Foreign Policy Now Has Domestic Salience: Balakrishnan on a Decade Leading Singapore's Diplomacy

On October 1st, Vivian Balakrishnan marked a decade as Singapore's Foreign Minister, placing him among the nation's longest-serving diplomats—a peer to S. Jayakumar, who held the post for ten years before him, and in the shadow of S. Rajaratnam, who shaped the young republic's external relations from independence through 1980. The 64-year-old former eye doctor and university debater has spent the intervening years navigating a world that has grown steadily more fractured, more violent, and more demanding of his attention at home.

What strikes Balakrishnan most acutely about his tenure is a shift that might seem counterintuitive: as global crises have multiplied, his diplomatic work has turned inward. He has conducted hundreds of sessions—he has lost count—explaining Singapore's foreign policy to Singaporeans. In Parliament, the questions have multiplied. MPs rise more frequently now to challenge his ministry's positions, whether during budget debates or ministerial statements. "In the past, I would have had very few questions in Parliament," he reflects. "Today, yesterday, or the last month, you can be on the front lines in Parliament, which means foreign policy now has domestic salience." The shift is not incidental. It is structural. Because Singapore is multiracial and multi-religious, global conflicts and wars arrive here already fractured along lines of identity and belief. When crises break out abroad, Singaporeans view them through different lenses. The government's task is to achieve internal alignment while acknowledging that different communities will feel more or less strongly about distant wars.

The Gaza conflict has become the most vivid test of this principle. The October 7, 2023 Hamas attack and Israel's subsequent military response have ignited passionate debate across Singapore's ethnic, religious, and age groups. Some citizens demand the government take a harder line against Israeli operations and recognize Palestinian statehood immediately. Singapore's longstanding position supports a negotiated two-state solution, but since the war began, it has shifted slightly: the republic is prepared to recognize Palestinian statehood when an effective government exists that renounces terrorism and acknowledges Israel's right to exist. Meanwhile, Singapore has stepped up humanitarian aid as overland routes into Gaza have opened. When asked whether the government has absorbed domestic sentiment in formulating its position, Balakrishnan answers directly: "The answer is yes, and yes." He frames Singapore's stance around three national interests—maintaining internal unity, protecting security, and upholding international law. He has told Israeli leaders directly that the conflict has gone on too long and too far. "They cannot be pleased with it," he says. But he is also clear-eyed about the limits of Singapore's influence. "Will it make a difference? No, I don't think what Singapore says is going to change the course of history."

This clinical approach reflects a deeper principle that has animated Balakrishnan's decade in office: Singapore must be small, vulnerable, and realistic about its place in the world. It cannot afford to lecture other nations about their values or their governance, not least because it has spent decades resisting lectures from Western powers about its own social arrangements, its death penalty, its rules. Balakrishnan distinguishes sharply between a foreign policy grounded in principles—adherence to international law, predictability, reliability—and one driven by values, which can veer into moral absolutism. Some Singaporeans want their government to make symbolic gestures, to cut ties with Israel, to use its voice on the global stage as a mirror of national identity. Balakrishnan has sympathy for this impulse. "I think it is not unreasonable for people to say, 'I want you—since you are my representative on the global stage—to reflect our identity, to reflect what we hold dear.'" But he argues that such performative actions would undermine Singapore's actual capacity to help. "Will that help me deliver more assistance? I think it will make it much harder."

The same principle of consistency governs Singapore's approach to the great-power rivalry between the United States and China. Balakrishnan has deliberately replaced the word "friendship" with "partnership" in his diplomatic vocabulary, to avoid over-personalizing relations. A partner, he argues, need not agree on everything, but must be honest and reliable. Singapore's response to any development—whether a U.S. tariff, a Chinese cyber attack, or an American attempt to influence Singaporean opinion on the South China Sea—flows from the same set of principles applied equally. In July 2025, Singapore took the unprecedented step of publicly naming the cyber espionage group UNC3886 for attacks on critical infrastructure, without identifying the state actor behind it, though cybersecurity firms have linked it to China. The message, Balakrishnan explains, was simple: "Whoever did it, we know, and we are prepared to speak up, and we're prepared to take appropriate actions." This mode of response, he emphasizes, is "equal opportunity." The consistency matters more than whom he is responding to. "Whatever example you bring up, I must be able to show that I would behave the same way."

In a world where large powers are rewriting the rules, the space for small nations has contracted. Balakrishnan acknowledges the squeeze. "It's tougher, yes, to show that we are relevant." But he points to Singapore's emergence as an advanced manufacturing hub and a global investor, and to the networks through which smaller nations amplify their voice—Asean, the Forum of Small States, and multilateral partnerships. Prime Minister Lawrence Wong has announced plans to open new diplomatic missions in Africa and Latin America over the coming years, part of a broader strategy to build links through trade and strategic alignment. "What we're assembling are links through trade and strategic alignment across the world," Balakrishnan says. "By making common cause, talking good sense consistently, we amplify our voice on the global stage."

The personal cost of the role is not hidden. Balakrishnan spends a quarter to a third of his time travelling overseas, leaving less time for his constituents in Holland–Bukit Timah GRC, a gap he has tried to close by giving them his mobile number. He is a grandfather; his three older children have seven children between them. His youngest child, born while he was already in office, is now 19 and doing national service. There has been grief as well. On December 14, 2022, his daughter-in-law gave birth to a stillborn son while Balakrishnan was accompanying then Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on an official visit to Kiel, Germany. "Family time, obviously, has been compromised," he says quietly. When asked if he aspires to other roles, he deflects in the manner of Singapore's ruling People's Action Party: "It is not up to me." But he frames his current work as a bridge between Singapore's third and fourth-generation leaderships, a relay runner handing off to the next leg. The job, he suggests, is to function at peak capacity even as the transition unfolds.