Trust is the quiet currency of the policy world. In the meeting rooms and seminar halls where diplomacy is discussed, reputation opens doors, and a name can carry more weight than a passport. That is what made the appearance of something called Global Asia Think Tank so unsettling. It looked like a familiar player in Singapore’s intellectual landscape, a body with an elegant website, confident language, and, most importantly, apparent connections to power. According to its own claims, it was supported by Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and had worked with the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, as well as the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University. For an outside observer, these associations would have made the think tank seem credible, perhaps even distinguished. But when official sources were asked, the story began to fall apart. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded clearly and firmly: it did not support Global Asia, and it had never supported it. The claims made by both Global Asia and another group called Great Vision were described as misrepresentations. Not only did the Ministry deny any connection, it said it had already contacted the websites to demand the removal of these false references, and warned that further action would be taken if the requests were ignored. The universities, too, were quick to distance themselves. The Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy said the claims on Global Asia’s website were false and that it had no relationship with the entity. The Rajaratnam School of International Studies likewise said it had no knowledge of Global Asia. In a society where institutional endorsement is both meaningful and carefully earned, these denials mattered. They exposed something more than a clumsy attempt to borrow credibility. They revealed a deliberate strategy of constructing a fictional organisation, one designed to appear legitimate to outsiders while operating under false pretences.
The pattern did not end with Global Asia. Once investigators began looking more closely, other questionable entities surfaced, each with its own way of exploiting Singapore’s reputation for seriousness and stability. Great Vision claimed to be a consultancy headquartered in Singapore, and reports suggested it was trying to recruit former Singaporean diplomats. Its targets were not junior staff or retired officials looking for a quiet advisory role. It sought people with deep experience in foreign affairs, individuals who had spent years navigating the intricate relationships that define Southeast Asia and the wider international order. Great Vision also aimed its recruitment efforts at people who had worked in Singapore’s think-tank community, exactly the kind of professionals who hold detailed knowledge about how policy is made, how governments respond to crises, and where fault lines might appear in regional cooperation. Then there was Afforesight, another entity that presented itself as an independent think-tank in Singapore. A visit to the address listed on its website, however, led not to a busy policy research office, but to a research facility operated by a pharmaceutical company. There were no signs of any entity called Afforesight, no reception desk, no staff, nothing to suggest that the organisation existed beyond its own digital footprint. Together, these cases form a mosaic of deception. They suggest a coordinated effort to exploit the openness of Singapore’s information environment and the trust placed in its institutions. The organisations did not merely have fake addresses or invented associations. They understood how credibility works in a globalised world. They knew that a Singapore mailing address, or a claimed partnership with a respected university, or the mention of support from a government ministry, could instantly elevate their status in the eyes of foreign officials, journalists, and business partners. And they knew that in the shadows between truth and falsehood, there was room to operate.
The response from Singapore’s political leadership has been swift, and it reflects a broader concern about security and sovereignty. Member of Parliament Yip Hon Weng, who chairs the Government Parliamentary Committee for Defence and Foreign Affairs, has filed a parliamentary question on the matter. He intends to ask what safeguards exist to prevent foreign actors from exploiting Singapore as a base for covert intelligence gathering, and how authorities act against entities suspected of facilitating such activities. Yip, who also serves as chairman of the advisory council for the Digital Defence Alliance Singapore, did not limit his concern to the immediate question of who was behind these fake organisations. Instead, he pointed to something deeper and more enduring. The existence of these fabricated think-tanks and consultancies matters, he suggested, not only because of what they may have tried to do, but because of what they reveal about intelligence collection in the modern era. The methods have changed. The old image of the spy, slipping into a foreign embassy with a hidden camera or meeting a handler in a dimly lit cafe, feels almost quaint by comparison. Today, the work of intelligence is often less dramatic and more intellectual. It involves mapping how powerful and informed people think. It involves identifying the mental frameworks through which diplomats and analysts interpret events. It involves understanding the subtle biases, personal relationships, and institutional memories that shape decisions. In that sense, the people most valuable to a foreign intelligence service are not necessarily those holding classified documents. They may be former diplomats who can explain how a crisis is likely to be read in different capitals, analysts who can guess where consensus within ASEAN might fracture, or insiders who know which arguments resonate within government and which do not.
