Last night when we had cocktails at the Asian Civilizations Museum, we saw a display of artifacts from the 9th century wreck of a ship bearing a cargo of gold and silver ornaments and ceramics from Tang Dynasty China to the Middle East. The ship itself was Middle Eastern in construction using wood from India. The motifs on many of the objects were Islamic, Buddhist and Central Asian. That was an important age of globalisation. There was great prosperity. Tang China was a cosmopolitan empire. At least three Prime Ministers were non-Han. One of the greatest Tang generals was a Korean. A Japanese was the Tang commander in Vietnam. In Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, the Abbasid Empire held sway. While the overland silk route was mostly dominated by Buddhists, the Maritime Silk Route was increasingly carried out by Muslim traders who had their own communities in southern Chinese port cities. Europe at that time was still in the early medieval ages.
Next week in Singapore, we will be launching the 600th anniversary celebration of the first of the seven great Ming Dynasty voyages from China to Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean reaching all the way to the eastern coast of Africa. It marked the beginning of another great age of globalisation. Although Ming China withdrew into itself within a few decades, other parts of the world were on the move. In Southeast Asia, Malacca was on the ascendant. In the Middle East, the Ottomans were soon to capture Constantinople. In Persia, the Safavids established themselves as a separate Shiite Islamic polity. In India, the Great Mughal Empire ushered in a new golden age. More significantly, after reconquering the Iberian peninsula for Christendom, the Spanish and Portuguese took to the ocean in search of gold and glory. They were quickly followed into Asia by the Dutch and the English.
We are now in another age of globalisation which links the Middle East and Asia together again. We are rediscovering each other. When the European powers lorded over us, our primary links were to them. When their empires were dismantled after the Second World War, many Asian countries withdrew inwards to recover their own sense of self like China, India, Vietnam and Indonesia. In the Middle East, the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire at the end of the First World War into new nation-states created a whole array of problems which both sides exploited during the Cold War.
With the end of the Cold War and the globalisation of trade and investment, the prospects for peace and development have improved significantly. This new encounter of the Middle East, South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia is opening up exciting new opportunities. Once again, traders, scholars, religious leaders and adventurers are travelling from east to west and from west to east. Our goal in AMED is to facilitate this flow.
There are many aspects to this east-west flow. We need physical connectivity of all kinds - air and sea connections, road and rail links, telecommunication networks. We also need political, economic, cultural and people-to-people links. Governments play an important role in opening up borders, reducing the friction to commerce and establishing common standards. Once the wheels of commerce are able to turn freely, great benefits will redound to our peoples. Underlying all this, we need more cultural understanding of one another including our understanding of each other's religious beliefs. It is harmful for us to view each other only through the prisms of the Western media. For example, while the historical relationship of the Islamic and Christian worlds has been difficult down the centuries, the historical relationships between the Middle East and India, Southeast Asia and China have been far more positive. We should put on our own lenses and have more direct interactions among ourselves.
Singapore by itself is a barren rock of an island. Singapore is only Singapore because of the trade flow between east and west. If you view Singapore under a microscope, you will see reflections of many parts of Asia and the Middle East within a tiny area. Tomorrow night, you will be hosted to a reception in a part of Singapore which has strong links to other parts of Southeast Asia and the Middle East. The Sultan Mosque nearby has an old charter that requires its board of trustees to be Malay, Javanese, Buginese, North Indian, South Indian and Arab. There is no Singaporean race; there are only Chinese, Malays, Indians, Arabs, Eurasians and others. The rituals we practise, the food we eat, the religions we hold dear, they have all come from afar.
In a divided world, Singapore's diversity is a great weakness. In a globalised world, our diversity is a strength to be celebrated. This is the reason why we support AMED and celebrate the revival of an old relationship between the Middle East and Asia.