COMMENT | Small states must hold their own, Bilahari Kausikan, a former ambassador of Singapore affirmed. No one knows if Kausikan was taking a jab at his own fellow countryman, the eminent Kishore Mahbubani, who argued that Singapore must concede that it is small, thus in need of friends, or was Kausikan aiming at my op-ed who did not argue that Singapore was small but instead admitted that Singapore was a power that outgrew the GDP of Malaysia.

Since, Kausikan, averred that my op-ed which urged Singapore to be calm, is "atypical" of how Malaysia wants to “domesticate” or menjinakkan Singapore, as a Malaysian, I am obliged to reply.

Big and small powers are alike. All aspire to be such in order to have many allies, friends and supporters as possible. Malaysia, one should recall, is a member of the UN, Commonwealth, the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) and, of course, Asean and the East Asian Summit, and even the Asia-Europe Summit proposed by Singapore too.

In all these meetings, Malaysia has never attempted to "domesticate" Singapore. On the contrary, Malaysia saw Singapore grow from strength to strength, be it during the Communist or non-Communist era. Thus, how can my op-ed which called for cooler heads to prevail - which Madam Ho Ching, the wife of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong happened to concur with when she affirmed "Chill, man." on her Facebook - be anything but a quest for civility, reason and prudence?

I'm not sure if Kausikan, who believes in Asian Values, is aware of the religious and linguistic connotation of menjinakkan but my op-ed did not have any Islamic or Malay overtones. History shows that Malaysia has never wanted Singapore to be a servile country at all.

By granting independence to Singapore peacefully, Malaysia upped the ante too. Barely two years later, on Aug 8, 1967, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) was formed, thus allowing Malaysia and Singapore to regard each other as equal partners or peers.

There is nothing atypical about how Malaysia reacted then and reacts now. Malaysia always aspires for peace However, there is something atypical of how Kausikan reacts.

While his writings have occasionally used the first person identifier i.e. "I believe" - which makes his views his own rather than that of Singapore's - one can see that sometimes Kausikan himself confuses his own desire to evangelise to all countries big and small with that of Singapore's own position.

In this sense, Kausikan writes like the classic realist i.e. the late Hans Morgenthau. But the latter was a Jewish/German immigrant at the University of Chicago. For the record, Morgenthau saw the rise and aggression of fascism in a Hitlerite Germany. To Morgenthau, all states did indeed seek "power to no (definite) end".

But Morgenthau was referring to the behaviour of the great powers or the aspiring great powers. Even the likes of Kenneth Waltz, who was a realist too, argued that hitherto all studies of foreign policies are the attempt to understand "the behaviour of great powers” and "not Malaysia or for that matter Costa Rica."

Both of them, in other words, established a genre of international scholarship that is rooted in how great powers behave. The world knows it as classical realism or perhaps structural realism.

Malaysia, to the admission of its founding fathers, including Dr Mahathir Mohamed, the current prime minister, has never aspired to anything other than to make Malaysia a "developed country" by 2020.

And if this is not attainable, then by 2025. This implies a per capita income of US$12,000 - US$17,000 per Malaysian. Singapore, however, has reached a per capita income of nearly US$40,000. And Malaysia congratulates Singapore for such an exceptional feat. When Singapore grows, Malaysia does too. Thus, it is bewildering why Kausikan insists that Malaysia wants to "domesticate" Singapore.

Remember Pulau Batu Putih

In fact, three-way trade between Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia, is enough to reach nearly 80 percent of the 25 percent intra-regional trade across the whole of Southeast Asia. That's how important Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia can be to the whole of the region.

Thus, the last thing anyone must do is to use a wrecking ball to kill a fly. In other words, overreacting to everything. Today, Singapore may lament the 14 incursions of the Malaysian vessels. Tomorrow, Malaysia may go back into the log books of the Johor and Pahang airspace to find 1,400 aerial incursions into Malaysian airspace.

Next week, Indonesia may insist it has the right not only to name its naval vessels after two Indonesian commandos who were hung by Singapore but also to build monuments to them in front of the Singapore High Commission in Jakarta. Then what?

Will Kausikan, who currently does not have an official ambassadorial title, proceed to advise his friends or juniors in the Singapore Ministry of Foreign Affairs that this is very "atypical" of what big powers do?

If there is anything atypical of East Asia, it is that almost all regions have fought themselves silly and to a pulp.

However, since 1979, the guns have fallen silent in East Asia. Inter-state fatalities have fallen by a dramatic 99 percent as the Scandinavian studies at the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies show.

East Asia, in other words, has chosen peace and economic development over all else. That is atypical. Any other choice of the word “atypical” to describe Malaysia and Singapore is, sadly, apocryphal.

There is nothing between Malaysia and Singapore that cannot be solved by dialogue or even third-party arbitration like the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

To this day, the sultanate of Johor wants Pulau Batu Putih or what is known as Pedra Branca back. The legal triumph over this atoll by Singapore at the ICJ has been respected by the new government of Pakatan Harapan though right up to June this year, Malaysia did consider the possibility of seeking a fresh appeal against the ICJ verdict based on newly found documents.

But Harapan, to date, has also explained that a fresh appeal is not in the offing yet. Thus no matter how the “new Malaysia” reacts to the 1979 de facto borders where Pulau Batu Putih/Pedra Branca sits, it is doing so on the basis of the concrete belief that the (new) documents may have not been completely appreciated by the panel of judges at the ICJ.

As the late John Maynard Keynes is known to have said, "When the facts changed, I change my opinion. What do you do, sir ?" This teaser is not posed to Kausikan.

Malaysia, to quote Kausikan himself, is "not daft". On this note, it seems one of the highest-grossing movies in Singapore was exactly this: I Not Stupid Too. So, listen to Madam Ho Ching, "Chill, man".

And yes, let us not forget the Singapore general elections in 2019. Time for instilling nationalism and patriotism perhaps?

RAIS HUSSIN is a supreme council member of Bersatu. He also heads its policy and strategy bureau.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.