Singapore now plays to the gallery in unresolved bilateral disputes, amidst negotiations. It released confidential information about the water agreement between Malaysia and Singapore in Parliament, brought a booklet of it in March, and put it on its website in June.

It is upset the Malaysian media does not print its views, and is dismissed as yet another reason the Malaysia media is at the mercy of the government. The Singapore media is not: it only reports the truth, and the truth is of a Malaysia swarming with fundemantalist Muslims out to deny Singapore a place in the sun.

But this would have had some sympathy if it had stopped there. The Singapore government has now released a recent exchange of letters between the trade ministers of Singapore and Indonesia to counter Indonesian claim the island republic was 'unfriendly' in not publishing bilateral trade figures.

This claim is an old one: for years Jakarta had alleged Singapore encourages the smuggling of Indonesian exports, which were not reflected in bilateral trade figures. Jakarta argues because Singapore is less than honest in what it receives from this smuggling and other indirect imports.

Why then this sudden need to pick a diplomatic fight if Singapore was less than honest on this in the past and has not convinced Indonesia the past is past, and matters have changed dramatically? For a long time as an independent nation, Singapore was at odds with Jakarta. Many of the clashes are impinged on Indonesia's nationalist memory: the hanging of the two marines three decades ago, for instance.

Confidentiality

Indonesia says the US$2.49 billion trade gap in Indonesia's exports is because Singapore hides billions of dollars in smuggling between the two countries, that it had asked for this data since 1973, has yet to receive them, might move its shipping elsewhere, take the dispute to international bodies for a settlement. Singapore responds to say the updated is given to Indonesia annually since 1974, allowed Jakarta to release the data but chose not to.

The issue, as with Malaysia, is not about the accuracy of data or with details but with the confidentiality of documents, and the secrecy sensitive talks demand. Singapore has broken this to force the pace, in Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur, in on-going talks. Why is understandable: the need to reinforce the incipient xenophobia amongst Singaporeans, three quarters of whom are Chinese. But it must understand it would be resisted. As it has.