Small state, big agenda: Singapore prepares to steer Asean through crisis

Every bloc needs a chair capable of getting things done – and Southeast Asia watchers say that description fits no country better than Singapore. The city state will get the chance to prove it in the bloc’s 60th anniversary year, after it takes the Asean helm from the Philippines on January 1. Speaking at Singapore’s National Day Rally on August 22, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong said the world was becoming more fractured and dangerous – one that the city state would have to “endure and survive...