maybe now invite IPS director mr. John Otis David to introduce the session and dr. Vivian Balakrishnan Minister for Foreign Affairs welcome back ladies and gentlemen our next speaker for the traditional concluding segment a speech and dialogue is dr. Vivian Balakrishnan unlike previous guest of honors for this segment you only come in about 15 minutes before the segment is due to go on Minister Vivian has been here almost the entire day from early this morning so he has said an impossibly high standard so I'm afraid you have said an impossibly high standard for your colleagues I can give you the usual litany beginning with the fact that Minister Vivian was a president scholar it was a champion school debater some of you may remember that and an ophthalmologist by training he has served in a number of ministry since entering politics in 2001 I think in MND in the old Mika MTI the all MCU is Muir and now of course since 2015 in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs all this you know as you do that is also the minister in charge of the smart nation initiative but let me tell you one thing that not many of you here know or may know Minister Vivian's hobby is taking apart and putting together watches I'm not kidding he likes taking them apart these intricate timepieces and then putting them back together I have no idea why this is a thrilling experience I know this for a federation to buy him or get him all timepieces from overseas but when you think about it it is difficult to imagine a more apt hobby for a minister Foreign Affairs in Singapore for our place in the world does depend on every little thing that we do fitting in with everything else just as a watch wound work if the whole caboodle doesn't work together so ladies and gentlemen may I invite our guest of honor dr. Vivian Balakrishnan the watchmaker as foreign minister well thank you Jonathas for that introduction slightly unconventional introduction let me first see I've said true today you've had a history lesson from Professor Wong politics from Georgio economics and then you had a session from Marty and from Villa Hari on regional diplomacy I'm going to try and I say try because you're all very long suffering I've been here for many hours but I'm going to try to synthesize all these elements into a coherent concept and if you ignore the rest of my speech I only ask you to remember three phrases the first phrase is a fractured world order the second fractious domestic politics and third digital disruption and what I'm going to attempt to show today is a chain of causality between these three elements let me start by stating the obvious we live in a very uncertain volatile and difficult world you've heard in the course of the day the strategic tensions and I say strategic tensions between China and the US and I would include Russia you've also heard or you'd be aware that politics as we it is over in fact mainstream politicians all over the world are in trouble and we are witnessing the simultaneous rise of both right wing and left wing populism all over the world not just in the West you're also aware deeply aware that there is deep anxiety the world over and especially amongst the middle class over wage stagnation and over the future of jobs we are also painfully aware that there is anger over increasing inequality and if that isn't enough I would also hasten to add that the level of carbon dioxide in our air more than 400 parts per million the last time the world had carbon dioxide at this level was at least 400 thousand years ago and since I'm a doctor I can tell you we are overdue for the next endemic so having put you all in a good mood my thesis today is that we are witnessing a fractured world order due to fractious domestic politics that is caused by a digital disruption okay a chain of causality so let me restate this chain I believe that technology is a key driving force of human progress and the early masters of Technology accumulate and wheel out size power financial political and ultimately military hence every time the world experiences a major technological breakthrough there will always be by definition revolutionary shifts in the economic means of power and when you get changes in the means of economic production that in turn will disrupt societies change politics and in turn that will alter the global balance of power we've seen all this before and it's just that it is about to be replayed but at a faster pace and by different actors let me start with the Industrial Revolution to give you some empirical evidence we speak English today because the Industrial Revolution started in England savory and new common invented the steam engine and this was later improved by James Watt and the steam engine replaced human and animal labor with energy from fossil fuels first time in human history what this meant was the age of mechanization it our bruited the economy previously handcrafted products were now mass-produced and importantly owning capital became far more lucrative than just owning land and it transformed agrarian societies and bear in mind that human beings have had agricultural societies for 8,000 years in turn now that you've got machines and you've got factories you now need labor and labor migrated to urban centers you had urbanization and cities importantly in the political field power structures shifted from land owners in feudal societies to the owners of capital in industrial capitalist societies and if you think about the way labor was exploited in the early phase of the Industrial and the vicissitudes of work and the impact of losing a job in those days that in turn generated a social and political backlash and that's why in fact we have today's trade unions and even the welfare state in Europe these were in a sense a political response to the last Industrial Revolution and this is how the modern political order with right wings and left wings emerged massive social economic disruption driven by the advent of mecha mechanized production what did this mean for foreign policy in an industrial age industrial Britain needed raw materials a lot of which were from Southeast Asia and it needed new markets for its new manufactured products it sent expeditions its Navy was strengthened outposts were established including exactly two hundred years ago to today raffles landed in Singapore to establish an outpost the outcome of this trade and foreign policy was an empire on which the Sun never set and preeminence for Great Britain for modern essentially what happened after that the next breakthrough was the concept of a moving assembly line and archetypical example of that happened in the u.s. Henry Ford's Model T car mass production was made possible through tasks specialization and what used to take 12 hours a car could now be constructed in Ford's Factory in two and a half hours what this meant was a prices of has fell a virtuous cycle was set up between mass production and mass consumption because those same workers that Henry fought employed who earned high wages could now become consumers in their own right and so we witness capital accumulating wealth accumulating even more than before and those of you who are interested in history will know that there was a period called the Gilded Age and there were robber barons who found ways to further enrich themselves and in fact it was a period of increasing inequality across the globe reactionary responses to this type of very asymmetric capital accumulation led to growing extremism fascists on the right communists on the Left economic rivalry and political miscalculation sowed the seeds for the two world wars of the last century the corollary in foreign policy was that the u.s. at the end of the last World War having out done all others in technological superiority was actually the undisputed main winner of the second world war and became a global superpower yes I know there was a distraction for more than 50 years with the Cold War but in a sense there was no question that it was the us that had technological supremacy and therefore we should not have been surprised with the fall of the Berlin Wall the share of the u.s. GDP in the 50s and 60s the share of global GDP of the US was probably around 40% today although the US GDP has continued to grow on a relative scale it is now about 24% and you realize that when a single superpower has 40% of global GDP every dollar created in the world 40 cents accumulates to its account in that scenario it was worth its Wow for the u.s. to set the rules of global engagement to be the primary architect and underwriter of the world order as we know it that has existed