Chan Chun Sing announced as new Defence Minister

Prime Minister Lawrence Wong revealed his revamped cabinet on May 21 and announced that Chan Chun Sing will take over from the retiring Ng Eng Hen as Singapore's Minister for Defence.

Chan was also appointed Coordinating Minister for Public Services.

Chan will immediately be busy, preparing for the upcoming 2025 Shangri La Dialogue at the end of May.

The Dialogue is an annual security conference put on by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, but assisted by Singapore's Ministry of Defence.

Ready, relevant, and resilient

At the press conference announcing the new cabinet slate, Chan paid tribute to his predecessors for their role in building up defence capabilities.

But "today... we are living in a changed world", and Singapore would need to "evolve new capabilities to be prepared for the new scenarios" in the coming years.

Singapore needed to "ask ourselves, what are those new capabilities that we must build ahead of time so that our defence force can remain ready, relevant, and resilient?"

Background

Chan was perhaps an unsurprising choice for the role, given his extensive background with the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF).

He joined the military in 1987 and served for 24 years, achieving the position of Chief of Army, before leaving to join politics in 2011.

He went on to helm several ministries, such as Trade and Industry, and most recently Education, and was the Secretary-General of NTUC between 2015 and 2018.

But the Ministry of Defence will be somewhat familiar ground for him, not just for his time in the SAF, but because he served as Second Minister for Defence between 2013 and 2015.

Coordination

Also of note is Chan's new appointment as the Coordinating Minister for Public Services.

PM Wong elaborated on Chan's role, saying that while the government had improved on "bringing together public services in a more accessible and integrated manner" over the years, "there's still more to be done" especially in coordinating the "wide range of different amenities and facilities in our new housing estates".

Chan noted that the role had two distinct elements, current operations and future planning.

The former involved improvements in "both processes and execution", but forward planning would "minimise the downstream remediation" that the government would need to do.

"The more we do with upfront planning, the less we need to do downstream."

Former PM Lee Hsien Loong explained role of Coordinating Ministers

As then prime minister Lee Hsien Loong explained nearly a decade ago, coordinating ministers reflect that many issues now require action from multiple ministries in order to address.

Speaking in 2015, then PM Lee gave the example of population issues, saying that a solution would need various ministries to work together to provide transport, housing, schools, and other infrastructure.

A coordinating minister would be better able to oversee the development and implementation of a multi-ministry process.

But it also allowed a PM to "move more boldly", putting new ministers into place, knowing there was an experienced coordinating minister behind them to help them "find his feet and master the job".

Shangri La

Chan's new role will not be limited to the organisation of the defence ministry, but also engaging with foreign military and security leaders, almost as another limb in Singapore's approach to international relations and geopolitics.

He will be expected to display that presence next week at the annual SLD.

The SLD is not quite a baptism of fire, by now it is too well-run for that. However, it will give Chan a chance to meet many of his international counterparts from within the Southeast Asian region and the wider world.

Traditionally, the SLD is attended by the defence ministers of the United States and China, and has served as an occasion to air both grievances and priorities in the Indo-Pacific region.

But it has also served as an important opportunity for dialogue between the two competitors, even if the moment is fleeting.

Such occasions can eventually give way to more formal discussions, and a year later, Secretary Lloyd Austin would sit down with China's current Defence Minister, Dong Jun, for talks on the sidelines of the event.

Visit of regional and international leaders

The SLD will also serve as a chance to engage at the highest level with regional and international leaders.

This year's edition will see French President Emmanuel Macron give the keynote address, and Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim is also expected to speak.

In previous years, the leaders of Australia, Indonesia, Japan, and Ukraine have also addressed the conference.

Chan will get a chance to make an early impression with several of his counterparts, although it should be noted the SLD is hardly a new experience for him, having attended on several occasions, such as in 2017, when he met senior leaders of both China and the United State's security establishment.

Is it cake?

But he will have a tough act to follow.

His predecessor, Ng Eng Hen, presided over 13 previous SLDs and has come to be seen as a bit of a fixture of the event.

He regularly addressed the conference, dispensing frank and at times stark outlooks on the regional and global security and geopolitical situation.

In his final year as defence minister at SLD, he paid tribute to the various hotel, police, and ministry staff who had worked on the SLD over the years, saying that they had been integral to the SLD and its "quest for peace".

This sentiment appears to have been reciprocated, given the intricate commemorative cake the staff of the Shangri La baked for him as a farewell gift.

Top image via Chan Chun Sing/Facebook