• About Us
    • Fact Checking Policy
    • Ownership & funding information
    • Volunteer
  • Subscribe
  • Letter submission
    • Submissions Policy
  • Contact Us
The Online Citizen Asia
  • Opinion
    • Editorial
    • Commentaries
    • Letters
    • Comments
  • Current Affairs
    • Singapore
    • Malaysia
    • Indonesia
    • China
    • ASEAN
    • Asia
    • International
  • Finance
    • Economics
    • Labour
    • Property
    • Business
  • Community
    • Arts & Culture
    • Consumer Watch
    • NGO
    • Lifestyle
    • Travel
  • Politics
    • Civil Society
    • Parliament
    • Transport
    • Education
    • Environment
    • Health
    • Housing
  • Law & Order
    • Legislation
    • Court Cases
No Result
View All Result
  • Opinion
    • Editorial
    • Commentaries
    • Letters
    • Comments
  • Current Affairs
    • Singapore
    • Malaysia
    • Indonesia
    • China
    • ASEAN
    • Asia
    • International
  • Finance
    • Economics
    • Labour
    • Property
    • Business
  • Community
    • Arts & Culture
    • Consumer Watch
    • NGO
    • Lifestyle
    • Travel
  • Politics
    • Civil Society
    • Parliament
    • Transport
    • Education
    • Environment
    • Health
    • Housing
  • Law & Order
    • Legislation
    • Court Cases
No Result
View All Result
The Online Citizen Asia
No Result
View All Result

Is Track II Diplomacy Dead in Singapore?

by onlinecitizen
09/08/2017
in Commentaries, Politics
Reading Time: 6 mins read
0

Image from byondintractability.org

by Vernon Chan

According to industry analysts, Singapore is the worst place to be a property developer, the worst place to be a tech start-up, and the worst place to be a software programmer. Add to that growing list, the worst place to be a Track II diplomat or lobbyist.

Singapore has proscribed Dr Huang Jing, a US citizen and top professor at its Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (LKYSPP). He will be summarily expelled, his permanent resident status torn up, and his directorships in several state-linked companies dissolved if he doesn’t resign from them voluntarily. The communique from the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) adopts a security narrative: the professor was “an agent of influence of a foreign country”, engaged in subversion and interference in Singapore’s domestic politics.

Now let us tell you why this narrative is a giant fail and colossal joke, and what could be actually happening.

Diplomat, Spy, or Lobbyist? Track II Diplomacy in a nutshell

Of course, the security narrative is improbable, implausible, and doesn’t add up. Not even to the world of diplomacy, spycraft, or international relations.

Yet a cursory scan of Dr Huang Jing’s career and publications reveals he is a pro-China “China hand” with a decades-long involvement in Track II diplomacy and lobbying at several policy institutes and think tanks in America and South Korea, and a foreign economics analyst for China’s state-owned Xinhua News Agency. Some even openly state his credentials as a key actor in Track II diplomacy and multilateral dialogues.  And that’s where the narrative from Singapore Ministry Home Affairs starts to break down entirely.

One thing about being a spy: you can’t be one if you’re recognized as a spy wherever you go.
One thing about being a diplomat or international lobbyist: you can only be one if you’re recognized as such wherever you go.

And it’s clear from historical records that Dr Huang Jing is a China analyst involved in lobbying and track II diplomacy.

Track II diplomacy, in a nutshell, is diplomacy conducted by unofficial, informal, or non-governmental actors and agents. That is, diplomacy conducted between non-diplomats. No war hawks or peace doves, just scientific, cultural, and economic analysts and lobbyists from each side speaking freely on a wide range of issues – something that cannot take place within formal diplomacy. No formal negotiations, whatever views proposed are seen as not necessarily the official stand of respective governments.

Track II diplomacy was “invented” as a way to resolve crises. Since then, it was further developed as a way to normalise relations and improve mutual understanding through regular dialogue. And yes, to ultimately persuade governments to adjust various policies and policy directions. Very openly acknowledged and studied in the literature and various institutes conducting Track II Diplomacy as lobbying. Whether or not such lobbying is successful depends on how convincing the lobbyist’s arguments are, vis-a-vis the arguments of other lobbyists.

