Edited Transcript of Remarks by Minister for Foreign Affairs Dr Vivian Balakrishnan at the Ministerial Session of the 10th Delhi Dialogue, 19 July 2018

Your Excellency Sushma Swaraj, Minister of External Affairs

Distinguished Guests

Ladies and Gentlemen

First, I want to thank my sister, Shri Sushma Swaraj, for the invitation to participate in this inaugural Ministerial session of the 10th Delhi Dialogue, and of course for your warm hospitality, which goes even beyond the warmth of New Delhi at this time of year!

ASEAN-India Partnership

2 Singapore has been, and is, a long-time advocate for close – and closer – relations between India and ASEAN.  Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong attended the ASEAN-India Commemorative Summit in January this year, where we celebrated our 25th anniversary.  I’m happy to now attend the Delhi Dialogue this year, that celebrates its 10th anniversary.  And I deeply appreciate India’s efforts to expand its engagement of ASEAN and the larger region of Southeast Asia.

3 Last month, Singapore was very happy to host Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi.  He delivered the keynote address at the Shangri-La Dialogue – he was the first Indian Prime Minister to do so and we were inspired and impressed by his speech.  Prime Minister Modi stated, and I want to quote and use his exact words here, “inclusiveness, openness, and ASEAN centrality and unity … lie at the heart of the new Indo-Pacific”.  Singapore, and I think I can speak on behalf of the other ASEAN countries on this, shares this vision. Prime Minister Modi also reiterated, “ASEAN has and always will be central” to the future of the Indo-Pacific region. We agree that a robust, united ASEAN-centric regional architecture that is open, that is inclusive, that invites and interacts with all stakeholders, is our best chance of building a peaceful, prosperous, and secure region.  Obviously Singapore, as a tiny city state – we have no chance of surviving in a world where “might is right”. Singapore therefore, by definition, has to be a strong advocate and supporter of a rules-based world order which upholds the rights and sovereignty of all states equally, regardless of size, and provides for peaceful dispute resolution without resorting to force or the threat of force. In other words, a rules-based order.

Maritime Connectivity

4 I’m very glad that the theme of the Dialogue this year is “Strengthening India-ASEAN Maritime Cooperation”.  We believe this is apt and timely. Maritime connectivity has always presented a profound advantage. To us, in the past, and even now, and going forward into the future.

5 First, from the perspective of efficiency and utility, the sea routes offer greater efficiency and economies of scale compared to overland roads and railways.  Let me try to give you a graphic example of that. A container ship nowadays can carry around 20,000 TEUs -- "twenty-foot equivalent units". Now, if you were to unload this container ship, take each container, put it onto a train, and line it all up into a single train, you would end up with a train that is 100km long! Think about that.  One ship, unloaded, would take a train 100km long! And of course you know there is no such train that is 100km long. This is a very stark example of the economies of scale that the maritime dimension offers, and no land route, no train, no matter how fast, can match this.

6 Second, there is a clear strategic advantage to connectivity through the high seas. Unlike railways, or highways, that need to be constructed, that are subject to ownership and control, the high seas are not bound by fixed tracks or pathways.  And especially with the safeguards enshrined by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), once a ship goes beyond territorial waters, that ship enjoys complete freedom of navigation and can sail anywhere in the world. In other words, the maritime dimension offers “many-to-many” connections. And you are not confined by any other state.

7 This is why Singapore – again, I speak from the perspective of a city-state that has been a port, a maritime nation, and a trading hub since our founding – we have always firmly and resolutely supported freedom of navigation as an existential right, and including freedom of overflight, and respect for international law.  Obviously the most salient piece of international law for this is UNCLOS, which is critical for us to safeguard the use of the sea for free navigation and for unimpeded legal commerce.

8 And this is why Singapore will always resolutely oppose any attempt, by anyone, to threaten or to constrain this fundamental right of freedom of navigation and overflight in our region and our surrounding waters. These rights are enshrined by UNCLOS, and again from a Singapore perspective, one of the narrow straits that all routes from India would have to traverse in order to get to China, Japan, or even the West Coast of America, are the Straits of Malacca and Singapore. And the Straits of Malacca and Singapore are defined in UNCLOS terminology as a “Strait Used for International Navigation”.

Expanding the Definition of Connectivity

9 Now, let’s broaden the concept of connectivity.  Going back to first principles, connectivity has always been an amalgamation of a variety of types of connections.

10 Historically, we have had the Silk Road which was constituted by a network of both overland and maritime routes. Ships would dock at port cities in the Bay of Bengal, and goods would be carried through a network of overland routes from these cities across the heart of the Indian subcontinent.  Passing through Delhi, the Punjab Plain, these routes joined the Silk Road at Balkh in modern-day Afghanistan. The city at this intersection, called Bactra, was an equal to Rome and Baghdad in its heyday. In fact, the Arab conquerors of this city called it the “mother of cities”.

11 Today, of course, we have developed far more efficient methods of transport beyond overland routes. With these new means of transportation, goods can reach consumers all across the world far rapidly than in the past.  Today, landlocked Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh are prominent international producers of chilli, coriander, cumin, and fennel. Their products are parcelled every day onto trains and ships and aeroplanes and despatched on a daily basis.

12 While we continue to press on with developing sea and land infrastructure – and the example that Shri Sushma Swaraj just mentioned, the India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral Highway, in fact, we look forward to extending this highway right across Southeast Asia – we also look forward to expanding air and digital connectivity.  After all, we are now in a new digital age.

