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OO RUEHCHI RUEHDT RUEHFK RUEHHM RUEHKSO RUEHPB
DE RUEHGP #1073/01 3080625
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
O 040625Z NOV 09
FM AMEMBASSY SINGAPORE
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 7396
INFO RUCNARF/ASEAN REGIONAL FORUM COLLECTIVE
RUEHZU/ASIAN PACIFIC ECONOMIC COOPERATION
RHEHAAA/WHITE HOUSE WASHDC
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHDC
RHHMUNA/CDR USPACOM HONOLULU HI
RUEATRS/DEPT OF TREASURY WASHINGTON DC
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHINGTON DC
RUCPDOC/DEPT OF COMMERCE WASHDC

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 SINGAPORE 001073 
 
SIPDIS 
 
FOR THE SECRETARY FROM THE CHARGE D'AFFAIRES 
STATE PLEASE PASS TO USTR 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/04/2029 
TAGS: PREL ECON MARR OVIP CLINTON HILLARY SN ASEAN
SUBJECT: SCENESETTER FOR SECRETARY CLINTON'S SINGAPORE VISIT 
 
REF: SINGAPORE 1057 
 
Classified By: CDA Daniel Shields for Reasons 1.4 (b/d) 
 
¶1.  (C) Madam Secretary, the message you delivered in 
Thailand in July that "the United States is back in Southeast 
Asia" is resonating here in Singapore.  Your upcoming visit 
presents a precious opportunity to consolidate and build upon 
the gains that your early and intense focus on Asia as 
Secretary of State has already produced.  As we at Embassy 
Singapore prepare for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation 
(APEC) meetings and APEC-related visits by the President 
(reftel), by you, and by other top U.S. Government officials, 
it seems increasingly clear that a new regional architecture 
is emerging; this is just a matter of time.  The key point is 
whether the United States is going to be inside the process 
shaping it or outside the process looking in.  Your words and 
actions leave no doubt that you stand on the side of U.S. 
engagement with Asia.  This, as you heard from Minister 
Mentor Lee Kuan Yew in Washington, is also what Singapore 
wants. 
 
¶2.  (C) Singapore, a city-state with a total population 
(including foreigners) of only about 5 million people, is not 
a natural leader in Southeast Asia.  Its larger neighbors 
often resent overachieving Singapore's prosperity and its 
annoying penchant for telling others what to do.  Still, 
Singapore lies at the center of Asia in ways that matter to 
the United States.  In 1819, when Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles 
first arrived in Singapore, he was struck by the very factor 
that makes Singapore unique to this day: its strategic 
location at the southern end of the Straits of Malacca, the 
main maritime trade route between China and India.  Over the 
years, Singapore has built on this geographic advantage -- 
plus governmental, educational, logistical, financial, and 
other institutions designed to exploit the advantage -- to 
turn Singapore into one of the most reliable and efficient 
places in the world to move people, goods, and money. 
 
¶3.  (C)  This is what makes Singapore so critical to the 
United States from a political-military perspective.  When 
the former U.S. bases in the Philippines were closed in the 
1990s, Singapore stepped in, making its facilities available 
to the U.S. military.  Under the U.S.-Singapore Strategic 
Framework Agreement of 2005, the United States makes use of 
Singapore's facilities at Sembawang to provide logistics and 
repair services for the whole Western Pacific Fleet.  At 
Changi Naval Base, U.S. aircraft carriers can and do 
routinely pull up pierside, something that is not feasible 
elsewhere in Southeast Asia.  The United States uses 
Singapore's Paya Lebar Air Base, where your aircraft will 
land, to move aircraft all around the region.  Singapore 
procures advanced weapons systems from the United States and 
deploys about 1,000 personnel in the United States to train, 
particularly in the use of U.S.-produced aircraft and 
helicopters.  Singapore backed the United States in Iraq and 
is supporting the International Security Assistance Force in 
Afghanistan with medical and construction engineering teams. 
Singapore is about to take over the leadership of anti-piracy 
Combined Task Force (CTF) 151 off the coast of Somalia.  All 
that said, the core political-military interest for the 
United States in our relationship with Singapore continues to 
be the access that U.S. forces enjoy to facilities in 
Singapore. 
 
¶4.  (C) Singapore's competitiveness as a place to move 
people, goods, and money makes it attractive not only to the 
United States, but also to those who threaten U.S. national 
security, including terrorists, weapons proliferators and 
criminals.  Singapore cooperates effectively with us to 
prevent such individuals from using Singapore to achieve 
their goals.  When we can present unambiguous evidence and 
clear international legal authorities, especially UN Security 
Council Resolutions, Singapore is fully cooperative.  When 
the evidence is less clear, or the international legal 
authorities more ambiguous, Singapore's cooperation takes on 
more of a case-by-case quality, with the Singaporeans 
weighing their desire to cooperate with the United States 
against competing desires to keep Singapore's port and 
financial sector operating smoothly and predictably, with as 
few delays and disruptions as possible. 
 
