3 - Cambodia-Singapore Synergy: A Paradigm for Cooperation and Connectivity

Summary

INTRODUCTION

When I reflected upon my links with Cambodia and my credentials for writing this essay, I realised that I had spent one third of my working career in the Singapore Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1969 to 2002) concentrating on Cambodian issues. Firstly, I was sent on my initial field posting to Phnom Penh (1974–75). It was an introduction to diplomatic operations in the midst of war, in a collapsing nation run by an ineffectual leader, General Lon Nol. Months later, I became the last Charge d'Affaires of Singapore as our mission had to be closed down and evacuated in March 1975, through the kindness and cooperation of the Australian government, via a military plane, as by then no civilian flights were available.

Secondly, when Vietnam invaded Cambodia in December 1978, this event triggered off a decade-long diplomatic struggle by Singapore and other ASEAN countries to find a peaceful diplomatic solution to the Cambodian problems. Whether in my postings in New York or in Paris, as the Deputy Permanent Representative of Singapore to the United Nations or Counsellor in Paris, the Cambodia issue dominated our work and efforts at lobbying, information-seeking, reporting, conferring, speech writing, etc. The long awaited resolution came in the Paris Peace Conference on Cambodia, in October 1991. By then, the international situation was conducive to an international solution: first, the collapse of the USSR, the backer of Vietnam, had convinced Hanoi that there was no longer any economic or diplomatic support available from Moscow; Hanoi was motivated to seek rapprochement with China, and began some troop withdrawals from Cambodia; France began to see diplomatic opportunity and signs of hope for successful diplomatic negotiations to the Cambodian problems, and the US supported UN involvement, which eventually became the UNTAC mission in 1993, to supervise general elections in Cambodia.

Thirdly, Cambodia has now in the twilight of my life, again resurfaced in the context of my research work at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore. The issue that I now wish to discuss in 2011 is how Cambodia can tap the developmental experience of Singapore, via connectivity and synergy, so as to catalyze Cambodian socio-economic development. Within 20 years, by 2030, hopefully, Cambodia will have developed enough to attain the level of a mid-level developing country, with GDP per capita around US$3,000.