Introducing: The Singapore Forum

In early April, Singapore held its inaugural “Singapore Forum,” an event that the city-state hopes will provide a regular platform for political and business leaders in the Asia-Pacific to discuss regional challenges in the coming years.

The invitation-only forum, organized by the S Rajaratnam Endowment – created in honor of the country’s revered first foreign minister – is yet another addition to the region’s growing list of annual meets. These include the Kuala Lumpur Roundtable held in Malaysia, the Boao Forum for Asia in China, and the Shangri-la Dialogue in Singapore organized by the London-based International Institute of Strategic Studies.

Beyond facilitating dialogue, the Singapore Forum is intended to boost the city-state’s strategic relevance even further by cementing it as the center of conversation among Asian bigwigs. Much like Singapore has done by hosting the Shangri-la Dialogue in the security realm since 2002, it is now looking to brand the new Singapore Forum as a key regional forum politics and business issues. As Chairman of the Singapore Forum Advisory Board Wong Kan Seng put it, the country is looking to leverage the “neutral platform” that Singapore offers to facilitate an open exchange of different views on issues of common concern.

The theme of the inaugural Singapore Forum, which coincided with the 50th anniversary of the country’s independence, was “Asia and the World – New Growth, New Strategies.” The one-day conference, held at the Shangri-La Hotel, had three plenary sessions covering issues for the next phase of Asia’s growth, measures to strengthen regional economic cooperation, and ways to manage the potential and impact of technological advancements. Around 250 top leaders and thinkers were invited, and the sessions themselves featured prominent personalities such as Indonesia’s former trade minister Mari Pangestu and Infosys founder Narayana Murthy.

The discussion was at times quite frank. At the panel on regional integration, for instance, Malaysia’s Economic Planning Minister Abdul Wahid Omar reportedly admitted that while the momentum towards the much-ballyhooed ASEAN Economic Community has slowed recently, there was a need to adopt a “pragmatic approach” to allow some ASEAN states to proceed first while others could “hop onboard” at their own pace. Meanwhile, India’s former finance minister P. Chidambaram acknowledged bluntly that South Asia was “among the laggards” when it came to regional integration, partly due to the huge barriers between countries there.

The panel on Asia’s future featured participants from India, Thailand, China, Indonesia and Myanmar. Thai Energy Minister Narongchai Akrasanee bluntly made the case for a more “authority-oriented government” in Thailand for the next few years to keep stability and introduce reforms in the country, a democracy which has been ruled by the military following a coup last May. When Ji Peiding, a member of the foreign policy advisory group of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was asked how China could reassure other countries about its growing assertiveness, he offered a typical guarded response, noting that China’s future was intimately tied to the development and prosperity of Asia as a whole.

The remarks of Jin Liqun, the interim-head of China’s Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), were watched closely given outstanding questions about the new institution’s structure and operations. Jin told the Singapore Forum that the AIIB would be “lean, clean and green,” with a good and lean governance framework, a zero-tolerance stance against corruption and that it would promote the green and low-carbon economy. He also insisted that the AIIB was working well with existing institutions like the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, with both banks approaching the AIIB to offer assistance where possible.

The Forum also featured speeches by Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, Singapore Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam, and former Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. All three speeches touched on the question of the challenges to Asia’s rise. Lee’s speech on opening night focused on non-economic challenges, including rising nationalism, lingering territorial disputes, and terrorism in the wake of the rising Islamic State threat. In his lunch address the following day, Shanmugaratnam delved into some of the economic challenges, including the limits of the new mantra of focusing on domestic demand and the inadequacies of current educational approaches to keep up with the pace of technological change. Yudhoyono’s keynote address highlighted tensions among major powers as a worrying indicator, suggesting that the region should prepare for tougher times ahead.

It remains to be seen how the Singapore Forum will evolve in relation to the wide range of regional meetings and institutions. When IISS first conceived of the Shangri-La Dialogue in 2001, no one knew it would emerge over the years to be the premier inter-governmental security forum of its kind in the region. Singapore appears to be bullish about the Forum’s prospects. Wong, the Forum’s advisory board chairman, noted in a press release that there was value in that the discussions would be frank, forward-looking, and practical, and that they would be geared to focus on specific approaches, policies, and strategies needed to deepen regional cooperation.

Aside from that, Singapore has also done a lot of the legwork necessary to sustain the Forum over time. For example, it has appointed five prominent overseas members in the Singapore Forum’s nine-member advisory board. The stature of some of these men, including Long Yongyu, the former secretary general of the Boao Forum for Asia, and Chairul Tanjung, Indonesia’s former coordinating minister for economic affairs, will be useful in providing guidance to sustain the Singapore Forum as a platform for key decision-makers in Asia.

Of course, there will still be some skepticism in certain quarters about the need to establish yet another talk shop in Asia. As mentioned earlier, Singapore has been careful about branding the Singapore Forum as focusing more broadly on geostrategic, politico-economic, and governance issues that have an impact on regional development and stability, rather than the Shangri-La Dialogue, which is more narrowly focused on security, in order to make the case for it. Given the importance of these issues, Wong says, “definitely there is room for more than one forum to be held in Singapore.”