Yip’s concern illuminates a new terrain of vulnerability. In the past, the most valuable target was the locked safe, the classified cable, the secret negotiation memo. Today, the most valuable target might be something more intangible but no less powerful: the mental map. A former diplomat carries within their mind a living archive of conversations, impressions, and judgments. They know how a particular official reacts under pressure, what alliances matter in a moment of crisis, and when a carefully prepared position is likely to be abandoned in favour of improvisation. An analyst who has spent years studying regional politics has an intuitive feel for the limits of consensus, the unresolved grievances buried under public statements, and the personalities whose relationships can make or break a multilateral agreement. These are not secrets in the traditional sense, but they are valuable. They are exactly the kind of knowledge that can give a foreign government an advantage in negotiations, in shaping regional sentiment, or in anticipating the moves of a smaller country that has learned to navigate a volatile world. The fake think-tank is a perfect vehicle for collecting this kind of intelligence because it lowers suspicion. Think-tanks routinely host seminars, exchange ideas, publish papers, and invite experts to speak. No one thinks twice when a researcher asks thoughtful questions about policy. No one raises an alarm when a newly established institute invites a former official to an off-the-record discussion. In that environment, the boundaries between legitimate intellectual exchange and covert information gathering can become dangerously blurred. The unsuspecting participant may not even realise that their insights are being harvested.
But there is a second, less obvious risk, and Yip was careful to highlight it. A fabricated institution need not only extract knowledge from a country. Over time, it can also shape knowledge. It can become part of the very ecosystem it is trying to infiltrate. The strategy would begin slowly and carefully. Organisers would recruit a few credible experts, perhaps paying them well, perhaps simply flattering them with opportunities to speak and publish. They would publish legitimate analysis alongside carefully curated material, some of it accurate, some of it quietly designed to advance a particular narrative. They would convene discussions, invite respectable participants, and produce reports that appear in databases and are cited by other think-tanks. In time, a synthetic organisation could acquire real-world legitimacy. It would not need to be a government front or a traditional intelligence operation. It would only need to be useful enough, visible enough, and credible enough to attract the engagement of busy and well-intentioned people. Once that happened, the lines between espionage, influence, and something Yip called “knowledge laundering” would begin to blur. Knowledge laundering is a disturbing idea. It suggests that false or misleading narratives can be cleansed of their origin, passed through credible-sounding institutions, and emerge on the other side as accepted wisdom. A policy paper from a fake think-tank, if picked up by a reputable news organisation or cited in a parliamentary debate, could begin to influence how people understand a complex issue. A discussion convened by a fictitious institute could generate insights that are then repackaged as informed opinion. In this way, the fabricator becomes a participant in the production of public knowledge, not merely a consumer of private thinking. The danger is not just that a country loses secrets. It is that a country loses the ability to know what is genuinely legitimate and what has been manufactured.
For Singapore, a nation that has built its global reputation on trustworthiness, competence, and the careful management of its vulnerabilities, these revelations are a reminder that security is never settled. There is no final victory over hostile actors, only an ongoing process of vigilance, adaptation, and resilience. Official bodies can demand the removal of false references and take action against those who rebel. Parliamentary questions can force accountability and shine a light on hidden operations. Institutions like the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy and the Rajaratnam School of International Studies can issue firm denials and protect their names. But the deeper defence must be cultural and intellectual. It requires citizens, academics, journalists, and officials to ask harder questions about who they are dealing with, why an organisation has appeared out of nowhere, who is paying for its events, and what it truly hopes to achieve. It requires a willingness to be sceptical without becoming paranoid, to preserve the openness that makes Singapore a dynamic place for ideas while recognizing that openness can also be exploited. The human element remains central. The most important asset is not a database or a secure server. It is the judgment of people who have spent their careers understanding the world, and who understand that not every institution with a website and a letterhead deserves their trust. The fake think-tanks will not be the last threat of their kind. But the clear-eyed response to them, from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, from universities, and from political leaders who refuse to look away, shows that the country is not naive. It has learned to read the fingerprints on the pages of seemingly respectable institutions. And it is determined to protect not only its secrets, but the integrity of the conversations that shape its future.