By Ernest Z. Bower, Senior Adviser and Director of the Southeast Asia Program, CSIS
Singaporean Minister of Finance Tharman Shanmugaratam. Photo by Robin Laden, used under a Creative Commons license.
Singapore has survived and prospered leading by its wits. Size, natural resources and geopolitical muscle replaced by smarts, focus and location. Necessity, in Singapore’s case, is the mother of innovation.
Two events last week underlined this assertion: the International Monetary Fund (IMF) named long-standing Singaporean Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratam as the first Asian chair of the International Monetary Financial Committee (IMFC); and France, exercising its prerogative as chair of the G20, named Singapore as one of five non-member countries invited to have a full seat at the table when the G20 Summit takes place on November 3-4 in Cannes.
While Singapore is quietly vilified for being pushy and overly assertive behind the scenes by other members of ASEAN, last week’s events should remind the regional grouping why the city-state is a vital member and good neighbor.
Being selected for leadership roles in the world’s most important multilateral financial institutions doesn’t come from luck. It comes from hard work and recognition that you can and will contribute. Minister Tharman personifies what Singapore can be as it evolves: urbane, sophisticated, caring, worldly and diverse. Ethnically from Sri Lankan Tamil roots, Tharman excelled in his studies and earned degrees in economics from the London School of Economics and Cambridge, and in public administration from Harvard. He is the man Singapore wanted in the minister’s chair at Finance during the global financial crisis, and has held that seat from 2007 to today. Before that, he transformed education in Singapore and regionally as minister of education. On a personal level, it is hard to imagine a nicer guy: witty, affable and insightful. He is married to a highly talented lawyer and mother of four, Jane Yumiko Ittogi.
Tharman will serve up to a three year term as head of the IMFC, and that will help Singapore contribute at the G20 Summit – following on their full participation at the last summit in Seoul, Korea. Singapore was explicitly invited as the representative of the Global Governance Group known as 3G, a 27-member group self formed to provide input to the G20. It is also clear that Paris wanted Singapore in, along with the UAE, to ensure they covered the traditional global financial hubs (New York, London, Tokyo, Hongkong) along with the new generation hubs (Dubai and Singapore).
Global financial architecture is adapting to new realities. Keeping Singapore at the table makes good sense and helps Southeast Asia influence trends and stay current with the flow.