since the end of the Second World War this was the system defined by free markets free trade and global economic integration along the way the United Nations was formed the Bretton Woods institutions the IMF and the World Bank the World Trade Organization the Marshall Plan for Europe the reconstruction of Japan domestically the GI Bill which provided mass education to returning veterans mass education that gave them the skills to harvest the fruits of the Industrial Revolution and there was therefore a golden age for capitalism for about 30 to 35 years after the end of that war an age of a rising middle class decreasing inequality and the average job in America could get people a house a home and the security to provide for their families the foundations of the rules base multilateral system in fact gave newly independent countries like Singapore a small seat at the table but significant opportunities think about the process of globalization that occurred after the war again it was driven by technological revolution names like William Shockley John Bardeen and Walter Brattain these were the inventors of the transistor in 1947 but actually it is digmole these programmable logic control which revolutionized industrial control because it made it easier to reprogram machinery in factories to change products in accordance to consumer needs and now that production was easily adjusted by leveraging on improvements in shipping logistics and in particular the icon there is the container in the container ship and at the same time the explosion in info comms technology transformed the world once again edit zenit it allow for just-in-time production it allowed global supply chains to be constructed and multinational company corporations became a formidable force and very often having revenues exceeding that of small countries now think about Singapore's position in the mid-60s when we were unexpectedly thrust into independence fortunately our early leaders chose to do what was unfashionable in the early post-colonial era by inviting these same MNCs that were building global supply chains to bring their technology and access to markets to us this was unconventional back in the 60s if you think about other countries newly independent they were focused on import substitution so paradoxically because Singapore losses hinterland and because we had to invite the MNCs we became a global city way before the word globalization became fashionable we moved up the value chain subsequently advanced manufacturing and ultimately global services our GDP grew from us 500 dollars per capita in 1965 to more than 50,000 US dollars 53 years late as dr. go Kingsley said and this was a point which I think KY found me earlier this morning we needed the humility to learn the courage to be unconventional and the ability to unify and carry our people as we were embarked on this journey today the success of Singapore is a living testament to the fruits of an export-oriented free market capitalist system and we have fully exploited our improved air sea and digital links in an increasingly connected world but the point is this we were in the right time right place right technology right strategy and it is always important therefore to understand that we cannot engage in navel-gazing but we need to understand what is happening around us and then adjust our posture now whilst the net impact of globalisation has clearly been positive for Singapore in a sense actually we had no choice but nevertheless we must be careful not to overstate the benefits of globalization the political reality is that in globalization automation there will always be both winners and losers for Singapore's a relatively young country we started from a low base we made a quantum leap up due to the visionary political leadership that we had so we are clear winners in this age of globalization but in the Western world especially in the last 30 years it is clear that a significant number of people especially blue-collar workers have been left behind blue collar workers in Europe and in the West have seen their wages that need jobs move overseas income gaps widen versus the elite and they are feeling increasingly grief in a sense another upheaval another backlash and we should not have been surprised by it now to make things even more complicated we have not yet digested the full consequences of the last Industrial Revolution well now a new digital revolution is upon us and this time I'm referring to smart technology and in particular smart technology based on machine learning a phenomena which actually has only really taken off in the last two or three years machine learning if you are biologists you will say well they try to copy the brain multiple layers of synapses simple on their own but by having connections and the ability to adjust the strength of connections you create systems that are able to recognize patterns but this would not have been possible without the exponential rise in computing power networks big data and the neural algorithms and I want to say as a biologist as a doctor that pattern recognition is the difference between AI smart AI and standard automation because if you think about it the ability to recognize patterns is the basis for vision for listening for speaking for translation and for cognition examples everyone's heard about Google developing the program called alphago which beat a human professional go player cottons the lease it all without any handicaps in 2016 for the first time I often find that Western audiences who have not played the game of goal do not appreciate just how complex go is there are more combinations of moves in a game of goal then there are atoms in the universe what that means is that unlike chess or even Sudoku it cannot be solved with standard rules based programming and let me tell you since PM has programmed a Sudoku so solver in C and I translated into JavaScript I can attest that go is a completely different level of complexity so the point now is that for the first time in human history not only has energy human and animal energy been replaced by fossil fuels not only have automation and globalization taken over but now the advent of robotics machine learning and artificial intelligence are already revolutionising finance Commerce Defense Logistics health and transport sectors now just to give you an idea of how much progress has occurred in the last two years because this is something even I was not aware of in 2016 the United Nations unloaded about 800,000 documents onto the Internet the critical feature of their unload was that the unit UN has six official languages so it unloaded documents which were translated word-for-word by humans in six different languages in 2016 at the same time that Google was playing goal it decided to use the same techniques of machine learning to do translation any one of you who has used Google Translate before 2016 and today will know that there is a big difference if you don't believe me try it now and the big difference was they shifted over to machine learning neural nets and pattern recognition so the point is this and when Google did it they didn't tell anybody they kept it a secret until a Japanese researcher in November of that year suddenly noticed that Google Translate had improved and then they reveal the secret sauce and in fact they stopped all the development using all techniques and switched over to machine learning now there's another explosion occurring and that's in 5g technology and I don't mean just the contest between the US and China 5g will create unprecedented levels of connectivity it'll increase bandwidth it will explode the Internet of Things and there will be an explosion a tsunami of data now think about this point pattern recognition using machine learning depends on data and when you now have a tsunami of data and you have the algorithms and the computing power and the networks to deal with it you are sitting on a real revolutionary technology and language barriers will erode and you know it's like today Jorge scolding the agency for using a single language on a memorial well today if you just take a Google Translate you point it it'll pick whatever language you want to translate it for you there is no excuse for us to be monolingual in today's smart world but herein lies another problem it means that you are now competing not only with workers overseas not only with machines locally but that telepresence is now multilingual there are only about a billion people who speak English to a sufficient level to perform useful technical work today but once you break these barriers of language you