Lecture III: The Demand, the Answer, and What Stands Behind It
The concluding lecture begins with how pressure actually arrives: as a cost imposed on a company, as South Korea’s Lotte Group found in 2017. The answer to such pressure cannot rest on rhetoric. Singapore must know which dependencies can be replaced, how quickly, and what keeps essential systems running meanwhile. It must make resistance survivable through fiscal room and critical supplies, and make itself costly to lose through the services and relationships both powers value. The lecture sets out principles, not a playbook, for answering, and asks what Singapore should aim to be left with when the pressure ends. It proposes dependency reviews and stronger foreign-affairs capability across government. Finally, it treats public trust and social cohesion as strategic capabilities. What must be built, and what must Singaporeans be willing to bear, for the answer to be ours to give?
To find out more about Mr Ng Chee Khern, the 19th S R Nathan Fellow, click here.