hankyoreh

The lobby of the Marina Bay Sands hotel in Singapore.

On the morning of May 13, it was quiet at the building in the middle of downtown Singapore, where the North Korean embassy is located. It was a Sunday, and most of the shops were closed. Across the street from the building is the Parliament of Singapore, and on the other side of that is Raffles Place, the old downtown area. The famous skyline of Singapore could be seen in the direction of the old downtown.

There were no indications on the building that it was the location of the North Korean embassy. The North Korean flag was not flying outside the building, and the name of the North Korean embassy did not appear on the list of tenant organizations behind the information desk on the first floor. “Not all the tenants are listed there,” said a security guard sitting at the information desk as he pulled out a notebook and showed it to me.

A handwritten list in the notebook said that the North Korean embassy was located in Room 1501. The North Korean embassy had moved here in 2016. Its neighbors on that floor include a language academy and a food and beverage company. The prefectural government of the Japanese island of Okinawa and the state government of South Australia also have missions in the building.

Perhaps because a number of media organizations had already reported on the North Korean embassy on May 11, there was not a welcoming mood for reporters on the day the Hankyoreh stopped by. In fact, the embassy had asked that reporters be prevented from visiting.

“Someone came by yesterday, but when I told them they couldn’t go they went up anyway. The embassy ended up checking the screen on the security camera and asked me to call the police. In the end, they were taken away by the police,” the security guard said.

The North Korean embassy did not appear all that well known in Singapore. “I didn’t even know we had a North Korean embassy here,” a taxi driver marveled. Lim Tai Wei, a research fellow at the National University of Singapore East Asian Institute, told the Hankyoreh that the embassy “doesn’t have much of a presence for ordinary people.”

“A lot of people only found out that there was one when they heard the news about [Singapore] being selected as the North Korea-US summit venue,” Lim said.

“Even among academics and political or government figures, there isn’t a lot of interest unless it’s their area of expertise,” he added.

A source with the Korean Association in Singapore explained, “North Koreans used to sell ginseng here in the past, but trade has quieted down since the UN sanctions were stepped up.” Singapore was reportedly one of North Korea’s seven biggest trading partners up until UN sanctions were intensified last November; now there aren’t even any North Korean restaurants.

The North Korea-US summit has been on the pages of major local news outlets for days on end. The Straits Times published an article on May 12 with findings from a survey of 140 residents, with around 70 percent expressing support for the summit. As reasons for their support, residents said Singapore could come away as a global player in international politics beyond its image as a clean and environmentally city, or predicted Singapore would gain a place in history as a part of the historic event.

Among the 20% who gave a negative response, some complained that “Singapore’s voice” would not be heard between the two very idiosyncratic leaders.

Singapore has been the setting for historically important summits in the past.

Before the first meeting in 2015 between Chinese President Xi Jinping and then-Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou, an initial cross-strait meeting took place in 1993 in Singapore between former Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits chairman Wang Daohan from China and Straits Exchange Foundation chairman Koo Chen-fu from Taiwan. At the time, local media predicted Singapore would gain a stronger reputation as being “safe, reliable, and neutral.”

A view of Shangri La Hotel Singapore from the garden

No hint of the upcoming meeting was evident at the Shangri-La and Marina Bay Sands Hotels, which have been mentioned as candidate sides for the summit. A look at both on May 13 showed them filled with the usual tourists from around the world, with no sign of increased security measures.

Perhaps because of the intermittent rain, high humidity, and temperatures of up to 30 degrees, few people could be seen in the outdoor garden of the Shangri-La Hotel or the Gardens by the Bay next to the Marina Sands Hotel, which have been talked about as candidate sites for a possible “friendship walk” between the two leaders.

Neither hotel was allowing online reservations for June 12, the date of the summit. It was not confirmed whether this was because of a hotel block on the date or a flood of reservations from journalists. In a release, the Shangri-La Hotel said it had not received any definite contact in connection with the location and was not in a position to discuss the summit.

By Kim Oi-hyun, reporting from Singapore

Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]