WORLD IN TRANSITION: SINGAPORE'S FUTURE

Professor Chan Heng Chee is the Institute of Policy Studies' 7th S R Nathan Fellow for the Study of Singapore. This book is an edited collection of her three IPS-Nathan Lectures, delivered between June and July 2020, and includes highlights of her question-and-answer segments with our virtual audience.

Professor Chan analyses the uncertain and fast-changing world, and Singapore's place in it. She examines the major fault lines today, wrought by the sudden COVID-19 pandemic, the ongoing malfunctioning of democracies and capitalist economies, and the unravelling of the world order. The United States-China rivalry has continued to intensify, with ripple effects on the world order, global trade and technology. Singapore will need to navigate this evolving relationship skilfully, while adapting its governance and economic models to respond to other challenges. But is it all doom and gloom for Singapore? Could our circumstances help us as we approach the new normal that lies ahead of us?

The IPS-Nathan Lecture series was launched in 2014 as part of the S R Nathan Fellowship for the Study of Singapore. It seeks to advance public understanding and discussion of issues of critical national interest for Singapore.

Readership: Students (undergraduate, secondary level), researchers of international relations, general public with interest in history of and contemporary Singapore, United States and China, diplomats, and foreign visitors interested in knowing more about Singapore's approach towards the United States and China, and the global economy.

Professor Chan Heng Chee is Ambassador-at-Large at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Singapore, Chairman of the Lee Kuan Yew Centre for Innovative Cities at the Singapore University of Technology and Design, and Chairman of the Board of Trustees at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute (ISEAS). She is a member of the Presidential Council for Minority Rights, and Global Co-Chair of Asia Society.

She was Singapore's Representative on the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (2012–2015). She served as Ambassador to the United States (1996–2012) and Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York (1989–1991) while concurrently serving as High Commissioner to Canada and Ambassador to Mexico. She was also Head of the Political Science Department at the National University of Singapore (1985–87) and Director of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (1993–1996), and is founding Director of the Institute of Policy Studies (1987–88).

Her published works include Singapore: The Politics of Survival, 1965–1967 (1971), The Dynamics of One Party Dominance: The PAP at the Grassroots (1976), and more recently, Singapore's Multiculturalism: Evolving Diversity (2019, co-authored with Sharon Siddique).