MFA Press Release: Tanscript of Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Law K Shanmugam's doorstop interview on the sidelines of the ASEAN Foreign Ministers' Retreat, 28 January 2015

TRANSCRIPT OF DOORSTOP INTERVIEW ON THE SIDELINES OF THE ASEAN FOREIGN MINISTERS’ RETREAT BY MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND MINISTER FOR LAW K SHANMUGAM WITH THE STRAITS TIMES, CHANNEL NEWS ASIA, LIANHE ZAOBAO, KYODO NEWS, VIETNAM TV, AND ASAHI SHIMBUN AT KOTA KINABALU, MALAYSIA, 28 JANUARY 2015

Media: Mr Shanmugam, maybe you can elaborate more about, understand that there is a statement on condemning the IS.

Minister: The IS threat is something that affects all of us and the people from this region, the different countries have been influenced and have gone over to join the fight in Syria and in the Middle East. There is of course a concern that they may then come back and can take part in activities which can cause damage to the respective countries, and it is something that we all need to deal with. For example, this killing of the Japanese hostage. The world has condemned it. The UN Security Council has condemned it, and ASEAN also condemns it. We need to put up a strong, united stand and at the same time we have to, in our respective countries, make sure that the policies are right, the economic opportunities are equally shared and make sure that we have a fair system for people of all ethnic groups and religions to prosper. That is one condition. At the same time, we have to deal with terrorism and extremism and take a strong stand.

Media: Also on the case of the common time zone, FM Anifah spoke about how it will have strong benefits. From the Singapore perspective, what are your comments on this?

Minister: Oh there is no doubt at all, in fact the common time zone was first mooted by Singapore some time ago. ASEAN today is the 7th largest economy in the world with 600 million people, GDP of more than two trillion dollars and anything that helps businesses integrate, move goods, services, work with each other seamlessly, will help the man in the street. After all, when you talk about ASEAN or ASEAN economic community, beyond foreign ministers and leaders’ meeting, the question is what does it mean for the man in the street and when we meet – foreign ministers meet – that has got to be our primary concern. How does it help each of our citizens? So it must be in the national interest but at the same time, it cannot be only in one country’s interest, it’s got to be for the whole community. So you can see immediately why a common time zone will help businesses throughout ASEAN and it will help us tremendously because we are a financial centre, because we are a services centre, and we do a lot of work in the region.

Media: Is there any parties that are not ready for the idea?

Minister: I think everyone is supportive but we need to work out the details like which time zone do you choose.

Media: Was this discussed at the meeting?

Minister: I think at a very preliminary level and the officials will be asked to look at it. I think Malaysia is very keen to look at the project and we will be very supportive.

Media: That is “+8 GMT”?

Minister: Well, you know different countries have got different ideas. Our position is “+8”.

Media: What is Singapore’s view on how should ASEAN develop after 2015?

Minister: I have said many times that you don’t look at it as 31^st December 2015, you know, you don’t declare success. There is going to be a post-2015 vision because you need to continue to integrate and Malaysia has looked at that. It has got some ideas. There is a taskforce that has been formed and all ASEAN countries have nominated representatives to study, post-2015, how do you carry on in the path towards greater integration and we support it completely.

Media: The South China Sea issue – I think a few member countries have raised concern on land reclamation. What was the atmosphere at the meeting like and also when we are looking at an early conclusion of the COC with ASEAN asking Thailand to expedite the process, are there any positive feedbacks or anything that we can expect the year forward.

Minister: You know this is a retreat setting, we are really family, we sit together, round and discuss very frankly. So a number of countries raised the issue very strongly because they felt that the progress on the COC was a little muted compared with the way in which land reclamation was being carried out. And certainly Thailand was asked as the country coordinator for China, because China is the other party to the COC together with the ASEAN countries, to try and expedite the discussions on COC, to try and get the COC going. We take over from Thailand as country coordinator for China in August this year, so it is our common goal to try and do as much as we can to get to a proper document on COC.

Media: What is Singapore’s views on maintaining peace and stability regarding the South China Sea?

