Southeast Asian nations are closely watching Australia's reaction to the imminent hanging of one of its citizens in Singapore ahead of a key regional summit, diplomats and analysts said.
The scheduled execution on Dec. 2 of heroin runner Nguyen Tuong Van, 25, has become a highly charged issue in Australia, triggering calls for retaliation including economic sanctions and a boycott of Singaporean firms.
Singapore has been branded an "island of death" and a "rogue Chinese port city" by Australian critics for rejecting clemency for the former Vietnamese refugee and maintaining a hardline stance on capital punishment.
But Australian officials led by Prime Minister John Howard have adopted a more measured approach, preferring to focus on pleas to commute Nguyen's death sentence while admitting that only a miracle could save his life.
Australia is set to join next month's inaugural East Asia Summit in Malaysia, thanks in part to strong lobbying by Singapore despite reservations in other participating countries about Australia's role in the region.
Rodolfo Severino, the former secretary-general of (ASEAN), said Australian reactions to the hanging "could cast some shadows on the Australian participation" in the summit.
But he said that other summit participants "are aware of the position of the Australian prime minister."
A veteran Singaporean diplomat, asked to comment on the hammering his country was getting in Australia, said that "I do not, at this stage, see any serious damage to bilateral relations at all."
"That is partly because Singapore's leaders have chosen to be extremely level-headed about the issue and have taken pains, at the very highest levels, to explain the Singapore position and the constraints Singapore faces," he said.
There is also a "general awareness" in Singapore that it is the Australian opposition that is "deliberately exploiting the issue to serve its narrow ends," the diplomat said.
He said Southeast Asian nations "are generally not impressed by this kind of robust criticism," but "it is important that the situation is managed properly, otherwise peoples of both countries will be the losers."
Nguyen was arrested at Changi airport three years ago while in transit from Cambodia to Australia with 400 g of heroin in his possession. The death penalty is mandatory for drug trafficking in Singapore.
The furore over his case follows similar denunciations of Indonesia's justice system after two Australian women were found guilty of drug offenses in Bali.
Severino said that Singapore and Indonesia were "the most public in advocating the inclusion of Australia" in next month's East Asia Summit in Kuala Lumpur, which has ASEAN at its core.
Singapore and Indonesia are among ASEAN's most influential members.
Severino, a former Philippine diplomat who is currently a visiting senior research fellow at Singapore's Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, does not expect serious damage to Singapore-Australia relations.
He cited the hanging in 1995 of a Filipina maid in Singapore, Flor Contemplacion, which sparked popular indignation in her home country but "did not permanently harm Philippines-Singapore relations."
Singapore's Minister for Community Development Vivian Balakrishnan told the Australian business community in Singapore last week that their country has "a special place in our hearts."
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