can easily double or triple that number so the point is we are going to see disrupted societies fractious politics and the global order as we know it is going to change in fact there will be considerable dislocation because the change is accelerating and in the example I gave you I bet most people in this room not even aware of how much has changed in just the last two years and if history is a guide every time you get a change like this you get an initial Gilded Age greater inequality robber barons the early masters and adopters of Technology and it takes time before the new means of production are democratized and a new middle class can arise I believe we are now in a new digital Gilded Age there are winners and there are losers the winners are the supranational tech companies you know the names Google Amazon Apple and Facebook which are growing in political economic clout why because they sit on top of mountains of specific and very often personal data and there will be losers those who have not been able to scale up and have lost their jobs due to disruptive changes Automation will put automation in the past took away many blue-collar jobs but pattern recognition of today and tomorrow will make many white-collar jobs redundant it is true that new jobs will be created but my worry is that they will not be created fast enough to replace the all jobs and this will cause further dislocation and fractious domestic politics and so we are already seeing the political effects increasing polarization a hollowing out of the center of the middle class and of mainstream politics so you see the invert releases all societies one group is moving further to the right channeling frustration towards immigrants and free trade they want to build walls another group is moving further to the left demanding increased subsidies the ultimate example of which is universal basic income and they want radical redistribution can you see it a collapse of the center a rise of the right and left and this breakdown of domestic political consensus will inevitably disrupt the international system there will be countries that are afraid of change and fearing competition will question the value of the current liberal world order on the other hand nations like Singapore believe that we need to master the new technologies face competition head-on double down on interdependence integration openness and to seek win-win cooperation this division and divergence will grow more acute as technological adoption accelerates and so ladies and gentlemen this is our current predicament if you now use the US and China as a case in point China's achievements in the last 40 years since Kiker - reform and opening have been astounding it has lifted 800 million people out of poverty since 1980 1990 GDP per capita in China has risen from 19 US dollars in 1960 to over 8 thousand US dollars 20:16 china has climbed up the technological value chain today you all hear of companies like Tenzin Alibaba and Huawei and this is not just catch-up industrialization this is pursuing leading bleeding cutting edge technology in this period the earlier period the US and China had a mutually beneficial and interdependent relationship very different from the relationship between the US and Russia during the Cold War instead you had US companies flocking to China and actually China became part of the global supply chain the u.s. also welcomed Chinese investments and Chinese talent into the universities and into their companies trading goods and services reached over us 700 billion per annum but we all know today the nature of relations is now shifting from engagement to strategic competition and the question is why China used the last four decades to catch up and today is in a position to seriously contest for technological supremacy and the question then is who will master smart technology AI robotics and Big Data first who will be better able to acquire and apply the data the techniques and the tools better faster and more effectively countries used to compete on the basis of land and capital but today the fight is going to be over data data will be the crucial factor of production in this brief new age and the one who acquires and applies the most data will have an enormous advantage an enormous head start and in this thing logical contests the stakes are actually even higher than they were in the past why precisely because in the digital arena global markets geography has contracted let me just give you an example when the Silk Road first started the price of silk in Europe was ten thousand times the price of silk in Beijing why because transportation logistics are so difficult today in a world with fiber Amazon ecommerce and the rest of it that kind of differentials have collapsed what it means now if you have the best silk or the best product you have access to a global market and the consequences of winning if specially as we move towards the winner-take-all world there's an enormous difference between being number one and number two and that's why you are seeing this contest or strategic rivalry between the US and China it is not just a trade war it's not just arguments about supplier of 5g equipment although 5g is a key arena for contests now I'm not trying to downplay the other areas of strategic contests such as trade but I want to recognize that something more fundamental is at work here and my point is that even if the US and China sucks settle the currently dispute and Singapore obviously earnestly hopes that they will things will not be hunky-dory after that because of the pervasiveness of the technology we expect the strategic contest to be waged in other arenas defense energy cyber security and even outer space and alongside this contest for technological mastery runs a parallel contests for governance the question is whose preferred paradigm will regulate the emerging global comments in cyberspace and outer space should these be democratized or will they be subject to the free market or entirely state control they're not easy questions to answer we took many years or right to arrive at a global consensus on regulating the high seas and international trade that's why we've got the unity UN Convention on the law of the sea and clause and we have the World Trade Organization discussions on cyberspace and outer space regulations are still at very nascent levels so the question is how do we in Singapore respond to such a world in this age smart technologies and big data hold the keys to the future and the ones with the keys will retain economic and geopolitical relevance and shape global rules but the renessa will not just be incrementally disadvantaged they will be exponentially left behind it is this technological contest and its impact on the economy that underpins the conduct of foreign policy the cut in trust of politics may dominate our attention from day to day you'll make headlines but in reality these are just froth top the tectonic shifts in the geostrategic balance of power so what is a small country like Singapore to do in this brave new world that we find ourselves in and I believe that Singapore's foreign policy principles remain as salient today as they were when they were set by mr. Lee and mr. Otto Ratnam in 1965 in a word the one word is relevance in 2009 is the Lee Kuan Yew delivered the S Rajaratnam lecture and he said and I want to quote him we must make ourselves relevant so that other countries have an interest in our continued survival and prosperity as a sovereign and independent nation Singapore cannot take its relevance for granted small countries perform no vital or irreplaceable functions in the international system Singapore has to continually reconstruct itself and keep its relevance to the world and to create political and economic space I think these words are still absolutely true so what are we to do first Singapore must always remain open open for business open especially for talent we must maintain a society that is fair we must maintain our reputation for integrity and to be trusted by all we are a small country with no natural resources we cannot afford to build walls to shelter our population because hiding from inevitable change is not a survival strategy so our doors by definition must remain open to everyone who wants to engage us and in fact we need to continue to actively create the conditions that will attract others to keep coming just as Chi Fong said this morning we will have to continue to strengthen our air I'll see in our digital connectivity deepening our economic and investment links with partners across the globe and one of my favorite pictures