SINGAPORE: To ensure that Singapore does not fall prey to foreign interference and information campaigns, the law must be updated to respond swiftly to such threats, said Senior Minister of State for Law and Health Edwin Tong in Parliament on Tuesday (Feb 12).
Mr Tong was responding on behalf of Prime Minister Lee Hsieng Loong to Member of Parliament (MP) Cheng Li Hui.
Ms Cheng asked if there is a need to introduce new laws or strengthen existing laws when dealing with foreign interference and Singaporeans who work with foreign actors to influence Singapore’s elections and politics.
She also asked whether Singapore can learn from countries such as the United States, Australia and France in their encounters with foreign interference in their elections and politics.
Mr Tong brought up the case of New Zealand where an opposition leader had allegedly circumvented political donation laws by disguising a donation by a businessman linked to a foreign government so that it did not have to be declared. This sparked debate within the country on the need to review policies against foreign interference.
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“Indeed, today, information can easily be weaponised by foreign actors, at low cost, and with anonymity and impunity. No country is immune. This is asymmetric information warfare, fought in a theatre and era with no distinction between war and peace,” said Mr Tong.
“In this battlefield, Singapore, an open, democratic, digitally-connected and diverse country, is especially vulnerable. We are a young country with sensitive fault lines that foreign actors can exploit to foment distrust and ill-will among our various communities,” Mr Tong added.
SINGAPORE ‘ESPECIALLY VULNERABLE’ TO FOREIGN INFLUENCE
In his supplementary response, Mr Tong said that foreign influence has had a long history in Singapore. In the 1970s, two newspapers were taken to task for taking foreign money and attempting to undermine the Government.
Mr Tong also gave the example of Huang Jing, a former professor at Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy who was expelled after being identified as an agent of influence acting on behalf of a foreign country.
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Huang had knowingly interacted with and cooperated with intelligence organisations and agents of a foreign country to influence Singapore’s foreign policy and public opinion, he said.
Huang had done so by engaging prominent and influential Singaporeans and gave them what he claimed was “privileged information” about the foreign country so as to influence their opinion.
He also recruited others in aid of his operations, Mr Tong said.
Professor Huang Jing speaking at an LKYSPP conference. (Screengrab of video on LKYSPP’s YouTube page)
There are also other signs that Singapore has been targeted for information campaigns. Testimony given during the Select Committee on Deliberate Online Falsehoods has highlighted the use of news articles and social media to influence segments of Singapore’s population.
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For instance in December last year when Singapore and Malaysia’s bilateral ties were strained, the Government saw a spike in critical comments made online by avatars, which are anonymous accounts with pictures that do not show the owner’s face.
“On one such issue, jams at land checkpoints, around 40 per cent of comments on alternative media outlets pages on social media came from avatar accounts. We do not know who these suspicious accounts belong to nor do we know if they are being coordinated by foreign actors,” Mr Tong said.
“But it is clear that these accounts have sought to give and create and artificial impressions to netizens of the opposition to Singapore’s position at a time of heightened bilateral difficulties,” Mr Tong added.
TAKING ACTION TO EXPOSE, COUNTER FOREIGN INFLUENCE
Hence, the Government must update and enhance existing legal framework to counter hostile information campaign, which is “outmoded against modern and technologically-sophisticated tactics”, Mr Tong said.
New legislation should have two broad objectives. First to allow the Government to act swiftly and effectively to disrupt and counter false, misleading and inauthentic information and narratives spread by foreign actors.
Second, the Government must be able to pre-emptively expose clandestine foreign interference campaigns.
“In the physical world, foreign actors may interfere in our domestic politics through the use of proxies, by funding or donating to politically-involved individuals and organisations, or by taking on key leadership roles in the organisations,” he said.
“Our laws must minimise the possibility of such entities being thus used and manipulated. We must not allow foreign actors to undermine our political sovereignty, nor our ability to make our own choices on how we want to govern our country, and live our lives,” Mr Tong added.
Singaporeans also need to be sensitised to the threat of foreign influence.
“We are our own first line of defence. We must learn to be sceptical of and be able to discern falsehoods or half-truths, and detect foreign actors and their attempts to interfere in our politics,” he said.
“The threat is real, and we will be moving onto these issues later this year,” he said.
