Category: ASEAN

I’m not sure how to react to the announcement that Malaysia and Singapore have agreed in principle to build a straight bridge in order to replace the Causeway. Reason is, Malaysia relented on two points: airspace and sand supply.

In return of Singaporean cooperation for a straight bridge, Singapore wants to use Malaysian airspace to train its air force and a guaranteed sand supply to continue its reclamation projects. Without going too deep into the issue, I’d say this as highly unreasonable; I feel it’s impossible to meet. That impossible demands and the need to fuel economic growth in southern Malaysia are the reasons why I support a construction of a bridge to replace the Causeway, without Singaporean cooperation.

Concerning air space, I simply don’t trust the Singaporean government and their military even less. Hell, I don’t trust my own government. Singapore says it wants to use Malaysian airspace for training purposes. However, it isn’t too hard for Singapore or anybody for that matter to turn this little maneuver into some sort of espionage missions. I don’t know what high value targets are there in Johor but I bet Singapore would know if Malaysia is to allow Singapore to conduct “training” in Malaysian Johor airspace.

More interesting is sand supply. Singapore has been aggressive in reclaiming lands from the sea; the reclamation projects have attracted Malaysian and Indonesian attention. Both have expressed concerned about the projects but Singapore ignored it. Malaysia was especially concerned with Singaporean reclamation at Tuas in the west and at Pulau Tekong in the east; both border Malaysian state of Johor. In 2003, both countries went to the International Court of Justice to resolve the issue once and for all. The ICJ in turn sided with Singapore with reservations.

Regardless of the result, it doesn’t matter because Singapore had to stop its reclamation effort, thanks to Indonesia. Previously, Indonesia provided the raw materials Singapore needed for its reclamation project. Like Malaysia, Indonesia was suspicious of the Singaporean effort. In the end, Indonesia cut off the supply, fearing Singapore redrawing the Singaporean-Indonesian border. The projects are still on hold. Now, Singapore needs to find a new source of sand. And guess who Singapore is turning to now?

If Malaysia agrees to supply Singapore the sand, it would be an odd thing to do. Malaysia is against Singaporean reclamation project. For Malaysia to supply the sand and enable Singapore to continue a project that Malaysia is so vehemently disagree of, is, again, odd. It defies logic.

Perhaps, this is because Malaysia knows that Singapore could get the sand that its need from somewhere else. We know how Singapore managed to buy a company of strategic importance in Thailand. Given that, it wouldn’t be hard for Singapore to get some sand from Thailand. Maybe here’s is just Malaysia doing a “hey, why not make some money out of it?” act.

Unless Singapore could sweeten the pot – like allowing Malaysians that work in Singapore to withdraw money that the Singaporean government has been withholding – I definitely believe a crooked bridge is a better deal. Of course, a straight bridge is good but circumstances make it not too favorable.

With the bent bridge, Malaysia gets a little less of what it wants without giving Singapore anything. If Malaysia accedes to Singaporean demands, Malaysia would get what it wants by giving too much to Singapore.

If a person plans to take side on an issue, it’s extremely wise to comprehend the situation first. Failure will bring ridicule and signals ignorance. Here, I wish to highlight a surprisingly ignorant reason why some people are opposing the crooked, scenic Malaysian half-bridge. These people are opposing the bridge because they think the bridge will end in the middle of the Tebrau Strait. In truth, the bridge will be connected to the Causeway and it’s not a multimillion culdesac.

Let me show you.

People think the bridge would be like this:

People who have this picture in their mind will always say with scorn that we would need to swin to Singapore once we reached the end of the bridge.

In reality, the bridge will look like this:

Image taken from Google Maps. I hope it qualifies as fair use.

As you can see, it’s a half bridge because it’s half a bridge and another half a causeway. Not one part bridge and the rest, water. There’s no need to swim and suffer being wet to get across the strait unless you really love swimming.