which I spend more time looking at is the matter of submarine cables these are the new digital maritime Silk Roads it carries data the currency of the future and we must entrench Singapore's hub status in these new communication routes and just as we protected and treated the investments of MNCs and even the oil that will start tanks in Singapore carefully for data we must remain helpful neutral and reliable our legal framework will continue to respond to these emerging technologies we will have to put safeguards in place we'll have to protect intellectual property data and privacy needs to be protected and as I said just now our reputation for integrity reliability and straight-talking is critical we do not wish to be compelled to choose sides I know this is a standard question which I will always be asked the forum like this and I'll just repeat it we do not wish to be compelled to true sites in this strategic and technological contests because we believe that synergies will be more powerful when we cooperate to create common rather than competing closed platforms common open platforms as opposed to closed competing platforms and this core belief informs our approach to global governance which brings me to my second point that Singapore will always work to fortify the multilateral system and contribute actively to shaping new norms to govern the global Commons our role on this has been established ambassador Tom Miko played a leading role in finalizing and close the constitution for the seas and our climate change negotiators I personally spent four and a half years trying in our own way to help bring the Paris agreement into being I've spoken about the current debate over cyberspace and outerspace regulations Singapore's position on this is unequivocal all states must be involved in shaping the new rules and the concerns of small states must be taken on board but arriving at the consensus will not be easy given that the stakes are high but precisely because of this norm generation is necessary and Singapore can always be counted on to send our best people to these international expert groups and negotiations so that we make a positive constructive and outsize contribution third we need to diversify our partnerships we know that technological disruption will erode various borders it will revolutionize business models it'll shift production bases and new technology hubs will emerge no advantage is engraved in stone and we have to be prepared to go beyond conventional markets we have to be prepared to sometimes break safe models and to capitalize on new opportunities and some of these new opportunities are right at our doorstep hacia a dynamic region a rising middle class boundless potential for the next few decades at least more than half the population in ASEAN is under the age of 30 and many are digital natives who have even skipped landlines completely a study on the e economy by Google and tomasa in 2018 reported that in Southeast Asia the growth of our Internet economy reached us seventy two billion dollars in 2018 but more important is that that represents a doubling of the figure just three years before there in 2015 so we believe and it's not just a political posture but we believe it is essential to build thicker and deeper linkages across ASEAN cities and to create new partnerships as we get on to this new technology ladders other countries and companies are hungry to engage us and we should reciprocate enthusiastically that's why we launched the ASEAN smart cities Network last year when we were chairman of ASEAN a first step in this direction and I'm glad it was very well received by all our neighbors 26 pilot cities have been established develop they have promulgated action plans from 2018 to 2025 and more importantly several of these projects have attracted partnerships between the private sector and the state sector in future the development of technology will be driven not top-down by governments or state institutions but a trilateral cooperation between the state the private sector and the consumers so I'm very glad that Anson took a step towards harnessing this compared productive dynamic so let me conclude by saying that we live in extraordinary times you know not every generation gets to live through a revolution but we are entire multi-billion dollar industries exists because technologies are changing in front of our eyes and if you think about the explosion in apps and services that are being generated the piece is only going to a salary but recognize that disruption will bring both challenges and opportunities we also recognize that Singapore by dint of our size we will never be a global superpower but we can and we must master the technology if we are to remain successful and to preserve our independence to make decisions based on our own sovereign interests in this coming age and by playing our cards right we can remain in the sweet spot just as we have for the last five decades we've done it before we caught the wave of offshoring and we industrialize in the mid 60s and 70s in the 70s we bet on the right horse by doubling down on logistics and container ports and airports we then moved on to electronics precision engineering now we need to do the same with big data and smart technology and to do so Singapore must continue to remain open we must engage everyone who wants to be a partner or friend with us we must strengthening our convening power not only for meetings like the last year's us DPRK summit but it we must be the best place for any MNC to assemble a multinational team in the world with regardless of where people come from this is a convenient a safe a beautiful a conducive place for them and their families to work together inform multinational teams we must continue to engage all the major powers but to do so in a discipline and principled way and preserve our neutrality I sometimes remind everyone that is why from time to time Singapore must have the ability to say no to say no to our neighbors and to say no even to the super powers but not as a capricious exercise but as an exercise in a principled and discipline way to to prove our neutrality and why we are worthy of people's trust our history has shown that we can work with all parties and partners we can create common space and we can pursue mutually beneficial outcomes we will concurrently work to uphold international law and the rules-based international order even into the newer arenas of cyberspace and outer space and we are committed to ensuring that the multilateral framework which is underpinned our peace and prosperity continues to be preserved and remains relevant to bring all of this home we need Singaporeans to be fully prepared to collectively face this new age of disruption since independence Singapore has relied on our people's ingenuity that tenacity their willingness to sacrifice and save and to do whatever it takes to survive thrive this time we need to double down on these attributes of Singaporeans and if we do not right this next wave we will sink under the tsunami and that's why economic restructuring is a key priority for the Singapore government that's why you keep hearing mr. hangs wicket stressing the need to restructure ourselves and we have to keep improving our education system retraining and upscaling skillsfuture it's not just a word but has to be a critical inherent part of our strategy for survival so that Singaporeans will master these new technologies equally we also need to make significant adjustments of social security system but to do so in a fiscally sustainable way so that Singaporeans will have the confidence to navigate these disruptive times and the government will do our part to equip and prepare Singaporeans even as we explore new markets build new partnerships facilitate new business models and harvests new technologies companies and individuals now need to be entrepreneurial adventurous we must be able to seize new opportunities and we must remain resilient and United if we succeed we will navigate safely through this current Gilded Age and a new golden age awaits us thank you all very much for your attention Thank You Minister for tour de force I told you he was a watchmaker so I don't know how many of you noticed our logo for this year's conference Singapore little red dot world so there is only a little red dot that separates Singapore and the world and they can't be that many foreign ministers elsewhere in the world who would spend the bulk of their talk on foreign policy talking about endemics technology disruption data smart nation and so on quite aside from the traditional areas of concern of a