On the eve of his departure for a four-day introductory visit to Indonesia, Singapore’s Immigration denied the entry of Indonesian Muslim cleric, Abdul Somad, for security reasons on May 16. The rejection provoked anger from Somad’s diehard supporters who demanded Singapore apologize.

But the show must go on, although in a low-profile manner, and Indonesian media only noticed the visit of Singapore’s future leader at the end of his trip. As far as I know, Wong did not meet with President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, but did with several high-profile figures, such as Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto, Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati and Coordinating Maritime Affairs and Investment Minister Luhut Panjaitan.

Prabowo is not the only potential presidential candidate Wong visited. The Singaporean politician also paid a visit to Central Java Governor Ganjar Pranowo and Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan, who have consistently headed the pack in various opinion surveys of possible presidential contenders.

The warm reception Wong received was recognition of his credibility. It also means that Indonesian government officials know with whom they will be dealing in the future when it comes to Indonesia-Singapore bilateral ties.

In the conversations with his Indonesian hosts, Wong confidently restated the need to ratify three politically sensitive agreements, which the two countries signed in January of this year.

Prime Minister Lee also delivered the same message to Prabowo who went to Singapore last week for the Shangri-La Dialogue. Prabowo reportedly only promised to forward the message to President Jokowi.

Prabowo signed one of the treaties – the Defense Cooperation Agreement (DCA), and as Gerindra Party chairman he wields enough power to push the House of Representatives to ratify the three treaties. But Prabowo knows he is not the final decision-maker and is fully aware his chance of contesting the 2024 election remains hanging in the balance.

When Prabowo visited Singapore on June 9-12, Singapore’s Defense Ministry described it as an introductory visit to his counterpart, apart from the former’s speaking in the 19th Shangri-La Dialogue. The 70-year-old retired Army general was also granted an opportunity to pay a courtesy call to Lee, which I believe has something to do with his status as the leader of Indonesia’s third-largest party and the possibility of him winning the 2024 election.

When Lee hosted a gala dinner for the participants of the Shangri-La Dialogue on June 10, Prabowo was seated at the same table with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, the United States Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Chinese Defense Minister Gen. Wei Fenghe and Australian Defense Minister Richard Donald Marles.

Prabowo and his Singaporean counterpart Ng Eng Hen also discussed the results of the Singapore-Indonesia Leaders’ Retreat in Bintan in January. At that time the two defense ministers signed a joint statement.

Apart from the DCA, the two countries also inked the Flight Information Region (FIR) agreement and an extradition treaty.

The two neighbors signed the DCA and extradition treaty in 2007 but the House refused to ratify the DCA, arguing it violated Indonesia’s territorial sovereignty. The extradition treaty was not ratified either as Singapore insisted that the two had to be approved as one package.

Just five months ahead of the presidential and legislative elections on April 17, 2019, Lee also met with Prabowo when the latter was in Singapore to address The Economist World in 2019. But the warm reception to Prabowo back then was part of an “investment” in getting to know better potential Indonesian leaders.

Long before Megawati Soekarnoputri became Indonesia’s fifth president, Singapore had always paid special attention to her every time she came for a medical checkup at a famous private hospital in the island state.

During his Indonesian trip Wong met with the three presidential aspirants, Prabowo, Anies and Ganjar, because the newly appointed chairman of Singapore’s ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) wanted to create strong personal bonds with Indonesia’s future leaders. The steps are important for Wong to consolidate his credentials as Singapore’s 4G (fourth generation) leader. Like it or not, he is little known in Indonesia or ASEAN.

When Anies received Wong on May 20, a group of Somad supporters staged a noisy protest in front of the Singaporean Embassy in Kuningan, South Jakarta. Singaporean authorities denied his entry “because he has a history of extremist teachings that are unacceptable here”. The protesters were largely perceived as supporters of Anies, which is why the social media-savvy Jakarta governor did not post his meeting with Wong on his official social media accounts.

"Caught up with Governor of Jakarta @aniesbaswedan. Had a good chat on global developments and our respective COVID-19 situations. Look forward to meeting Anies again in Singapore soon!” wrote Wong on his Twitter account.

Before concluding his visit, Wong told Singaporean journalists that "we have also in recent years resolved certain longstanding bilateral issues, namely the agreements we have on extradition, defense and the Flight Information Region. We are now waiting for these agreements to be ratified”.

According to The Straits Times, Lee promoted Wong to deputy prime minister on June 13. Wong will be the acting prime minister in the absence of Lee, 70, and also remains as finance minister.

Indonesian political parties and potential presidential candidates need to learn from Singapore’s way of promoting its future leaders. The problem is we have a strong tendency to expect other countries to introduce themselves to our next leaders because we think we are too important to ignore.

Wong succeeded in convincing his hosts that he was the right person to deal with because he has a full mandate from his boss, Prime Minister Lee. Wong knows very well that Indonesia is very important for his country because of its position as the largest member of ASEAN and a member of the Group of 20.

Singapore is much smaller than Indonesia in almost every measure, but from the very beginning it can survive without depending on its neighbors. At the same time, as a neighbor, Singapore is just too important to ignore especially in terms of economics.

Only recently Luhut asked major palm oil producers to move their headquarters from Singapore to Jakarta because all of their plantations are located in Indonesia. It is easy to bully those companies, but it will not work as long as Indonesia lags behind Singapore in the race for competitiveness.

 ***

The writer is a senior editor at The Jakarta Post.