China is focussed on the United States and “just wants to keep the Indians at arm's length,” said Lee Kuan Yew, East Asia's elder statesman, at the two-day South Asian Diaspora Convention (SADC), which concluded here on Friday.
In dialogue with the delegates at the first-ever global event held under the SADC banner, Mr. Lee said he would “not see the two countries [India and China] as basically adversaries of each other.” In economic and military terms, China and India could not also be seen counter-balancing each other.
On a key concern of the South Asian diaspora, he drew attention to “the deep-seated suspicions” between India and Pakistan and their “ever-lingering fear that there could be another war.” Asked whether the Chinese diaspora offered any lessons for the South Asian, Mr. Lee said: “When they [the Indians and Pakistanis] are out of their local animosities and when they are a minority in the western countries, say in America or Europe, then their animosities disappear. But they are a minority and that's why they tend to glue together.
But, once they go back to India or go back to Pakistan, they are [again] trapped by animosities. That is not easy to resolve. China's diaspora speak the same language with different accents. Nonetheless, the closer you get to China, the closer are some of the provincial pulls.”
Declaring the SADC open on Thursday, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong assured the 50 million people of the South Asian diaspora that the City-State “is well-positioned to be the springboard” for their engagement with the rest of Asia and the world.”
Mr. Lee said Singapore's Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS), established to turn a laser-like focus on that region, was now tracking the global activities of South Asian diaspora.
He cited the South Asian Link, an ISAS website, and the Institute's newsletter, as the initiatives already undertaken to promote Singapore as the springboard for this diaspora's activities across the world.
The idea of SADC was first envisioned by Singapore President S.R. Nathan, a proactive leader of the South Asian diaspora. Honouring him during the convention, ISAS chairman Gopinath Pillai read out a citation tracing Mr. Nathan's long and distinguished public career. ISAS Director Tan Tai Yong praised the services of Mr. Nathan who would soon be retiring as Singapore's President after 12 successive years at the helm.
Book released
Another highlight of the convention was the release of a book, The Dancing Girl: A History of Early India . Launching the book, Mr. Nathan hailed the scholarship of the author, Singapore's late ethnic Indian leader, Balaji Sadasivan. The book traces the history of India as a civilisation from the period of Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa and through the eras of the Chola and the Vijayanagara empires.
K. Kesavapany, Director of the Singapore-based Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, praised the manner in which Balaji, a man of medicine, gathered a mass of historical information and wrote in lucid prose.
Balaji's ethnic-Chinese wife, Ma Swan Hoo, traced how she completed the book after her husband's demise last year.
Showcasing another aspect of inter-cultural awareness, the Singapore Chinese Opera Institute staged a Mandarin cameo on an episode from Ramayana.
