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Associate Professor Singh said the threat actors may be testing the strength of the new prime minister, the compactness and unity of the new fourth-generation leadership team, and targeting Singapore’s Chinese community at a social level, especially those who have become new citizens.
“More importantly, there is a sense of insecurity in Singapore because our fourth generation of leaders has just been established,” he said. “I think they want to test the waters to see what response these new leaders will take.”
Faizal said that whenever a country undergoes a major political transition, it attracts the attention of other countries with an interest in that country’s foreign and defense policy, who may intervene “subtly through proxy digital actors.”
“Guo Wengui and his associates took advantage of the leadership transition to spread unfounded accusations because it was the first leadership transition in 20 years and attracted much attention. The leadership transition did attract a lot of attention from foreign media,” said Associate Professor Chen.
They also strategically exploited the intense geopolitical competition between China and the US by promoting the idea that the Chinese Communist Party did have ambitions to surpass China and that Singapore was in China’s orbit, he added.
Beyond mainstream platforms
Dr Carol Sun, principal fellow at the Institute of Policy Studies and adjunct chief scientist at the Centre for Advanced Technology in Cybersecurity, said the recent coordinated disinformation campaign by Guo’s network showed that Singapore was not immune to foreign influence.
“It is concerning that despite the blocking of social media accounts, such content may still be circulated in private chats on messaging apps and other platforms such as Discord,” she noted.
Associate Professor Singh stressed that these lesser-known online platforms should also be monitored for influence activities.
“For me as a security analyst, the distinction between mainstream and non-mainstream has disappeared. It’s all over.”
He said many of the platforms that attract people’s attention are non-mainstream because “they are very sexy and more interesting news comes from them.”
Singh said that the message conveyed by Guo Wengui’s behavior is very clear, that is, “rich people can directly or indirectly carry out foreign interference.”
“We have been so involved in overseas economic, political and diplomatic activities that we have left ourselves exposed. To the point where the distinction between inside and outside has almost disappeared, and I think that makes us very vulnerable (to such threats),” he said of Singapore’s place in the world.
Assoc Prof Tan pointed out that the directive issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs only applies to Singapore as the authorities do not require social media platforms to actually remove the content.
“If you have a VPN or you’re abroad, you can still access the content,” he said.
“So in that sense, the access restriction directive is only symbolic because it will not stop Guo Wengui and his associates.”
However, it is still significant as it is one of several calibrated tools within FICA to combat such threats, said Assoc Prof Tan.
Dealing with such threats
“Some may think that Guo Wengui has no intentions towards Singapore. But this misses the point that Guo Wengui and his associates have no scruples about exploiting Singapore. No self-respecting country can allow itself to be exploited,” Associate Professor Tan pointed out.
He said Singapore authorities were dealing with foreign interference in the same way they deal with terrorism – Singapore is a sought-after target.
“People think we have good legislative tools and we devote a lot of resources to dealing with all types of foreign interference,” he said.
“Singapore is a very attractive target for foreign actors, both state and non-state, who want to test their tools, strategies and innovations to see how they perform.”
For Associate Professor Singh, it is only a matter of time before FICA is implemented in this way to deal with such threats.
“I think the new wars are not fought with bullets. The new wars are fought in cyberspace, these soft wars. Most of us are digital, so this is the arena to change minds, influence people, manipulate and spread misinformation,” he said.
“We needed to excel in our operations. I think we did that. We did it very well. In fact, we needed to overkill to make sure it was a deterrent,” he added.
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