foreign minister so let me begin by asking a very simple pragmatic question how do you in the course of a day keep in mind the challenges that you spoke of the long-term challenges you spoke of which can't be the daily concern of even Singapore's Foreign Minister ministry I doubt whether your permanent Secretary will come up to you every other day speaking about pandemics or technological disruptions or even persistent problems our social inequality and yet these are the problems that we have to think about and bear in mind over the long term so how do you events for foreign ministries all over the world including house I in the saddle so how do you deal with what you refer to as the cut and thrust of daily policymaking while keeping in mind and dealing not only in minor foreign ministry but also in the public mind these much more real long-term challenges well I I guess I bring my medical or surgical approach to it when you're treating a patient it's very important to clearly differentiate between symptoms signs can everyone hear and a diagnosis so in the course of events and it's certainly in the case of MFE you know things happen and sometimes they happen unexpectedly sometimes things cluster together and sometimes in fact so far I haven't had any time so boredom yet but I try to maintain the discipline there when something happens the first thing I ask myself is okay is this gonna kill me is this an emergency is the patient gonna die the patient gonna die you better drop everything focus 100% getting through this crisis on the other hand if you only focus on emergencies and crisis you will miss far more important strategic conditions we actually are going to kill the patient or make an enormous difference to the quality of life in the future so I'm meeting this discipline of saying okay what's an emergency what about all the other things can I find a pattern to it and if I can find a pattern and I can make a diagnosis next thing is what are the options and then in politics is never about just an intellectual exercise you have to convince your own teammates convince your own people and ultimately convince those who are negotiating with across the table but I found that by taking a larger more strategic view of things it sometimes helps people to understand why short-term gain or short-term compromises may be necessary in order to achieve longer-term health longer-term better outcomes for Singapore so if you think of last year's were very busy we were chairman of ASEAN we launched the ASEAN smart cities Network we had to deal with problems in Myanmar we had the summit DPRK and then just when I taught that December had come and I was going to rest Malaysia suddenly acted up and Cathy sufficiently entertained so that's just life for foreign minister but I will say this we are very blessed in Singapore to have some of the best people minds and thinkers in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs I'm not talking about the political level if you go to the United Nations you throw a stone at any single foreign diplomat chances are you will hit someone who is smart being sophisticated constructive trusted honest that reputation makes life so much easier for me we have about 35 minutes for questions so may I invite you to come up to the mic there max placed all over the hall please Ian Jillian you want to start off thank you sir good afternoon minister let me appeal to this idea that your watch making watch fixer so that everything fits into everything else and that the system works effectively and is sustainable my question is this in the recent parliamentary discussion on the sing health cyberattack the front bench was wary about disclosing which is the state actor that had engaged in this protracted strategy to get in place mechanisms to heck our public institution when we discuss the legislation on deliberate online falsehoods there were sessions that were taken on camera offline off-the-record to discuss who are the adversaries that we may need that legislation for so the question is this sir where do you see citizens fitting into the broad picture of foreign and defence strategy in Singapore maintaining the strength of our sovereignty going forward do you feel that there should be occasions where you take them closer into the fold take them into your confidence and share with them who are the adversaries who are taking us on is that necessary what is your rationale in saying we better not say who they Allah you know maybe it's a trade off you do not want to alarm the populace or you might think that might polarize public opinion versus you probably don't want to dignify the adversary and say we concede you we acknowledge that you know you had us I asked this question because the strategy seemed to be targeted at playing the ground and if the ground is not aware then are we fighting this battle with our hands tied behind our back thank you mister thank you you're basically asking the question on of attribution whether we should name names let me take a step are we the target of cyberattacks clearly the answer is yes our people attacking us for commercial advantage and state advantage the answer is yes are there multiple parties out there attacking us the answer is yes is it a simple matter of naming names and somehow hoping that name and shame will act as a deterrent and the answers that's an arguable point but you know as well as I do the potential benefits to an attacker far outweigh the risk even of being named which means this will continue so the more relevant question is given that this is the state of the world and these are the way the incentives are set up what should we do about it now of course the first question is whether we give up and go back to paper and pen nets and that is a valid question we have decided that's not the way we will progress in Singapore next question there okay if you've decided that you will still have electronic records how will you protect it and even the answer to that question goes beyond technical levels because it is not just a matter of encryption or firewalls or internet separation essential although all those things are but I'll tell you the weakest link is still a human being and you cannot take humans out of human systems so what do you do next when you say well you add on systems of surveillance audits checks and balances and we do all those things and then there's another element that the technology is also changing even under your feet and what works today may not work tomorrow so again it comes to the fact that we need to stay abreast of the technology we need to be masters of this technology rather than to be swamped by it and to give up by now it is only after you've addressed all those issues before you come to the question of attribution and here as foreign minister I must put up my hand and say I also have a say as to whether you're going to attribute an attack to a specific state because it does have foreign policy implications but that's not the decisive determinant in the particular case that you've mentioned we know it is a highly sophisticated attack done by obviously a party with deep resources and technical skills we have decided that simply naming names is not going to make our system more secure or help be helpful to us so it is as Minister historian has said it may be of interest to the public but it is not in our public interests at this point in time to name names so that's where we're at will there be other cases in the future I'm sure there will be but this is a never-ending challenge that we will have to continue to master your your other question was what to do the general public to do about is I think number one be aware number two take basic precautions and you'll be surprised how many of us do not take basic precautions number three as our legislation evolves by all means participate in the formulation of the legislation convey your views your suggestions and be part of the solution and not just a passive victim of the problem so this is watch this space more far more work will need to be done in the future and then after we settle ourselves domestically we then have to try to settle it internationally and that's going to be even harder because as I said you know that we use in the early days on Internet the private sector just said trust us don't worry we are not under the control of the government trust us I think today everyone knows you can't just depend on the private sector saying trust us because after all the private sector also has its own set of incentives on the other hand if you just had the government imposing everything you get the usual questions