Bayonet

I can’t help but suspect the Chinese are doing their flaunting in the South China Sea (SCS) at least partially because we can’t drop an MM and FM on them any more.

Not to say that either LKY or George Yeo could actually had told Beijing what to do (I figure no one can). But if either of them had been in Cabinet, the Chinese would had figured that any such provocative act on their part would had resulted in either Lee or Yeo calling their Foreign Ministry with some choice words.

And it’s kind of hard to fob either of them off, because one’s just so nasty and the other’s just so nice. I mean, the way this stuff works is that just calling Beijing alone doesn’t guarantee that they’ll pick the phone up. But no one in East Asia can say no to a phone call from LKY, and you know what sort of bollocking you’ll get if you do pick it up.

Again, I’m not saying that those two ministers are such massive heavyweights they can influence Beijing’s strategic calculations. I’m just saying decisions become much easier to make when you know you don’t have to deal with angry folks you can’t simply ignore or wish away. Not least because you actually like and respect them to begin with.

Well Beijing bet wrong. I like how Singapore was able to rebuke those Mainlanders simply by reasserting our neutrality. When even your most buddy-buddy and only Chinese-majority pal in the region refuses to welcome your little jaunt through the neighbourhood, you know there’s never going to be a clearer sign (without being outright adversarial or confrontational) that your behaviour is reaching unacceptable levels.

At the end of the day the above doesn’t really matter when weighing the present circumstances anyway. Just some daydream speculation on my part that doesn’t count for anything.

By the way I am extremely displeased how everyone is overlooking the fact that this is our first urgent diplomatic tangle since the election and installation of the new faces at the Foreign Ministry. They’ve done a brilliant job of it so far too. Where’s the credit?

Oh right they’re PAP so they must totally be pro-China lapdogs and that’s precisely how they behaved never fucking mind the facts when they disagree with the anointed version of the story they can disregarded and ridiculed as PAP propaganda. How can I forget. This is the Singapore netizen community I’m talking about, and the idiotic PAP PR which has no fuck idea on how to legitimately milk a real success. Also, how dare I suggest a PAP minister could get anything right, and be anything aside from an overpaid thumb-sucking moron with no backbone? I must be either daft, a foreigner, or from the PAP Internet Brigade! What an identity crisis!

On a much lighter note……

Hey guess what! I think George Yeo has employment again!

No, seriously. Think about it. He engineered the first ever ASEAN condemnation of the junta in Myanmar. Well granted that’s not really much at the ground level, but it’s a huge diplomatic victory to drag insurgency-ridden Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, Philippines and Vietnam to agree. Over the heads of the Chinese too. He pulled that off, he has the best shot of anyone to at least soothe the SCS for now.

Better still if he has Tommy Koh to lend him a hand. That’s the former Chairman of the UN Conference on the Law of the Sea right there, in case you didn’t know. With luck this will never go before the ICJ. Even if the Chinese have withdrawn from the charter, there may still be a good chance of a reasonable negotiation framework.

Make George Yeo the chairman of a committee or panel or whatever to smooth the affairs of the SCS, with representatives of course from the relevant parties. Tommy Koh can fill in as a special advisor or something. We’ve already established our neutrality anyway, and no one can (openly) object to our insistence on freedom of navigation. I mean, if we don’t do the something as a region, then we’ll end up counting on the US to do everything, and those cowboys only know to use carriers and guns, so……

Even if the whole idea turns out to be a flop, at least then we’ll know for sure that Beijing’s genuinely disinterested in talking.

Besides, George Yeo’s not running for President anymore (I am extremely amused at how quickly his niche in public consciousness has gone from “ex-Foreign Minister” to “potential President” to the extent that no one else has pointed out he’s available to take on this mammoth challenge). Here’s a way to stay active and relevant. Who knows, give him a decade, UN SEC-GEN might not be an impossibility.

Piaroh-Cze:

Just smile and wave boys, just smile and wave.

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