America : A Singapore Perspective

by 29 Singapore Writers, Tommy Koh (Editor), Saljit Singh (Editor)

The United States of America is the largest investor in Singapore. And in 2019, it channelled more resources into the city state than what it put into both China and Japan. That year, the value of US direct investments in Singapore was US$288 billion, or about 4.8 per cent of US direct investments abroad. This sum exceeded the combined value of those in China (US$116.2 billion) and Japan (US$131.8 billion), based on data from the Office of the United States Trade Representative and the US Bureau of Economic Analysis.

This illustrates the economic significance of the US to Singapore. Beyond that, the US is also a very important partner of Singapore in security, education and culture. And so, Singaporeans should learn more about the superpower, thought Professor Tommy Koh, Singapore’s Ambassador-at-Large who had served as its Ambassador to the United States, and Mr Daljit Singh, Visiting Senior Fellow at the ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute.

They gathered 27 other writers with a good understanding of America to pen a collection of 29 essays, A Singapore Perspective. The compendium reveals insights into the various aspects of the its governing, election and political systems; business and economy; defence and foreign policy; as well as culture and culture wars. It includes a foreword written by Ambassador-at-Large Chan Heng Chee, who had also been Singapore’s Ambassador to the United States.

The contributors include other well-known Ambassador-at-Large and former Secretary-General of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Ong Keng Yong; former Permanent Secretary of Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs Bilahari Kausikan; former Nominated Member of Parliament and chairman of the Singapore Institute of International Affairs Simon Tay; Dr Chua Beng Huat, Professor in the Department of Sociology of the National University of Singapore; as well as authors and former journalists Gretchen Liu and Koh Buck Song.

Several journalists of The Straits Times — Vikram Khanna, Chua Mui Hoong, Lydia Lim, Jeremy Au Yong, Nirmal Ghosh, Charissa Yong and Audrey Tan — also contributed essays to the book.

242 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 30, 2021

Reviews

[Raymond Tay · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is definitely not meant for the masses for the following reasons:
- I don't know any of the contributors in those articles and how their work has any relevance to a regular reader like myself
- The contributors of those articles wrote in a way that leaves much to guess on how America works, on the inside and I don't feel like I'm their target audience.

If you are working in the space of foreign affairs and diplomacy, I think this makes a lot of sense otherwise, it is a poor way to squander time.

[Raymond · Rating 4 out of 5]

Foreign policy is an intricate balance of interests and values, and the collection of articles here present just that in concise form, covering an ambitious spectrum from American politico-history, through Asia’s changing geopolitical realities, and finally Singapore’s pragmatic approach in engaging with the U.S. and the world.

Most books I’ve read about U.S. politics tended to be more internal searching and usually biased towards one camp (most titles were by U.S. authors such as Stiglitz, Krugman, but also outside voices like Zizek). It is therefore refreshing that articles here are presented in a matter-of-fact way. Most people would not be aware of how the U.S. government and election works (I certainly didn’t till now, and most other books would fire barrages of criticism after a quick gloss over.) I certainly appreciate how the book starts by grounding the reader in these seemingly mundane but decidedly instrumental details, proceeding to explain the multi-faceted tensions within the U.S., finally moving on to challenges on the global stage.

I do have 2 nitpick with this compilation.

Firstly, all the articles appears to lack an ideological perspective, preferring a neutral, practical and factual stance. This might be a strength of the book anyway, appealing purely to the reasoning side in all of us. Then again it’s ageless knowledge that passion sells.

Secondly, I would have preferred a proper list of references for anyone wanting to dig deeper or fact check. Sure, a few articles do cite references within the content, but it does not feel complete for a book such as this.

Edit: I felt I should say something about the editors and writers. They may not be names recognisable on the International scene. Nevertheless they are established diplomats, journalists and academia experienced in their crafts, with the occasional op-ed in Singapore mainstream media (perhaps more).

[Davis Gonsalves-DeDobbelaere · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had never read a book about the United States purely from a foreign perspective (still need to read Tocqueville!) and for that reason this was interesting. They were able to say things about America regarding our race relations, gun obsession, and cultural issues without needing to be delicate to their audience. The book appeared to read with a liberal bias but, hey, life has a liberal bias!

I found the essays on geopolitics especially fascinating. Singapore needs to respect its relationship with China but also reiterates how the United States with all its faults will remain powerful. The essays reflected a balanced approach to this dynamic.

Most of the book though was generic essays about the United States system that I really didn't need to read. How does the judiciary system work? Unfortunately, I am intimately familiar.

This is a good time to mention how I am going to rate books going forward. I am rating purely based on my subjective enjoyment of the book and how I reflected on it. In no way am I trying to stay objective to create a proper ranking. This book was good but I just was not its audience. Helped me get through Dengue fever though!

[Vivienne Tan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dry as the Saharan desert scattered with about a million dehumidifiers. Found there to be little learning value unless you’re the type of person that enjoys storing historical events (by year, month, date, dollar, weight — insert whatever metric you want) in your brain. Just information dumping once again. I wanted to hear a uniquely SINGAPORE perspective on race and religion, the American Dream, their aversion to immigrants, but all it appears to give is a historical recount of how a particular phenomenon came to be. It is too factual to be considered an opinion. Could it, on the off chance be that these are selected statistics that imply a certain perspective or way of thinking that Singapore might hold?

Nevertheless quite upsetting.

[Chen Ann Siew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Particularly liked the essays by Bilahari and Koh Shiyan / Karen Tay.