Put crudely, Track II diplomacy is all about lobbying. Of course, Dr Huang Jing would continue lobbying within the LKYSPP. It’s his key skill set and very clearly stated in his CV and previous appointments. When the government of Singapore luridly accused Dr Huang Jing of being a foreign agent who “engaged prominent and influential Singaporeans… to influence their opinions in favour of that country… recruited others in aid of his operations”, were they accusing Dr Huang of being a lobbyist and Track II diplomacy actor working in a public policy institute?

Track II diplomacy can only exist in a country that has a certain freedom of speech to allow lobbying, robustness of debate to prevent one-sided lobbying, independent thinking to critically analyse debates, and a commitment to guaranteeing the safety of such diplomacy. By expelling Dr Huang, the Ministry of Home Affairs risks sending a signal that one, some, or quite possibly all of these are no longer true in Singapore.

And that’s how much of a clown show this look if we were to buy into the official narrative.

Because if that’s the official narrative, enjoy seeing Dr Huang Jing be deported to the USA, where he will continue to lead a free life and worse, continue to gain fellowship and academic appointments to other think tanks and research institutions in the USA and across the world. It would be highly embarrassing to Singapore. Probably more embarrassing than seeing Dr Shorvon being vindicated in London’s High Court.

So what really happened?

Singapore has its own track II diplomacy think tanks and research institutes, some of whom have members or chairmen who publish articles in the Straits Times Op/Ed pages. Public lobbyists, if you will.

Short of monumental incompetence, in Singapore failing to understand what Track II diplomacy is, we can only speculate on what the real clown show was.

Scenario 1

The real issue is with the good doctor giving supposedly “privileged information” to senior members of his research institute, to quote the MHA. The good doctor did this in collaboration with foreign intelligence agents, again quoting the MHA. Again, this is part and parcel of Track II diplomacy and par for the course, and hardly a reason for expulsion. (A good reason for expulsion would be if the doctor collaborated with foreign agents to take privileged information from Singapore, instead of giving it to Singaporeans.)

To proscribe Dr Huang on this basis would be to confess that the “privileged information” was true, that it really did come from intelligence sources. It isn’t in Singapore’s interest to remove a lobbyist who has good information, privileged information. But it would be in the foreign country’s interest to pressure Singapore to remove a lobbyist who has privileged information that it actually doesn’t want others to know. That’s a danger with Track II diplomacy, when you use completely non-state actors.

The real incompetence is with MHA’s flimsy, non-credible official narrative and how it undermines Singapore in the eyes of professional diplomats, lobbyists, and students of international relations.

Scenario 2

The real issue is with the good doctor being given permanent residence and directorships of various Singapore government linked companies since he was appointed to the LKYSPP. The failure would be on the part of whoever recruited and vouchsafed Dr Huang to LKYSPP, to realise that a track II diplomat should be treated as an unofficial diplomat and lobbyist. It’s the stupidest idea to give a foreign diplomat citizenship, much less directorships in government-linked companies.

Heads should rightly roll for this, so watch out for upcoming “retirements” at LKYSPP, which will indicate a purge of the research institute of its incompetent clowns and head clowns.

This article was first published at http://akikonomu.blogspot.sg/ and republished with permission. 

 

 

For just US$7.50 a month, sign up as a subscriber on The Online Citizen Asia (and enjoy ads-free experience on our site) to support our mission to transform TOC into an alternative mainstream press.

Related Posts

Thai ruling party names deputy PM as main election candidate
AFP

Thai ruling party names deputy PM as main election candidate

27/01/2023
Mrs Teo says SG continues to invest in training local talent while MNCs transfer staff to work in SG
Labour

Mrs Teo says SG continues to invest in training local talent while MNCs transfer staff to work in SG

27/01/2023
One third of Amazon ‘degraded’ by human activity, drought: study
AFP

One third of Amazon ‘degraded’ by human activity, drought: study

27/01/2023
Luxembourg court sets aside Sulu heirs’ attachment order to enforce US$15b claim against Malaysia
Court Cases

Luxembourg court sets aside Sulu heirs’ attachment order to enforce US$15b claim against Malaysia

27/01/2023
Philippines to appeal ICC resumption of drug war probe
AFP

Philippines to appeal ICC resumption of drug war probe

27/01/2023
ASEAN

ASEAN governments must stop using ‘lawfare’ against critics, Southeast Asian MPs say

