Lee-Trump visit underscores Singapore’s balancing act

At the same time as he has been trying to repair relations with China, Singapore's PM has tried to reaffirm bilateral cooperation with the US

Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong held talks with US President Donald Trump in the Oval Office this week to reaffirm bilateral cooperation amid considerable anxieties about US commitments to free-trade multilateralism and long-standing alliances across Asia.

Lee, the fourth Southeast Asian leader to visit the White House, is on a six-day working visit to Washington at the invitation of the president. Both countries share a “deep and multi-faceted relationship” based on a “basic strategic congruence of views about the world and the region,” Lee said during a television interview with CNBC.

The US administration’s emphasis on creating job opportunities for Americans has not been lost on the Singaporean delegation, nor the other Southeast Asian leaders who have visited Washington under Trump’s tenure.

The two leaders oversaw a deal between Singapore Airlines and Boeing for the national carrier to buy 39 new planes, worth US$13.8 billion. Fulfilling that order will create 70,000 jobs in the US, according to Trump, who said the US-Singapore relationship was “now is at its highest point” and that his country was “fortunate to have such a wonderful and loyal partner”.

Read the full story at the Asia Times.

Nile Bowie is a writer and journalist with the Asia Times covering current affairs in Singapore and Malaysia. He can be reached at nilebowie@gmail.com.

Malaysia gives Pyongyang a pass on Kim Jong-nam murder

Ongoing trial of two women accused of killing North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's half-brother will ultimately not convict the assassination's true plotters

The trial of two women charged with assassinating the North Korean leader’s estranged half-brother Kim Jong-nam has raised as many questions as proceedings have so far answered about a bizarre crime few independent observers doubt Pyongyang ordered and executed.

Indonesian Siti Aisyah, 25, and Vietnamese national Doan Thi Huong, 28, are charged with murdering Kim Jong-nam at the Kuala Lumpur International airport in February by smearing his face with a highly toxic VX nerve agent. Four suspects on the lam mentioned in the prosecution’s charge sheet are presumed to be North Koreans who have fled the country.

Raja Subramaniam, a Malaysian government chemist, has testified he found around 1.4 times the lethal dosage of VX nerve agent on the victim’s body and detected the substance on the clothes both women wore on the day of the attack. Experts have been confounded at how the women managed to handle the chemical without causing harm to themselves.

Four North Koreans are widely believed to have arranged and coordinated the hit, including the recruitment, handling and providing the chemical components of nerve agent to the two accused women. VX is a controlled substance banned by international treaties and classified by the United Nations as a weapon of mass destruction.

Read the full story at the Asia Times.

Nile Bowie is a writer and journalist with the Asia Times covering current affairs in Singapore and Malaysia. He can be reached at nilebowie@gmail.com.

Alibaba, Amazon duel for SEAsia’s online shoppers

Global titan competition is intensifying for a region projected as the next high-growth frontier for online retailers

Competition for Southeast Asia’s fast growing e-commerce market is intensifying, as industry titans Alibaba and Amazon launch new ventures and acquisitions in a region projected to be the next high-growth frontier for online retailers.

US-based Amazon and Chinese-run Alibaba, both formidable in their home markets with an estimated 60% and 80% share of online shopping respectively, are now vying for market supremacy in a region of over 600 million consumers.

Amazon’s entry into Southeast Asia in July saw the launch of its ‘Prime Now’ service in Singapore, an app available in the country’s iTunes and Google Play stores that promises free two-hour delivery for customers across the city-state who place orders above S$40 (US$29).

Previously, Singaporeans were only able to order select items on Amazon’s website, with most products subject to high international shipping fees. Many saw Amazon’s venture into Singapore as a bold initiative: unlike other countries where it previously launched express delivery services, the e-commerce giant lacked a retail and logistics presence in the island nation.

Read the full story at the Asia Times.

Nile Bowie is a writer and journalist with the Asia Times covering current affairs in Singapore and Malaysia. He can be reached at nilebowie@gmail.com.

Islamic intolerance rising in pre-election Malaysia

An uptick in religious controversies coincides with premier Najib Razak's bid to rally Muslim majority voters ahead of new polls

A string of racial and religious incidents in Malaysia has brought concerns of rising Islamic conservatism to the fore, widening the divide between Muslims and non-Muslims as the government plays on identity issues ahead of what is expected to be a jarring and contentious election season.

