Although today Singapore plays a major role in the Association of South East Asian Nations, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, Lee was sceptical when Asean was taking shape.
A report in the Straits Times notes that the CIA documents from the late 1960s indicate that this was largely due to the geopolitical circumstances prevailing then.
It was a time when Singapore was struggling with the trauma of the 1964 racial riots, its subsequent separation from Malaysia, and Indonesia’s confrontation of Malaysia.
Singapore, therefore, had a “more independently minded” foreign policy than its neighbours, Malaysia and Indonesia, said the CIA.
A 1974 special report showed the stark divergence between the foreign policies of Malaysia and Singapore, according to the ST report.
While Kuala Lumpur placed “considerable value” on its membership in Asean, Singapore was an active participant in the grouping “only to accommodate the other (initial) four members of the organisation” – Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines.
One reason was the different views on how to keep Southeast Asia peaceful.
Malaysia, the CIA said, was the chief proponent of a Southeast Asian zone of neutrality, guaranteed by, but free of, “Great Power” rivalries, and as such, saw Asean “as a handy vehicle for promoting (this) pet foreign policy project”.
Lee, however, saw this as a noble but impractical goal as China and the United States would never lose interest in Southeast Asia.
He said regional security would depend on a balance of forces between these powers.
“Even though it accepts its colleagues’ reservations, Kuala Lumpur is nettled by what it sees as Lee Kuan Yew’s unnecessary sarcasm in expressing contempt for the concept,” read the CIA report. Thailand and the Philippines, too, were not enthusiastic about Lee’s views.
The ST report said the Cold War showed that the major powers could not be kept out of Southeast Asia.
However, when Vietnam invaded Cambodia in December 1978, it made Lee revise his attitude towards Asean.
The CIA noted that it was Singapore’s leaders who publicly called for closer military and security cooperation within the framework of Asean.
“The idea of closer military cooperation has been widely, though privately, discussed among Asean members since the Vietnamese invasion of Kampuchea earlier this year, but thus far no government head other than Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew has endorsed it,” The CIA said.
The ST report noted that it would be another three decades before Asean agreed to formally begin high-level cooperation on defence but that today it had extensive exchanges on a wide range of issues from terrorism and maritime security to vocational training and disaster relief.