Asia – Clement Tan

March 29, 2025April 2, 2025

Predictability, stability are assets for small states in a changing world: President Tharman

By Clement Tan | March 28, 2025 | The Straits Times

LUXEMBOURG – Singapore will need to stay predictable and stable, while building deep expertise in some areas, to thrive in a changing world rife with uncertainties, said President Tharman Shanmugaratnam.

He was speaking to Singapore media towards the end of his six-day trip on state visits to Belgium and Luxembourg. Other than national leaders, he also met business leaders in Belgium from sectors ranging from offshore engineering to biomedical technology and sustainability, as well as financial sector leaders in Luxembourg.

“One thing that comes across very strongly in all the conversations we’ve had is that it is critical for us, as small countries especially, to be predictable, to be stable, and to always hold to our side of the bargain,” President Tharman told reporters.

“Singapore is not the cheapest place in Asia to do manufacturing or build ships or anything else, but their companies are making investments for the long term, and for them, it’s predictability and trust in Singapore that brings them to Singapore,” he said.

The first state visits by a Singapore leader to Belgium and Luxembourg come amid significant shifts in the world, with the Trump administration upending longstanding US commitments to the post-Cold War order and imposing trade tariffs on its closest allies.

March 25, 2025March 29, 2025

Belgian royals roll out the red carpet for President Tharman

By Clement Tan | March 24, 2025 | The Straits Times

BRUSSELS – Belgium’s King Philippe and Queen Mathilde received President Tharman Shanmugaratnam and his spouse, Mrs Jane Ittogi Shanmugaratnam, at the Royal Palace on March 24, marking the start of the first state visit by a Singaporean leader since bilateral relations were established nearly 59 years ago.

Arriving in a Mercedes-Benz car at the front plaza of the palace, flanked by members of the Belgian Royal Escort on horses and motorcycles, Mr Tharman inspected the military guard of honour before being ushered into the palace.

He also took part in a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, built in memory of Belgian soldiers who died during World War I, and met Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever.

President Tharman and Mr De Wever reaffirmed the longstanding ties between Singapore and Belgium, and discussed the strengthening of collaboration in areas such as maritime, innovation and sustainability.

September 4, 2024February 5, 2025

Polish Foreign Minister brings Ukraine rallying cry to South-east Asia

By Clement Tan | Sep 4, 2024 | The Straits Times

SINGAPORE – Two-and-a-half years after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Poland’s Foreign Affairs Minister Radek Sikorski’s exasperation is unmistakable.

“My frustration is that in some parts of the world, people don’t see this Russian aggression for what it is, which is a colonial attempt to regain its… former ‘colony’,” Mr Sikorski told The Straits Times in an interview on Sept 2, during his first official visit to Singapore in his second stint as his country’s chief diplomat.

United Nations member states had voted overwhelmingly to condemn Russia in the immediate aftermath of its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. However, deepening the support for Ukraine has proven a tougher sell outside of Europe and North America, as international attention was diverted by the Middle East crisis and intensifying US-China competition.

With their shared history of Russian control, Poland has been among Ukraine’s loudest and biggest advocates. If Mr Putin succeeds in Ukraine, the existential fear is that he would go on to invade and retake Poland and former Soviet territories such as Estonia, Georgia and Latvia.

July 12, 2023August 22, 2023

Thailand’s Parliament is about to pick a new prime minister — and a generation’s hopes are at stake

Clement Tan | July 12, 2023 | CNBC.com

Thailand’s Parliament will vote for a new prime minister on Thursday, and the country’s young and urban are about to find out whether their backing of a progressive opposition party at May’s elections will translate into genuine power.

Not too long ago, they were basking in the euphoria of the party’s stunning victory, priming themselves for democratic change and reform. Two months on, they are instead confronted with the sight of 79-year-old Wan Muhamad Noor Matha — very much considered a member of the old guard — as the “new” speaker of Thailand’s House of Representatives.

The young voters had propelled the Move Forward Party — led by the Harvard-educated, 42-year-old Pita Limjaroenrat — to an unprecedented majority of the seats in Parliament after nine years of military rule, but this was too slim for the party to push forward its own candidates, forcing it into a coalition with seven other parties.

Move Forward had campaigned on an ambitious structural reform agenda targeting the country’s monarchy, monopolies and military. These aims essentially extended the goals of student protests more than two years ago that were triggered by the dissolution of a political party — Move Forward’s predecessor entity — which was highly critical of outgoing Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, the former military general who seized power in a 2014 coup and made changes to the Thai Constitution in 2017.

Its slim majority has made its agenda vulnerable to the machinations of the institutions it is seeking to reform, along with the interlocking patronage networks that remain despite the ouster of several influential business families in this election. The installation of Wan Noor as a compromise candidate after second-placed party Pheu Thai had objected to Move Forward’s choice, was just the beginning.