One has to have a knack for politics to do well as a Foreign Minister and Dr. Chee Soon Juan has demonstrated he has the potential.
When President Barack Obama was inaugurated as the President of the United States in January 2009, Dr. Chee and his colleagues from the Singapore Democratic Party made this congratulatory video.
The video is over 5 mins long, and I didn’t go beyond 23 seconds, but it shows Dr. Chee has a flair for establishing relations with foreign powers, and a world power, no less.
2009 was a particularly tough year. The world was still reeling from the effects of the 2008-2009 Global Financial Crisis and Singapore was facing its worst crisis in years, its government and unions were trying to find its feet through a series of measures to save jobs.
It was also opportunistic that Singapore was hosting APEC 2009, where the political and business leaders of the 21 member economies of APEC gathered in Singapore for a week long conference. President Obama also stopped by Singapore to attend the APEC dinner. It is obvious that the agenda of these 21 member economies was to spur trade, growth and jobs.
On the eve of the President’s visit, Dr. Chee Soon Juan then went on The Lionel Show in the US (via teleconference it seems) with a message for the President.
Dr. Chee called on President Obama to acknowledge that there are very serious human rights abuses in Singapore, and as the forumers highlighted, Dr. Chee called on President Obama to boycott Singapore businesses. But the forumers failed to see Dr. Chee’s point of view; that Singaporeans shouldn’t have jobs and livelihood when there’s no democracy and no human rights.
PAP on the other hand, has been panda-ring pandering to foreign powers. As recently as last week, Minister in the Prime Minister’s office, Minister Chan Chun Sing quoted a Chinese businessman’s analogy of Squirrels and Panda to describe Singapore’s value-add to the humongous Chinese economy, in an obvious attempt to create job or business opportunities for Singapore.
I’m like most Chinese Singaporeans, a banana and don’t understand this analogy, but my dad tells me I should read it in Chinese then I’ll appreciate the meaning better. Heck, I don’t even understand why it’s called “One Belt One Road”, sounds so cheesy.
Observing how SDP understands politics, Singapore will probably stand up against larger countries and stop relying on these countries for trade, business and jobs.
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With nomination day already announced to be on 27 April 2016, voters in Bukit Batok can decide for themselves if they need a new opposition MP to show us how foreign affairs should really be managed.
Dr. Chee won’t make a good Minister of Trade and Industry though, for investments and jobs we better let the PAP guys do it.
I am not sure if you meant this article to be satircal.
A Foreign Minister’s job is to speak well and promote his country. For him to ask other countries not to do business with Singapore even if he dislikes some of his nation’s policies is tantamount to his doing his country in. Even if he disagres,s do it behind closed doors with his fellow ministers and thrash out the differences. and if he still feels strongly against the policies, quit.
If he so wants to do his country in, pray why agree to be a cabinet minister.
I recall reading in the news on what CSJ said these, and more, against Singapore years ago. I was totally hurt and appalled that a fellow Singapore could go so low and took such great trouble to try bring Singapore down with such lies to the world, just because of his quarrels with the Authorities.
Now hearing these again opens up old wounds. It’s painful. He has been a traitor who committed treason against Singapore. He should not be allowed to stand for election, much less to hope to be an MP in Singapore.
“Character is permanent” – he correctly said this about himself. Therefore Singapore must vote him out once and for all. Show him that Singapore remembers. Singapore rejects him for the lies he said to the world about Singapore.
Its the truth he speaks. At least he got balls to do so. Not just be lackeys or bootlickers of the PAPs.