are our governments doing it for its own self-serving reasons and then if you think about people what is it people want most of all number one I think they want safety they want to make sure that none of my vital records and in this case is usually health and finance are not compromised in my experience I think number two people want some idea of some protection of their privacy and privacy is something which is going to be a harder and harder thing to safeguard in the future but these are conversations domestic and international that will have to continue next question by the way spying is the second oldest profession in the world closely conjoined with the first and forgettable favorite pencils they existed in the days of quills and papyrus you know so what can you do about it well your password should not be password la lot of people have that wait is somebody there hello ok I can't see you but stop speaking ok good afternoon dr. Bala Krishnan and mr. jaundice my name is shetty and I'm from Victoria Junior College so as we've seen in the arrest of man when Joe the USA is increasingly pressurizing its allies to freeze out Chinese companies from participating in nations implementation of Phi G networks so when in action and attempts to be neutral may be interpreted as a preference for one country over the other how AM when a Singapore stand regarding this issue and how do we remain neutral in this instance ok another very good question well you spoke about cyber so yes no but this is a good question because in fact Lee illustrates the contests for supremacy that's going on in the technological space and also the conduct of foreign policy and the rule of law internationally and I would my starting point is what I said just now there in my speech there we need the ability to say no from time to time in a principled and disciplined way when we say a principle and discipline way our usual recourse in the case of Singapore is the rule of law and in particular when involved States international law and we reserve the right to say no to our neighbors and no to the superpowers if requests unreasonable or contravenes international law I'm not going to give you a specific answer to a specific case but I want you to understand our considerations as and when requests come in and believe me requests come in all the time and each time we have to look at it look at it from all perspectives and then take a decision and that's why I remind people who sometimes say look you know Singapore your little red dot you're a small state why don't you be more obliging my answer is that we can't be simply more obliging just because someone is a friend or someone is a big in a position to exercise leverage against us because once you compromise and oblige in an unprincipled manner believe me the next requests will come in fast and furious and people will expect you to compromise on the basis of how hard they push you so that's why I ask all of you as Singaporeans for your understanding when you sometimes we say no and we say no the big powers as well it is actually the safer indeed the only cause of action which a small little Ratdog like us can pursue and that's why international law is so important and that's why every time we sign a treaty where there is extradition or mutual legal assistance we read it the two three four or five times dot the i's cross the t's and we take our obligations very very seriously thank you thank you thank you hi my name is Johanna I'm from NTU and just thank you sir for your very white binging talk sometimes today we heard that ASEAN is very crucial to Singapore's future my question is I know brexit is looming and this may not be desirable but can we will we do we want to be like the EU in terms of not in its entirety but in terms of processor structure governance systems I ask this because some 15 years ago a thesis on comparing EU and ASEAN I was a bit more hopeful about United and more coherent ASEAN but today I'm not so sure thank you thank you I just got back from Brussels a few days ago ironically it was for the ASEAN EU foreign ministers meeting and I'll share what I said what I said to them my view is that the EU and ASEAN in fact are two of the most successful regional organizations in the world now before you think I'm just trying to flatter them and flatter us let me explain why in the case of the EU it's real value has been to make war unthinkable in Western Europe and bear in mind that Western Europe was the focus for two world wars in the last century so whatever the travails that you undergoes rather questions on eurozone or brexit of the bureaucracy of Brussels I remind everyone that its primary benefit is peace and secondly prosperity in Western Europe now when it shifts to ASEAN I also told my GU colleagues there is a huge difference between the EU and ASEAN there may be 28 maybe 27 of them on the other side but if you look in terms of civilization culture approach to law approach to trade in fact there's a lot that they have in common and mind you they have achieved this commonality after centuries of wars and conflicts and various arrangements that have evolved over centuries when you cast your eyes on ASEAN and as billa Hari said just now first of all it's amazing that in 1967 the five countries that come together I don't agree with him it's just because they were not democracies I think the real answer is that they had strong leaders who realized it was better to hang together than to hang separately in 1967 just to give you a context remember we had just split from Malaysia the Philippines still had territorial conflicts with Malaysia Indonesia the Konfrontasi the bomb had gone off in Singapore in 1964 for we still had two Indonesian Marines on death row and despite all these tensions we got together but one important difference with the EU is that we recognize that we are very very different each of us you've got systems from absolute monarchies to military arrangements to all varieties of democracies you've got per-capita incomes that range from a thousand u.s. to 50,000 us because of our diversity the founders of ASEAN created this principle that everything would have to be decided by consensus and I've been asked before I mean the past should asean abandon consensus because you know it makes things so slow so difficult and often we're held hostage you just need one veto but i remind everyone that the consensus system is the design feature and not a bug of hacia so when people come up to me and say well you know asean you don't have a single currency you don't have a single bureaucracy and you take so long to decide I say well that's precisely the point we are designed that way because we recognize of diversity nevertheless after 50 years if you look at what has happened in Southeast Asia there has been peace there has been prosperity there has been development there has been connectivity and as I said earlier if you look at the numbers we are poised for growth we in the next 20 years will be number four in the world after China u.s. you and a big difference is demographics is in our favor compared to Northeast Asia compared even to the EU so my point is the EU and ASEAN are the two most successful regional organizations but have very different starting basis and I think we're making the best of our position but that's also why we are trying to settle to get the EU Singapore FTA ratified and once that is done to say well the next step is an EU ASEAN FTA because in a way given the state of the world now even the EU recognizes that those of us who believe in economic integration in interdependence and tre better put our money where our mouth is sign those agreements make those arrangements and make a collective bet on the future so that's where we ended last week and I think we're generally on the right track is that another one person over there can I take that question first on the left is always blow any first okay like in front from sin x is AI stylus I visited you I know Saints Tanya and deep learning I want to ask Minister although I know that you are from foreign ministry I felt that the the devil is in the implementation and execution yeah so you mention about AI robotics so in terms of educating our future generation I want to hear your view on how can we do better in getting our next generation of leaders students ready for this new wave that is unstoppable secondly how can government big ministry share the talents with the private sector because I see that a lot of top talent are retained in the government we have a very good successful system to sieve up the elite from young but we reach a stage to