13 Flights have completely transformed the way we travel and the way we move goods. We should continue to liberalise air services and expand air links, in order to bring our people and economies closer together, faster than ever before.

14 Nonetheless, such connectivity projects are heavily dependent on infrastructure and capital. The Asian Development Bank estimates that ASEAN’s infrastructure needs alone will total US$2.8 trillion between 2016 to 2030.  Financing these projects will require innovation and will require private sector participation.

15 Consequently, Singapore recently launched our Infrastructure Asia office to harness the resources and capabilities of private sector firms and public sector agencies. This Infrastructure Asia office seeks to partner key stakeholders across the region and beyond, in order to catalyse more project opportunities to meet Asia’s burgeoning infrastructure needs.

Digital Connectivity and Smart Cities

16 In our modern world, with the ongoing digital revolution, even as we work to expand connectivity from maritime, air, and land routes, we have to pay attention to digital superhighways as well.

17 Singapore held the Inaugural ASEAN Smart Cities Network (ASCN) Meeting earlier this month.  The ASCN has taken off since its establishment at the 32nd ASEAN Summit in April, and is a key priority for Singapore’s ASEAN Chairmanship this year.  ASCN focuses on building an inclusive and collaborative platform for 26 pilot cities across ASEAN. We hope that this mechanism will facilitate cooperation and sharing between smart cities by sharing of best practices, and perhaps even more importantly, by sharing mistakes and avoiding each other’s mistakes. Connecting cities through cyber-highways of information will allow us to harvest the opportunities associated with digital revolution.

18 One defining characteristic of the ASCN is this word called “interoperability”.  And I want to emphasise interoperability. Because we must be able to interoperate across boundaries and across very diverse systems.  The diversity within the ten Member States of ASEAN far exceeds that in any other international regional association. In fact, diversity is a distinguishing feature of ASEAN. We are a voluntary organisation consisting of ten countries, greatly diverse in size, political and economic models, development potential, infrastructure, and financial capability. Therefore, finding the right recipe that will allow us to move forward together, and yet recognise and accommodate our diversity, is crucial for ASEAN.  This diversity is characteristic of the cooperation among ASEAN Member States, and if I may add, I think equally characteristic of the relationship between India and ASEAN.

19 We hope to link up ASEAN’s pilot cities under the ASCN with those of our external partners. And specifically in the case of India, we will support Prime Minister Modi’s “100 Smart Cities” initiative, not only through investing and developing infrastructure, but also through city planning and sharing our experiences in urbanisation. So, developing Smart Cities is just one example of ways that we can harness the greater connectivity afforded by the digital era.

20 But at the end of the day, the most important thing for everyone – and not just for urban elites – but for the farmer, the craftsman, the artist, the labourer, is to be able to access global markets using these new technological solutions.  It must make a difference to their livelihood, it must expand opportunities, and it must provide hope for a better life for their children. For example, India’s Aadhaar digital identity system and the amazing and rapid expansion of India’s mobile payment technology has greatly improved access to financial services, it has promoted digital and financial inclusion, it has encouraged rural entrepreneurship, it has built up rural capacities and livelihoods.

Eliminating Trade Barriers

21 But even as we invest in connectivity and infrastructure, beyond building highways, laying down fibres, building ports and airports, and keeping sea lanes open, in order to achieve connectivity in the fullest sense of the word, we need to remove barriers to trade in goods and services, and ideas.  And that is why, in fact, at this time when there is a pushback against trade liberalisation in some of the more advanced parts of the world, it is all the more important for India and ASEAN to double down on the cause of free trade.

22 Specifically, we need to work toward she conclusion of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, and hopefully to do so by the end of this year. The economic benefits of this partnership are real. We have a combined GDP – India and ASEAN – of somewhere between US$3.8 trillion to some estimates that go as high as US$4.5 trillion.  Southeast Asia and India hold tremendous potential, which can be unlocked with further integration.

23 There is one more characteristic that India and ASEAN shares, that in fact differentiates us from Northeast Asia. And that is that India and ASEAN are demographically, still young. In the case of ASEAN, 60% of our population is below the age of 35. I suspect that number is even larger in India. If we can educate, train, and expand opportunities for the young people in India and ASEAN, the sky’s the limit for them.  

24 Consequently, the RCEP offers us the opportunity to form the world’s largest trading bloc, encompassing almost half the world’s population, and more than one-third of global GDP, and with good prospects in the years to come.

25 It is no doubt challenging to find common ground and comfortable landing zones amongst 16 very diverse countries, and some may be tempted to coalesce around alternative trade pacts if this process drags on, and if we do not settle the RCEP by the end of the year. But we believe we must stay the course, and especially given the headwinds that we currently face in the global trade environment, we are all better off together as one.

26 So we should move forward together and we must demonstrate that an inclusive and well-connected region remains the best approach for us to capitalise on our complementarities within India and ASEAN, in order to achieve growth, in order to achieve hope for our peoples.

Conclusion

27 So let me conclude, if we can maintain our momentum in connectivity, if we can continue to invest in our infrastructure, if we can continue to agree to progressively open up our air services, if we can continue to agree to preserve and protect the sanctity of UNCLOS and especially the unfettered right of freedom of navigation, as a right, not as a permission, if we can commit to  bringing down trade barriers – then we can help construct an interdependent world, a world with more interconnected routes across an integrated region – then a new golden age will await all of us and our children.

28 Thank you very much.

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