President and Members of the Southeast Asia.Ceramic Society,
Friends of the Museum and Delegates of the ICAS (International-Conference of Asia Scholars)
Ladies and Gentlemen

I am delighted to join all of you here this evening for the launch of ‘The Art and Archaelogy of Fu Nan’ edited by Dr James Khoo.

In case some of you wonder why I am here, the reason is because I was the Minister for Information and the Arts and Minister for Health in my previous incarnations and got to know Dr James Khoo well as a scholar, a surgeon and a friend. He was the Chairman of the Asian Civilizations Museum and took a keen interest in the lost cities of Southeast Asia. His wife, Poh Neo, is no less accomplished and once published a lovely book on Peranakan furniture.

Fu Nan is of course one of the famous lost cities of Southeast Asia, probably the first state in S E Asia, being established in the first century AD. It was therefore contemporaneous with the Roman Empire and Han China. Astride the maritime silk route, it prospered on trade which also brought influences and artifacts from the Mediterranean, the Middle East, India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and China. This is a recurrent theme in Southeast Asian history which expressed itself again and again in later periods in Sri Vijaya, Majapahit, Malacca and, of course, Singapore.

From the material evidence shown in this book and other journals, Fu Nan’s economy was based on intensive rice cultivation. The long interconnecting canals provided irrigation and also linked the towns. The agricultural surplus in turn made possible the construction of temples and places, and the development of a high culture seen in the beautiful jewelry, pottery and sculpture. The port of Oc-Eo linked it to the maritime silk route. Both Buddhism and Hinduism were widely practised, providing the organizing principle of society. Fu Nan was the first Indianized state in Southeast Asia, creating a pattern which, with modification, would be repeated in many other places.

By the 6^th century CE, Fu Nan declined. The reasons remain unclear because the records are so scanty. It could have been caused by warfare with the Chenla lords from the North which sapped its energy, or climatic changes which disrupted the agricultural economy. Or perhaps a shift of the trade routes brought about by the rise of Sri Vijaya. But all this is speculation.

In recent years, little has been published about Fu Nan. This book by Dr James Khoo and the other authors is therefore most welcome, like the arrival of rain after a long drought. I thank and congratulate them.

It is right that we in Singapore should take a deep interest in the rise and fall of trading states in Southeast Asia of which we are but a modern example. The external environment is largely outside our control. But the internal factors are. When states decline, the internal factors are usually the most decisive, usually a failure to meet either of the twin challenges of defence and economic production. As Sunzi reminds us, the first principle of statecraft is the art of war, not making war, but understanding the nature of war so that the problem of defence is solved at minimum cost. Even the richest empire can be bankrupted by prolonged war. Maintaining economic growth is the other challenge. Set on a pattern of past success, the creativity of a people tends to decline robbing it of its ability to respond to new environmental conditions. This is the reason why we seem always to be questioning our assumptions in Singapore, and trying all the time to remake ourselves. If we stop responding to technological change and globalization, our life cycle will be short.

Happily, like during the rise of Fu Nan, we are being carried by the tide of economic growth in Asia. The growth of China and India, together comprising a third of the world’s population, will create all kinds of new opportunities for us in Southeast Asia. But this is only provided we reposition ourselves well to catch the full flow. If we don’t, perhaps like Fu Nan at its end when it was Sri Vijaya which rode the waves, we will be thrashed against the rocks of competition or beached high and dry.

I hope books on Southeast Asian history, like the one on Fu Nan we are launching this evening, will help us stay vital and creative in Singapore.

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