London, 11 August 1965
6919. Secret
Malaysia—Separation of Singapore
As considered British assessment will not be available before end of week I might in meantime, suggest some personal thoughts as to implications for confrontation.
2. Long-term outcome will of course depend on fresh stock-takings which will undoubtedly be made by all the parties principally concerned (Indonesia, Federation Government, Singapore and political groups in Sabah and Sarawak, as well as Britain, New Zealand and ourselves). In most cases stock-taking is likely to lead to some readjustment of policies. With this variety of concurrent reviews it would be foolhardy to attempt firm predictions but it does seem possible to identify certain questions, risks and possible trends.
3. Much will of course depend on how Indonesia plays its hand and I recognise that, in its mood of triumph and arrogance, it might play it imprudently. After preliminary crowing and propagandist exploitation of the break internationally, however, Indonesia might well decide to make friendly overtures to Singapore, emphasising that its real quarrel and its confrontation are directed only against Kuala Lumpur and latter’s seizure of Borneo Territories, that it would welcome friendliest relations and co-operation with Singapore and that only obstacle to fullest consummation is continued presence of British base. If Indonesians are wise they will soft-pedal latter point for the present, recognising economic importance of base in Singapore’s immediate predicament but suggesting measures of cooperation, including perhaps (despite previous threats) some modified return to the entrepot, which might in due course make base less significant economically. We may expect inter alia renewed demands for re-ascertainment in Sabah and Sarawak and will undoubtedly hear more of proposals for a Maphilindo1 including those two territories as independent members.
4. Lee may take a little time to recover from his emotional shock and to take a cool look at what he has agreed to and at predicament he finds himself in. His real problem then (apart from Barisan Socialist challenge) will be how to eat, and his statements this week suggest that this has him quite worried.2Common market and other economic matters is one of several fields in which Kuala Lumpur and Singapore have so far failed to reach satisfactory arrangements and there is no reason to expect that agreement will prove any easier in future. We might expect Lee’s long-term attitude to be influenced significantly by what help he can draw from various sources in economic and trade field: without exaggerating, therefore, the past strain on Singapore of economic confrontation or the value of any economic bait which the Indonesians could and might offer, it might be unwise to assume that Lee would scom the latter at all times and in all circumstances.
5. Lee’s private assurances this week to Head and to other Commonwealth representatives about his determination to resist confrontation (my 6898)3 are gratifyingly sturdy. I see no reason to doubt his present sincerity and I do not necessarily rate the risk of back-sliding as very high. In the longer term, however, I feel that it would be unwise to take completely for granted his continued readiness to stand fully with Malaysia in its conflict with Indonesia over the Borneo Territories if he came to judge that the reward for his loyalty was inadequate, that he was attracting avoidable confrontation against Singapore itself and perhaps also excluding some arrangements offered by Singapore which could ease his economic difficulties. Lee’s attitude towards bases has obviously relaxed a lot in the ten years since I knew him4 but I cannot help feeling that his long-term interest in their continuance and in joint defence arrangements will depend at root on his assessment of any separate and direct threat to Singapore: Indonesia would be very foolish to stimulate his fears.
6. Tunku originally took in Singapore with considerable reluctance and only for fear of a communist take-over there. He took in Sabah and Sarawak as a racial make-weight and not because they held any attractions in themselves. Both territories are net liabilities to him. Sarawak has little economic value to Malaysia, and Sabah practically none. Now that Singapore has gone and the make-weight is unnecessary, how important will it be to Kuala Lumpur, and for how long, to cling to the two territories at expense of indefinite confrontation from Indonesia, with all that this involves in terms of budgetary and nervous strain, diversion of scarce resources and set-back to economic development? Questions of ‘face’ are of course involved, but may not Kuala Lumpur grow gradually more receptive to tactful formulae for ‘re-ascertainment’ without necessarily any great concern as to whether resulting choice is independence or even union with Indonesia?
7. I would not attempt to speak with any authority about public opinion and power groups in Sabah and Sarawak. It seems safe to say, however, that expulsion of Singapore must have come as a shock there. It must have strengthened any local dissatisfactions with past treatment by Kuala Lumpur and with strains of confrontation, and must have raised fears as to what treatment they too might expect in future if they did not toe Alliance line. Absorption in Indonesia is unlikely to be any more attractive but local opinion might perhaps be increasingly drawn to a formula (e.g. Greater Maphilindo) which might appear to offer advantages of independence within protective ‘neighbourhood’ framework.
8. I have little doubt that immediate British reaction will be ‘business as usual and be damned to them’ and that efforts will be made through Joint Defence Council and otherwise to maintain common Malaysian-Singapore front against totality of Indonesian confrontation. It could eventually become difficult to continue to do so, however, if Indonesians played their cards cleverly, if Tunku and/or Lee (for different reasons) ceased to see profit in the struggle and if Sabah and Sarawak became increasingly disenchanted. Furthermore, although Healey5 and Stewart6 have been agreeably robust so far, Brown7 and Callaghan8 are always lurking in the background with their pressures for curtailment of defence commitments and expenditure. For the British also ‘face’ is involved but we must expect growing feeling here that prospects of broad long-term co-operation between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore are too uncertain, that the bottom has fallen out of the grand design and that the remnants are hardly worth the considerable strain which they entail. In fact, on Sunday’s precedent, the British (and we) might not even be asked for our views if Kuala Lumpur eventually decided that the game was not worth the candle.
9. It is possible to envisage a stage at which both Kuala Lumpur and London might be ready to abandon Borneo Territories (under some face-saving formula) as the price of an end to confrontation, while not yet being willing to withdraw British bases. As the bases are the real target of the Indonesians this solution would not satisfy them. If the Indonesians were shrewd, however, they would call off confrontation on this footing and leave it to the forces of nature (both here and in Malaysia and Singapore) to dismantle the bases within a very few years.
10. These depressing thoughts are not put forward as any firm assessment and they do not pretend to cover the field comprehensively. On some points I do not myself rate the risks very highly. I feel, however, that all of the risks are possible and that some are highly probable, and that we would be wise to take them all into account and seek actively to neutralise them if we wish to continue to block further Indonesian advances and to maintain the other parties concerned in suitably robust attitudes.
[NAA: A1838, TS682/21/1 part 15]
1 See editorial note, 1963 Tripartite Talks.
2 Possibly drawn from Lee’s statements that cooperation with Kuala Lumpur was necessary to Singapore’s survival, referring in particular to water and trade. He had also said that without such cooperation, then Singapore ‘must seek a living for its people by trading with the devil to survive’.
3 11 August. It advised that Lee had impressed on Head that the independence of Singapore ‘in no way invalidated the solidarity of ‘what had been Malaysia’ against confrontation’; and had also told the High Commissioners that he would only respond to Indonesian overtures ‘so long as the British bases remained and confrontation against Malaysia ceased’.
4 Eastman had been Deputy Commissioner in Singapore from August 1955 to May 1956.
5 Denis Healey, UK Secretary of State for Defence.
6 Michael Stewart, UK Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
7 George Brown, UK First Secretary of State and Secretary of State for Economic Affairs.
8 (Leonard) James Callaghan, UK Chancellor of the Exchequer.