Foreign Relations Of Singapore
Singapore maintains diplomatic relations with 175 countries although it does not maintain a high commission or embassy in many of those countries. It is a member of the United Nations, the Commonwealth, ASEAN and the Non-Aligned Movement.
Due to obvious geographical reasons, relations with Malaysia and Indonesia are most important. Historical baggage, including the traumatic separation from Malaysia, and Konfrontasi with Indonesia, have caused a siege mentality of sorts. Singapore enjoys good relations with the United Kingdom which shares ties in the Five Power Defence Arrangements (FPDA) along with Malaysia, Australia and New Zealand. Good relations are also maintained with the United States; the US is perceived as a stabilizing force in the region to counterbalance the regional powers.
Singapore supports the concept of Southeast Asian regionalism and plays an active role in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), of which Singapore is a founding member. Singapore is also a member of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum which has its Secretariat in Singapore.
As part of its role in the United Nations, Singapore held a rotational seat on the UN Security Council from 2001 to 2002. It participated in UN peacekeeping/observer missions in Kuwait, Angola, Namibia, Cambodia and East Timor.
Read more about Foreign Relations Of Singapore: Timeline of Singapore Foreign Relations, Foreign Policy, Trade Agreements, Southeast and East Asia, Europe, United States, Rest of World, International Humanitarian Effort, International Effort On Anti-terrorism, International Effort On Anti-piracy, Consulates
Famous quotes containing the words foreign and/or relations:
“The American who has been confined, in his own country, to the sight of buildings designed after foreign models, is surprised on entering York Minster or St. Peter’s at Rome, by the feeling that these structures are imitations also,—faint copies of an invisible archetype.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Happy will that house be in which the relations are formed from character; after the highest, and not after the lowest order; the house in which character marries, and not confusion and a miscellany of unavowable motives.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)