TR EMERITUS

I refer to the CNA news, “GE2025: Red Dot United to contest in Holland-Bukit Timah GRC but may make way for Singapore Democratic Party” (April 10),

“More opposition 'star catches' are emerging. Is Singapore's political scene maturing?” (April 10) and “PSP says government response to Trump tariffs 'overblown', partly to 'instil fear' in voters” (April 7).

The entire opposition party must remember that if they fight the ruling party in any constituency alone, their chances of winning is only 50% or above and they are exhausted. If there is a three-cornered fight, they will have to divert their attention to deal with another "enemy", and the result will be even less optimistic.

For examples, the Democratic Party (SDP) and the National Solidarity Party (NSP) announced their candidacy for the Sembawang GRC, and the People's Alliance for Reform reiterates plans to contest Potong Pasir, despite SPP appeal.

The above scenario is consistently illustrated with the strategic thinking emphasized in Sun Tzu's Art of War: "If you don't plan for the overall situation, you are not qualified to plan for a region." It is the overall situation that determines the survival of a region. The key to the success or failure of any cause lies in whether you can understand and control the overall situation.

Any political party should try to avoid or guard against internal rebellion, especially for the opposition party. This is because it is more difficult for the opposition party to attract talents and gain resources than the ruling party, so that the opposition party must be fully aware and stringently strict when screening their candidacies. Especially upon the scrutiny or assessments of their candidates’
character whereby the basis of sturdy integrity is utmost important. This is beside the critical requirement for a candidate’s reasonably good academic and career performance.

Hence, the entire opposition must reflect on and learn from the painful experience of Raeesah Khan‘s case.

This is vividly described in Sun Tzu's Art of War: Enemy Strategy. For example, there is an allusion of "creating something out of nothing" to defeat Fu Jian.

During Trump 1.0's administration, tariffs were imposed on China and a few US trading partners (Mexico, Vietnam, Germany, Japan, Iceland). During Trump 2.0's campaign, he claimed that if elected, he would impose high tariffs on most of the world's trading partners to revitalize the US economy and make America great again. Therefore, all countries should have known this in advance that Trump would make this move. In other words, all countries should have taken various preventive measures to deal with Trump's high tariff policy/strategy, and should not be panic or having deep consternation and deliberate over countermeasures at the last minute (including Singapore).

Hence, at this juncture, it is not a bad idea for Dr Tan Cheng Bock to call for economists to study the real impact of the tariffs, and seriously look into what measures can be taken by then. And, it is also not wrong for Dr Tan to say: "Don't just make statements of this kind and scare everybody".

In fact, the current US President Donald Trump knows that 6 trillion of the 36 trillion US national debt plus a considerable amount of interest must be repaid before the end of this year. So the key problem that bothers him the most is here (all the experts in the world's financial industry know this). So Trump's reciprocal tariffs are just a smokescreen. This is like the "Hide the Heaven and Cross the Sea - Qi Jiang Borrows Wine to Send Her Husband" described in Sun Tzu's Art of War and the "Sima Yi's Feint to the East and Attack the West" allusion.

Therefore, as Dr Tan Cheng Mock suggested, in order to find the right medicine for the right disease, we should consult economists from all sides to find out the real impact on our economy and seek response strategies.

Teo Kueh Liang (Mr)

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