A yin-yang affair the development of a New Zealand-Singapore bilateral relationship, 1950-67

Abstract

There is a limited body of research describing the multilateral Commonwealth defence commitment to Southeast Asia in the 1950s and 1960s, but little work has been done on the bilateral relationships that developed out of this cold war setting, particularly from a New Zealand perspective. This thesis looks at the bilateral relationship that developed between New Zealand and Singapore between 1955 and 1967. It argues that although New Zealand policy-makers took a regional view of Southeast Asia, a small state like New Zealand could pursue its policy only at specific points, most notably Singapore. Furthermore, if Singapore was not internally stable then New Zealand's military presence in Singapore would be in doubt, and so would its overall external security policy. The pen accompanied the sword, as New Zealand's diplomatic representatives, who went to Singapore at the same time as the main defence commitment, utilised political and socio-economic contact for the ends of internal stability. Through exploring the New Zealand-Singapore relationship the thesis aims to illustrate the importance of the development of an organization that could effectively manage New Zealand's world interests, the Department of External Affairs (NZDEA), whose officials are at the core of this study. The transition from British Empire to Commonwealth raised the question of how entities within Empire (and then Commonwealth) should relate to one another, and the wider world. For NZDEA, the challenge was how to focus its representation on Singapore so as to get optimal returns for an investment of severely limited diplomatic resources. In this respect, the establishment of New Zealand's commission in Singapore in 1955 was only NZDEA's second mission in Asia and its first in Southeast Asia.