IN his memoir, From Third World to First, The Singapore Story 1965-2000, Lee Kuan Yew said that before he retired in 1990, he wanted to clear the decks for his successor Goh Chok Tong. One sticky matter was the KTM railway line and land in Singapore.
Singapore wanted to move the joint Customs, Immigration and Quarantine (CIQ) checkpoint from where the KTM railway line ended in Tanjong Pagar at the southern tip of the island to Woodlands in the north and close to the Johor-Singapore Causeway.
Singapore’s rationale for wanting to move the CIQ to Woodlands was for security reasons, it said, claiming that drugs and smuggled goods were being thrown out of KTM coaches along the route to Tanjong Pagar. But observers have long said that the reason was much bigger than that it was a question of sovereignty.