 
SINGAPORE 00001073  002 OF 003 
 
 
¶5.  (C) Singapore's strengths as an economic clearinghouse 
for goods and financial services have made it a valuable 
economic partner for the United States.  U.S. corporations 
understand this; there are an estimated 1,500 U.S. companies 
here.  The stock of U.S. Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in 
Singapore is massive, exceeding the $100 billion level, well 
above the levels of U.S. FDI in giant economies such as China 
and Japan.  Singapore is a long-time master of the game ofatracting international FDI and the tough intellectual 
property rights (IPR) protections that Singapore agreed to in 
the 2004 U.S.-Singapore Free Trade Agreement have made 
Singapore even more attractive as a destination for FDI, 
especially in IPR-sensitive industries such as the 
pharmaceutical sector.  On the trade side, Singapore is our 
12th largest export market and we enjoy one of our largest 
trade surpluses in the world with Singapore.  Singapore's 
trade-dependent economy took a hard hit from the global 
economic downturn, but has bounced back quickly. 
 
¶6.  (C) Singapore's history suggests that for the city-state 
to thrive, there has to be a kind of balance around it. 
Originally, Singapore flourished on the trade between India 
and China; Singapore could not have succeeded if only India 
were important or only China.  Singapore therefore does not 
want to see one dominant power emerge in the region in a 
manner that might restrict the Singaporeans' cherished 
freedom of maneuver.  This consideration underlies 
Singapore's consistent interest in keeping the United States 
engaged in the region, which will be an implicit subtext of 
the APEC meetings.  It was more explicitly part of the agenda 
when Minister Mentor (MM) Lee Kuan Yew made his recent visit 
to Washington.  You had the opportunity to hear directly from 
MM Lee, who at 86 remains hugely influential in shaping 
Singapore's response to the big decisions it faces.  From an 
Embassy Singapore perspective, MM Lee's key public statements 
during the Washington trip were as follows. 
 
--"It would be a serious mistake for the region to define 
East Asia in closed, or worse, in racial terms." 
 
--"Growth has created growing strategic complexity between 
China, Japan, South Korea, India, ASEAN and Australia.  Each 
will position itself to achieve maximum security, stability 
and influence." 
 
--"The size of China makes it impossible for the rest of 
Asia, including Japan and India, to match it in weight and 
capacity in about 20 to 30 years.  So we need America to 
strike a balance." 
 
--"If the U.S. does not recognize that the Asia-Pacific is 
where the economic center of action will be and it loses that 
economic superiority or lead that it has in the Pacific, it 
will lose it worldwide." 
 
¶7.  (C) MM Lee and his fellow Singaporean leaders, including 
PM Lee Hsien Loong and Foreign Minister George Yeo, are 
acutely focused on the opportunities associated with the rise 
of China.  They see outward-looking, open, regional 
integration efforts as critical to exploiting these 
opportunities and they very much want us engaged as the 
process unfolds.  An implication of this is that Singapore 
wants APEC, where the United States is already at the table, 
to succeed.  Singapore is committed as this year's APEC host 
to laying a groundwork for progress in Japan's APEC year of 
2010 and the U.S. APEC year of 2011.  Beyond APEC, Singapore 
will be looking to America to continue to inject more 
substance into the process of U.S. re-engagement in the 
region.  The U.S.-ASEAN Summit that will take place in 
Singapore is a powerful start.  Efforts to expand cooperation 
on trade with like-minded countries in the region will also 
send an important signal. 
 
¶8.  (C) Madam Secretary, all of us at Embassy Singapore 
eagerly anticipate your visit.  Many of the positive 
processes that you have already put in motion -- by making 
your first visit as Secretary of State to Asia, including 
Southeast Asia; by participating in the ASEAN Regional Forum 
in Thailand; by acceding to the Treaty of Amity and 
Cooperation in Southeast Asia; by stepping up cooperation 
with the Lower Mekong countries; and by ensuring that the 
Burma policy review enabled us to engage while maintaining 
 
SINGAPORE 00001073  003 OF 003 
 
 
sanctions -- have created a context in which the APEC 
meetings in Singapore and the U.S.-ASEAN Summit here can 
succeed.  We look forward to helping you ensure the success 
of your Singapore visit and to working with you, your 
Washington team, and our Singaporean partners to continue to 
increase and sustain U.S. engagement in the Asia-Pacific 
region. 
 
SHIELDS 
 
Visit Embassy Singapore's Classified website: 
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/eap/singapore/ind ex.cfm