a the industry also need government to share some of the talent as early as possible when some poor I think the EDB MD - I like his background he was released to the Chou for two years under study understanding the private sector issue luckily he is able to come back to the government he didn't stay back in the shower but I see there was a model have to break the the model to look at Helen as a small nation how can we better youth deeply done to identify talent from young I mean and groom them and develop them the nation well thank you for that question in Prime Minister Lee and I visited since time so we know what you're all out to your question fundamentally is that of talent yeah and today if I ask you how many people have fully mastered the mathematics the linear algebra the matrix manipulation needed to program systems like Siri or Cortana or sense time or Alexa you know the I suspect in the whole world maybe only about 10,000 people can do it it's a very small number for something of such profound significance and yet the whole world from you talking in terms of thousands and talking in terms of millions the challenge therefore is one of skill how do we make sure that we've got seven billion people in the world how can we make sure it is at least 10 or 100 million and not just ten thousand people worldwide who have the necessary skills to program and master these systems and here is why the answer comes back to education to training retraining and skills future it sounds very boring sounds very trite but that is the only way and yes of course there's this question of the flow of talent between private and public sector and you know a lucky that I guess we bond that Chi form and she'll was not allowed to poach him I think it's the wrong horse at that time chairman of shell that may our health but the larger question is this how do we get thousands of people mastering these technologies and I think it's a combination of both the public sector and private sector needs to do is build from the public sector point of view we must invest in education and we must invest so that as Minister hing says every school is a good school every child has access to the latest tools the latest technologies and our teachers must be able to teach that's one level number two it is government's duty to invest in infrastructure that's why we have one of the best fiber networks in the world and if so cool complains about it I will invest some more and make it even better because we must be number one infrastructure education then the third thing is having trained people having got infrastructure we must be able to attract companies like yours to do some work here not a sales office but an engineering development work in Singapore and we have to attract you not by offering no taxes and land because after all in the new economy it is about data and speed and connectivity it is not about land in Texas we need to create systems that protect intellectual property so that companies will be prepared to do real development work down here another element I'm still talking about government's is government's have to invest in R&D that's why we have the National Research Foundation that's why we support our universities especially in pursuing basic and applied research beyond their what Singapore needs is smart money you know we're not short of capital in Singh but smart money that understands the technology that is able to take a startup or a founder connect him into a larger network into a larger ecosystem and give his or her ideas a chance and then beyond a venture capital and startup vibrancy we need to make sure the international rules for instance rules on the flow of data on the security of data work so that companies can do development work here and access global markets out from Singapore so you see there's a multiple layers of things that we need to do my sense of it is that we have done a significant amount we are we didn't range but we will never be a superpower so we have to keep trying to be as close as possible to the cutting edge and then we will become part of the global supply chains the global value chains for data and artificial intelligence just as we did in the old days for silk and then for machines and then for electronics and then for containers we need to repeat this whole cycle again in this new in this new arena for those of you don't know cents time basically does very sophisticated facial recognition and if you are in any major junction in China chances are there's a sense time camera that has recognized you and given the relevant information to the relevant people I better not say more before I call the problem that was Thank You Minister lady the middle row yes good afternoon Minister and good afternoon mr. Devon there's a lot of things happening these days are we're seeing the re-emergence of the port comprising Australia Japan India and the United States and we're seeing the trix path between United States and China and last year we noted we're interested inaugural attendance or President Vladimir Putin at year s my question is do you think this is time for ASEAN to reach out and engage new superpowers like Russia so as to counterbalance the old boys and if so what some of the concrete and actionable initiatives that we're taking for such such engagement with non-traditional partners thank you well the simple answer to a question is we do engage all significant stakeholders and partners Russia for instance is a member of the EAS President Putin did make a state visit to Singapore n attended a s right now we are trying to negotiate a free trade agreement with the Eurasian he says a the Eurasian Economic Association which is basically Russia and the states on its western border so we are trying to engage but as I said earlier it's not just a matter of trying to engage but to engage in a principled neutral discipline way so that Singapore is a place if you needed to assemble a team consisting of Russians Chinese Kazakhs Indians you could do it more easily in Singapore then you could even in Silicon Valley or Moscow or Beijing that is the niche that we are trying to play that's what I mean by convening power and by being a trusted an open city in the digital sense and really it comes to openness at a human level and I think we have done reasonably well so far and again the point I'm trying to make is that's why we must maintain this reputation for neutrality openness and reliability we have only five minutes left let me figure out how many questions there's one over there there's one here in the middle is there one over there on my right let's take them all okay why don't we start the gentleman on my left I am Emil from my MBA when it comes to cybersecurity is often time discussed in the frame of is management as Singapore strives to be a champion in smart nation smart city smart technology what's your view in advancing the Singapore cybersecurity effort from surviving to thriving the gentleman in the middle is yours also on digital cyber No when you answer this first the most successful country that has monetized its cybersecurity capability its Israel and it has done so in just recent five six seven years so the question must be why Israel well obviously Israel has a need for cybersecurity it is both a victim as well as uses it for its own state purposes but the reason why they have succeeded is twofold number one they have been able to recruit top minds this doesn't mean graduate but top minds very early probably in the teenage years specially nurture deploy give them a chance to do operational stuff and then they've released those top minds to stop brains into the private sector where they've taken the expertise created commercial products and services and in fact now created a global market for their services so again the answer days that comes back to human beings can we raise a sufficient critical mass of people with the interest the passion the ability the nurturing and the opportunity and then release them into the private sector and hopefully they will do well become another of the Singapore economy one last question my name is Terrence G I see companies have increasingly gotten more powerful over the years some have GDPs larger than small countries as you've said and many are now owners of technology that we would literally not be able to live without and in in addition many of these commercial entities are also being used for example the Swift Network to prosecute foreign policy aims so how does Singapore how will Singapore deal with this expanding great area again another very salient question you think about digital technology