Pakatan not favoured by Singapore

comments     Terence Netto     Published     Updated

COMMENT If diplomacy entails the art of conveying to a party one's candid assessment of a third, that exercise would be fraught in the age of the WikiLeaks exposure.

For if what the philosopher Pascal held - "I lay it down as a fact that if all men knew what others say of them, there would not be four friends in the world" - is true, there would have to be rock-solid assurances of confidentiality before there can be candor in future diplomatic tete-a-tetes, especially between Asian envoys and their US counterparts.

No diplomat is going to feel free holding forth in private if he or she knows that the world would be listening in, eventually...

For the rest of this story and more, subscribe for only RM150 a year. If you're already a subscriber, please sign in.

Sign in Subscribe now


Malaysiakini
news and views that matter


Sign In