ABSTRACT
Singapore’s population is three-quarters Chinese, her national language Malay. Singapore is a non-aligned member of the Afro-Asian People’s Sohdarity Organization with close ties with Israel and a defence policy based on the co-operation of extra-regional powers. Critical of the United States, Singapore has recently advised against time-tables of withdrawal from Vietnam, viewed with apparent calm growing Russian interest in the Indian Ocean, and helped save the Commonwealth. Dominated politically by the People’s Action Party traditionally espousing a militant socialism, Singapore is establishing itself as an Asian financial centre and as a base from which overseas industry may penetrate the Southeast Asian market. A parliamentary democracy in which one party legitimately won all seats, Singapore’s world image is dominated by the personality of her brilliant but hardhitting Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew, softened by the understanding of S. Rajaratnam, the Foreign Minister.