a lot of it in the last 50 years actually developed within laboratories that were funded by America and in particular the defense ministries in America so you had this confluence of money talent and academia getting together and then in turn that generated both an incidental public good because I don't think they started off by saying we want to create an internet for all the purposes that it is put to now but it also created a whole new market and America had a whole second wind of economic development because it led in these technologies so what happened in America is that the value capture the profit part of it mainly went to the private sector and because they led and opened up that same technology worldwide they then had access to a global market and that's why the tech giants of today are certainly bigger than Gd piece of many small states and as you're quite rightly said even more important than just revenue is the technology that they have captured within their business ecosystem the question now then is what is the role of the state and in particular states beyond the digital superpowers and as I said my earlier answer the first is to uplift the capability and skills of our people so that even if they don't even read it and invent it we must be early adopters and we must be early applicators being able to apply these new technologies even better still if we can get our share or more than our fair share of unicorns that in turn will capture value even better all that needs to be done but there's another area where I think states and in particular international consensus will be needed and that is in the field of standards setting and my own personal preference is to move towards open standards open source open data so that there'll be a fairer open and level playing field with opportunities for everyone and to actively lean against companies always trying to build wall Gardens and always trying to create barriers so that newcomers cannot enter that field so there will always be tension between the big companies and the regulators but because the big companies now are such large multinational companies you actually need coordination amongst regulators at an international level and that's why I spent part of my speech talking about the need for global standards and cyberspace is another arena of the global comments just like climate change just like pandemics and we need effective global cooperation collaboration and standard setting and we need to do so in order to open up these technologies in order to democratize it so that a new middle class can rise and it is only then that you get a new golden age so that's my approach to it but we are still in very very early days in the initial phase the companies will object reject do their best to resist and you see that happening now in the next phase some countries will feel oh I have an advantage I will do it but I do not want my neighbors and the other international countries to be able to compete with me it'll take much longer for enlightened long-term self interests to kick in and to understand that this is a public good and we need some modicum of regulations in order to level the playing field so that there'll be fair competition and the value will be harvested and shared in an equitable way this will take time to evolve it says here please conclude time's up but but may I just ask your indulgence in ask one last question so as to end on the little red dot many years ago on the eve of the Second World War the Oxford Union passed a resolution saying that they will not under any circumstances fight for king and country and that send an obvious signal to the Axis powers and they made their calculations as a result the strongest thing that every foreign minister since the first of singapore's had going for him is that no one really doubts that if there is a crisis the Foreign Minister and his government will be able to galvanize the entire population of Singapore behind our national interests and we have seen this displayed over the past year or so on more than two occasions in fact two or three occasions you've had the opposition stand up in Parliament led by mr. Lothian himself yes to make it clear that on matters of national interests politics stops at the water's edge and there is no daylight between the opposition and the government how certain are you that this will obtain in the years to come and what dangers if any do you see in the maintenance of domestic consensus on our national interest no that's a fundamental question and my starting point always is that foreign policy begins at home if Singapore was not successful if Singapore was not united there is no foreign policy would but because we are successful united we are in the happy position where I can tell my colleagues Singapore will never be intimidated or bought and that's a precious good to be able to say that we will not be intimidated then the next point is okay if you can get to that stage how do you maintain that which is young your question so let me let you in on it's not really a state secret for any significant foreign policy issue not only do we spend enormous amount of time we didn't cabinet particularly with the Prime Minister the DPMS and the other ministries analyzing discussing arguing working through all the options all the pluses and minuses we do a lot of that but I also briefed the opposition and the enemies and I do so because as you said beyond our shores this is Singapore and I'm glad to tell you this based on my experience so far there has been no gap no party politics has supervene or interfere with our pursuit of foreign policy this is a blessing you know next question is can you maintain that and the answers I'm gonna do my darkness to make sure we maintain this bipartisan consensus and it is important we do that because Singapore is just too small we cannot afford the kind of raucous toing and froing which often happens in many other countries so better to take someone into confidence I'll do it out privately maybe then to display this unity in Parliament and you're absolutely right certainly with the current opposition they have played their part and we have taken them into confidence so it makes my job so much easier and my final point is this diplomats by definition of people who tend to be good language good communicators good analysts and all that is essential but ultimately if you can't carry the population if you can't convince people that you're doing the right thing and that even when the waters get choppy and sacrifices need to be made if you're unable to convince people of then we can't pursue our foreign policy so for 53 years you know I always think that it's an incredible blessing that we've been able to do five things right first be successful and United to make sure we cannot be bought or intimidated three to be friends and be able to do business with everyone four to strictly and in the discipline way our whole international law and fifth to always say the same thing to all the different parties I don't have the luxury of whispering sweet nothings and different things to different stakeholders and different partners while negotiating with so it is you know my I always counted a blessing to be able to operate in such a system so my final point is this we are living in very uncertain times I have offered the hypothesis that the world order is fractured because domestically there is fractious politics in many other places and that this political heaving and throwing is occurring because we are in living in the onset of another technological digital revolution and the answers do not lie in foreign policy first you better get that cause the chain of causality right fix your domestic conditions first create as mr. Lee Kuan Yew always reminded us a fair and just society give everyone hope for a better future and equip every single partner with the skills needed so that they know they have a fair chance of a better future then we can have good politics and as I said an example I given you at least for now in foreign policy we have got good politics and then once you've settled that then you can work out how do we navigate this dangerous new world that is unfolding but my point is I hope I haven't made you all too pessimistic I hope I've given you all a sense that you take a step back and analyze the larger things forces and understand that we've seen all this before and we made the right choices and positioned ourselves correctly if we do that again then a golden age awaits us so I remain a realistic optimist thank you all very much for your attention of a long day thank you [Music] you