Minister: We have said that many times, and it’s not just a Singapore view. It’s the view of all the parties concerned - freedom of navigation, peace, stability - we have all prospered because there has been peace and stability in the region. And we want to make sure that that continues for the benefit of all our people, and for disputes to be settled in a way that doesn't lead to increased tension, for parties to find a way of dealing with issues, and the COC is one such approach because it cannot deal with the disputes, but what it does do is to try and say how parties should behave with each other in the context of disputes.

Media: And there are questions about the sincerity of China in finalising the COC. What do you think about the possibility?

Minister: I don't know. Who is questioning the sincerity?

Media: It is a common feeling. It's a feeling, you know?

Minister: Well you know, it's difficult for me to comment on sort of, vague feelings. China has signed the DOC, the original document on which the COC is going to be based, and we believe that China is serious about wanting peace and stability, and it is for us to convince China that the COC is part and parcel of that process.

Media: Perhaps the clearest indicator of some doubting China's sincerity is that Philippines has gone ahead with arbitration process and insists it won’t withdraw.

Minister: You know I can’t comment on either the Philippines or China in that context.

Media: When we were insisting on the progress on the conclusion of the COC, would early harvest measures, I mean how soon should we see it as a good indicator of good progress?

Minister: We are hopeful. I would rather not put a time frame because it does involve 10 countries on one side, China, it does involve negotiations but there have been some hopeful signs of potential early harvest.

Media: When you mentioned that some countries voiced very strongly, can you tell us a bit more about that? Like who…

Minister: I think in a retreat setting, this style of very frank discussions, it is not so appropriate for me to come out and say “so and so said this, so and so said that”. It would be a breach of confidence. Going back to the earlier question, say China and the Philippines, both have made clear what they think of their bilateral issues. Likewise, you can imagine the countries which are claimants may have a slightly different view compared to countries that are non-claimants. That is to be expected. Each country will also assess how best to prosecute its claims. Philippines has said that arbitration is the route that it wishes to take.  China has said that’s not appropriate.  For us, standing back, we take a neutral position and we say, look, leaving all that aside, let’s at least have a code of conduct. Because we are not a claimant state but we have a lot of stake in making sure that the disputes are peacefully dealt with.

Media: Minister, just now did the Ministers discuss about this ASEAN special meeting on extremism and radicalism? What is this meeting about and what do they hope to achieve?

Minister: Well, that goes back to what I said earlier, that we are all taking this issue seriously. Singapore is, for example, hosting an EAS symposium on rehabilitation, counter-terrorism and issues like that. Malaysia has of course got its, as a Moderate Muslim country, is taking a lead on several of these issues. And the whole idea is to try and get some commonality on how to deal with this sort of issues which faces almost every country in the world now.

Media: Such as intelligence-sharing and all these?

Minister: Well, those are intelligence-sharing, rehabilitation, these are all on the table. I think the idea has been proposed, it hasn’t been fully fleshed out.

Media: Minister, can we ask a question about streamlining? Is there any push by ASEAN to streamline their meetings?

Minister: Yes, definitely so, at the various levels. The leaders meet twice a year. At the beginning when the ASEAN Charter was being implemented, that was necessary to give it the political push and direction. Now, there are very serious discussions and broad agreement that should be looked at to see whether it needs to be two, or can it be one in some years. The leaders can choose to decide that one Summit is enough. And the foreign ministers can take up and discuss the other issues. Likewise, we have a lot of dialogue partnerships. We have plus-one meetings. The format of those meetings was discussed. We also have more than 1300 ASEAN meetings at different ministries, different levels, different officials. It is a sign of how much interaction there is. Whether you take education, culture, defence. But are there better ways of doing it with modern technology? Do you need to fly and come and meet together to do all the meetings? These are all the issues that we are talking about. The High Level Task Force came out with a report and there was strong support for it. We distributed a non-paper that focused on how we can go further. In fact, we strongly supported letting the leaders decide whether or not there should be two Summits a year. Our view is that one Summit may well be enough if the leaders should choose to do so, decide so. And we also suggested some modalities for the plus-one meetings, and there was broad support for many of the ideas. Thank you.

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