needs for construction jobs. Singapore is the biggest user of Indonesian sand.

Price of land sand in Singapore will shoot up overnight although the Singapore government is set to release its stockpile of sand to help cap sand price. This is probably the first time that Singapore has publicly said it has a stockpile of sand to deal with contingency. With such meticulous long-term planning, it is not inconceivable that Singapore has massive stockpiles of other essential items like water, oil, gas, rice, sugar and many other seemingly mundane things in life.

Back to the Indonesian ban on sand. The Indonesian move is ostensibly due to environmental concerns but there is also a lingering feeling that it is payback time over the haze issue. The two countries had a diplomatic spat when Singapore raised the perennial Indonesian haze problem, which was driving away investors from the region, at the United Nation last October.

With the latest ban, Singapore won't be able to buy any sand -- land sand (used for concrete in building construction) and sea sand (used for reclamation works) -- from either Indonesia and Malaysia.

Former Malaysian premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad had banned the sale of all types of sand to Singapore during the crisis days in the 1990s. Singapore then turned to Indonesia for land sand as there was still a Indonesian ban on the sale of sea sand, which must be dredged from the seabed.

The Malaysian sand issue cropped up again during the failed talks between Singapore and Malaysia to jointly build a bridge to replace the causeway linking the two countries. As part of the deal, Singapore had wanted the right to buy Malaysian sand and use its airspace.

It was no go for Malaysia, which then scrapped the bridge project completely. The decision incensed Dr Mahathir, who felt that Malaysia had the right to build its half of the bridge, with or without Singapore's nod. He was also upset that Malaysia had even entertained the idea of selling sand to Singapore despite his earlier ban. The sand issue is just the tip of the iceberg in Malaysia-Singapore bilateral ties.

Of course, Singapore is still sorting out the mess in Thailand.