27/01/2023
Subscribe
Connect withD
Login
I allow to create an account
When you login first time using a Social Login button, we collect your account public profile information shared by Social Login provider, based on your privacy settings. We also get your email address to automatically create an account for you in our website. Once your account is created, you'll be logged-in to this account.
DisagreeAgree
Notify of
Connect withD
I allow to create an account
When you login first time using a Social Login button, we collect your account public profile information shared by Social Login provider, based on your privacy settings. We also get your email address to automatically create an account for you in our website. Once your account is created, you'll be logged-in to this account.
DisagreeAgree
0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

Latest posts

Thai ruling party names deputy PM as main election candidate

Thai ruling party names deputy PM as main election candidate

27/01/2023
Mrs Teo says SG continues to invest in training local talent while MNCs transfer staff to work in SG

Mrs Teo says SG continues to invest in training local talent while MNCs transfer staff to work in SG

27/01/2023
One third of Amazon ‘degraded’ by human activity, drought: study

One third of Amazon ‘degraded’ by human activity, drought: study

27/01/2023
Luxembourg court sets aside Sulu heirs’ attachment order to enforce US$15b claim against Malaysia

Luxembourg court sets aside Sulu heirs’ attachment order to enforce US$15b claim against Malaysia

27/01/2023
Philippines to appeal ICC resumption of drug war probe

Philippines to appeal ICC resumption of drug war probe

27/01/2023

ASEAN governments must stop using ‘lawfare’ against critics, Southeast Asian MPs say

27/01/2023
Low Yen Ling says MTI and MAS don’t expect persistent inflation but they now say inflation projected to “stay elevated”

Low Yen Ling says MTI and MAS don’t expect persistent inflation but they now say inflation projected to “stay elevated”

27/01/2023
Malaysian court sentences man to 1,050 years’ jail, 24 strokes of the cane, for raping stepdaughter 105 times

Thai court jails activist for 28 years jail for royal defamation

26/01/2023

Trending posts

Two Indian nationals paid about S$330 and S$730 respectively for forged certificates submitted in their S-Pass application

MOM found issuing EPs meant for foreign PMETs to PRC waitress and general worker

by Correspondent
26/01/2023
32

...

Ho Ching breaks silence over Temasek’s write down of its US$275 million investment in FTX, says it “can afford to be contrarian”

US regulator questions VCs’ due diligence work prior to investing in FTX; Ho Ching says Temasek can afford to be contrarian

by The Online Citizen
24/01/2023
28

...

Indian rupee falls 60% since signing of CECA while Singapore becomes top investor in India

by Correspondent
25/01/2023
48

...

Is Track II Diplomacy Dead in Singapore?

by onlinecitizen
09/08/2017
0

...

“党籍不会过期失效”  前进党称已就党籍终止知会卡拉

AGC asked to explain purposes of 68 private letters of inmates illegitimately forwarded to prosecutors

by The Online Citizen
21/01/2023
16

...

Temasek and GIC reportedly in talks with Adani Group accused of “brazen” market manipulation and accounting fraud

Temasek and GIC reportedly in talks with Adani Group accused of “brazen” market manipulation and accounting fraud

by The Online Citizen
26/01/2023
32

...

August 2017
M T W T F S S
 123456
78910111213
14151617181920
21222324252627
28293031  
« Jul   Sep »
  • About Us
  • Subscribe
  • Letter submission
  • Contact Us

© 2006 - 2021 The Online Citizen

No Result
View All Result
  • Opinion
    • Editorial
    • Commentaries
    • Comments
  • Current Affairs
    • Malaysia
    • Indonesia
    • China
    • ASEAN
    • Asia
    • International
  • Finance
    • Economics
    • Labour
    • Property
    • Business
  • Community
    • Civil Society
    • Arts & Culture
    • Consumer Watch
    • NGO
  • Politics
    • Parliament
    • Transport
    • Education
    • Environment
    • Health
    • Housing
  • Law & Order
    • Legislation
    • Court Cases
  • Lifestyle
    • Travel
  • Subscribers login

© 2006 - 2021 The Online Citizen

wpDiscuz