Don’t believe me? What? Me? A liar? What? Me, a BN lover?

No, I’m being pragmatic. There’s no need to be a rebel without a cause; a rebel that protests to everything for the mere sake of rebelling – that’s an insincere protest. It’s immature and stupid. Much like those in the price hike protest. In the Star last Friday, there was an article about the bridge. The writeup has a picture of the bridge plan and here’s the picture:

Observe the rightmost diagram. See it?

As to why it’s crooked, well, it’s the only way to gain a required height – in this case, 25 m (25 m is also the air draught for the Second Link to the west) – given the length constraint due to Singaporean refusal to demolish their half of the Causeway. If Singapore had agreed to a bridge and demolish their part of the Causeway, the bridge wouldn’t need to be crooked in order to obtain that 25 m. Once the bridge is completed, Malaysian half of the Causeway will be demolished and the bridge will be linked up to Singaporean half.

I hope this will clear things up for all those ignoramuses out there, particularly those at Lowyat.net’s Real World Issues forum.

Heh, the ignoramuses have already zipped their mouth by the time they found out that the bridge won’t end in the middle of nowhere. If it did end in the middle of nowhere, even I would vehemently disagree to it. But it is not and I fully support the Malaysian initiative.

Next time, really, learn the issue first. This includes the price hike but that’s another story I’ll chance another time.

So, in truest form of doublespeak, a crooked bridge has become a scenic bridge. Shakespeare would say, what’s in a name? Despite the doublespeak, I fully support the idea of a bridge, bent or otherwise.

In my opinion, the only reason Singapore is being impossible is because an opening of Tebrau Strait would enable Port of Tanjung Pelepas (PTP) in Johor to seriously challenge Port of Singapore. The growth of PTP has already alarmed the Singaporean government. For the past few years, several of the world’s largest container ship operators like Maersk and Evergreen have migrated from Singapore to PTP. According to Wikipedia, Maersk’s migration alone represented a 10% drop in business at Singaporean ports.

PTP is growing because it’s a cheaper alternative to Singaporean ports. And it’s growing in spite of the Causeway. Imagine if there were no causeway to prevent sea travels. With clear lines connecting PTP with two other Johor ports in the east – namely Johor Port at Pasir Gudang and Tanjung Langsat Port – PTP would become an even larger entrepot. That itself would encourage PTP to grow even further and faster.

I’m sure the Singaporean government know this and I suspect they’re trying to slow PTP’s growth down. Today in Utusan Malaysia, an article suggests that Singaporean reclamation projects at eastern and western reach of Tebrau Straits might be Singapore’s effort to prevent the strait from becoming a viable sea route. That article helped me sealed my suspicion. After all, narrowing the strait is the surest way to keep PTP and other Johor ports’ growth in check.

Singapore insists that construction of a bridge replacing the Causeway must bring benefit to both sides. However, opening up of the strait will hurt Singaporean trade. Given that, Singapore refusal to agree to a bridge is comprehensible, no matter how frustrating it is. So, when Singapore said it’s not benefiting from the construction of the bridge, Singapore is telling the truth. More importantly, a convoluted truth because Singapore is applying a false dilemma fallacy. The result of “no bridge” has already been guaranteed when they supplied the condition. And not to forget, this is done on top of other nonsense reasons such as traffic volume into Singapore, higher toll and how Goh Chok Tong is feeling nostalgic about the Causeway given by Singaporean government.

A false dilemma is the appearance that only two choices exist when in fact, there are other explorable options. For instance, if Singapore refuses to replace its half of the Causeway, Malaysia could demolish its half and then replace it with a crooked bridge, which is what Malaysia is doing.

A crooked bridge is an unfortunate political turn. Nonetheless, I believe it is important for Malaysia to take our economy into own hands instead of the Singaporeans’. We should never make ourselves as somebody else’s hostage. This bridge is us driving forward. This bridge is us giving the Tebrau Strait back its life.