K Shanmugam has obliquely addressed some of the criticism faced by United States Ambassador to the Singapore, Jonathan Kaplan, in a social media post on Mar. 4.

Under fire

On Mar. 4, Minister for Law and Home Affairs K Shanmugam, who was previously Minister for Foreign Affairs, posted a short message on Facebook about a meeting with Kaplan on Feb. 29.

Shanmugam said the pair discussed a "broad range of matters" during a "useful" meeting.

He also added that he had always found Kaplan to be "proactive and helpful".

Shanmugam ended by saying that based on previous interactions, Kaplan was like several previous U.S. ambassadors in that they have "tried to ensure the relationship between the two countries continues to be strong".

The message, while short and seemingly describing the ordinary role of the ambassador, will likely be welcomed by Kaplan, who had recently come under fire for his performance as ambassador.

Criticism

The U.S. State Department's Office of the Inspector General, an internal watchdog, criticised Kaplan in a report released on Mar. 1.

He was criticised for, amongst other things, poor working relations within the embassy, as well as questionable spending priorities.

But most notably, he was also criticised for "developing poor relationships" with unnamed Singapore government ministries, sometimes hurting progress on diplomatic goals and objectives.

Kaplan was also criticised for supposedly often being "unprepared on issues".

Political appointees can be excellent

Shanmugam was not the only one to seemingly react to the criticism of Kaplan.

It has been noted that Kaplan is not a career diplomat and is instead a political appointee, as are a significant number of U.S. ambassadors.

The Hill estimates that 30 to 40 per cent of U.S. ambassadors are political appointees, most often having made large political donations to the president of the day; a practice that has been heavily criticised in the past.

Former U.S. president Donald Trump nominated Barbara Hale Thornhill to the post in 2019, after his initial nomination in 2017 did not get approved by the Senate.

The post of Ambassador to Singapore was left vacant for five years.

Thornhill, while a philanthropist and president of an interior design firm, also did not have career diplomatic experience.

Bilahari Kausikan, former Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, contextualised the use of political appointees as ambassadors.

He said that "in my opinion at least" Kaplan was "not the worst political appointee that the U.S. has sent to (Singapore)" in a Facebook post on Mar. 2.

Kausikan also noted that being a political appointee was not a barrier to being a good ambassador, saying that there had been "at least two excellent political appointees" to Singapore, although he declined to name them.

Saying that any new ambassador is a "roll of the dice", Bilahari added that he did not doubt that "other countries are saying the same thing" about Singapore's ambassadors.

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Top image via @USAmbSG/X