Two annual beer festivals were recently cancelled following political objections raised by leaders of the hardline Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), which claimed it has a “social responsibility” to oppose alcohol festivals and that the events would turn Kuala Lumpur into “the largest vice center in Asia.”

The ‘Better Beer Fest’, an annual craft beer showcase held without incident since 2012, was cancelled weeks before it was scheduled to take place. Police maintain their decision to bar the event was due to threats of a militant attack, though organizers believe authorities intervened due to political pressure.

An annual Oktoberfest celebration held at the 1 Utama Shopping Center in Selangor, a wealthy opposition-held state with a large upper-middle class non-Muslim population, was forced to cancel hours before the event was set to start. The cancellation, also due to alleged security reasons, resulted in financial losses of more than US$70,000 for the organizers.

Read the full story at the Asia Times.

Nile Bowie is a writer and journalist with the Asia Times covering current affairs in Singapore and Malaysia. He can be reached at nilebowie@gmail.com.

A mockery of democracy in Singapore

The island state's recent presidential poll was baldly engineered in the ruling People's Action Party's favor and stirred the race-based politics it had long bid to suppress

Singapore’s ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) is on the political defensive following last month’s controversial presidential poll that saw one of its stalwarts win in an uncontested race.

Halimah Yacob became the country’s first female head of state following sweeping constitutional changes made to ensure that an ethnic minority Malay would become the city-state’s eighth president.

Halimah’s rise to the largely ceremonial post was ushered by an uncontested poll that resulted in a walkover when a government-appointed committee disqualified two other candidates after they failed to meet newly enacted financial criteria required for eligibility.

Billed as a measure to broaden minority representation in government, the first presidential election reserved for candidates from the Malay community has been widely derided on social media for undermining democracy and the country’s highly vaunted meritocratic principles.

Read the full story at the Asia Times.

Nile Bowie is a writer and journalist with the Asia Times specialising on current affairs in Singapore and Malaysia. He can be reached at nilebowie@gmail.com.

Cloudy prospects for Kim Jong-nam murder trial

The unexplained assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's estranged half-brother is unlikely to be resolved by Malaysia's politicized judiciary

The trial of two women accused of assassinating the estranged half-brother of North Korea’s leader commenced this week at the Shah Alam High Court on the outskirts of Malaysia’s capital.

Indonesian Siti Aisyah, 25, and Vietnamese national Doan Thi Huong, 28, are the only suspects in custody in a killing that South Korean intelligence officials have alleged was an elaborate plot coordinated by Pyongyang.

The pair are charged with murdering Kim Jong-nam at the Kuala Lumpur International airport this February 13 by smearing his face with a highly toxic VX nerve agent, a chemical the United Nations classifies as a weapon of mass destruction.

Both women maintain their innocence and say they were duped by North Korean handlers into believing they were carrying out a prank for a reality TV show.

Police acknowledged several North Koreans suspected of organizing the lethal poisoning had left Malaysia on the day of the attack, while others were permitted to exit in a subsequent diplomatic deal with Pyongyang.

Read the full story at the Asia Times.

Nile Bowie is a writer and journalist with the Asia Times covering current affairs in Singapore and Malaysia. He can be reached at nilebowie@gmail.com.

Rohingya crisis splits Asean on religious lines

Malaysia's open criticism of Myanmar's treatment of its Rohingya Muslim minority speaks to the potential for wider regional communal conflict

Clear divisions are emerging among members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) over Myanmar’s military operations in Rakhine state, a diplomatic divide that threatens to split the regional grouping on religious lines.

Myanmar’s military-led “clearance operations” have led to civilian causalities, allegations of grotesque rights abuses and the displacement of over 500,000 ethnic Rohingya who have sought refuge in neighboring Bangladesh.

Malaysia took the rare step last week of disassociating itself from a joint statement issued by the Philippines, the grouping’s current chairman, because from Kuala Lumpur’s perspective it misrepresented the situation. Malaysian Foreign Minister Anifah Aman, in an unusually sharp rebuke, maintained that the chairman’s remarks failed to reflect Asean’s founding principle of consensus.

The Asean statement expressed support for Myanmar in efforts “to bring peace, stability, rule of law and to promote harmony and reconciliation between various communities,” and omitted the term “Rohingya” in referring to the persecuted Muslim minority group – in accordance with Naypyidaw’s opposition to its use as an official ethnic group classification.

Read the full story at the Asia Times.

Nile Bowie is a writer and journalist with the Asia Times covering current affairs in Singapore and Malaysia. He can be reached at nilebowie@gmail.com.