TNAG-1253-FCO40-1586-Third-countries-and-the-future-of-Hong-Kong-1983 — Page 205

SECRET

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Indonesia: indeed much intra-Indonesia trade actually passed through Singapore. One asset in Indonesia was broad political stability: Singapore did not see either the left or extremist groups as any significant threat to the regime.

the regime. The only real risk would be if Suharto were to be ousted by someone more astute. For the moment this looked unlikely. Dhanabalan commented that ASEAN partners found they could live with Indonesian barriers to trade because there were ways round the numerous restrictions, which local traders found perhaps easier to discover than traders from Europe. He drew atten- tion to Japanese aid to Indonesia, now their highest recipient. Singapore recognised that the massive nominal sums disguised all manner of soft-loans, mixed credit etc. In short, his message was that Singapore watched Indonesia carefully, and were worried about it.

NAM

4.

Mr Dhanabalan spoke robustly on the difficulties within the NAM. It lacked any charismatic leader. Castro's policies were rejected by much of the movement; Mrs Gandhi was suspect because she had com- promised her principles: Nyerere was no longer credible given the way he had run his own country.

20 April 1983

Cc:

Private Secretary

PS/PUS

Mr Giffard

Mr Donald

HKGD

At the

M A Arthur

PS/Lord Belstead

Chancery, Singapore

Chancery, Jakarta

Political Adviser, Hong Kong

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