Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat meeting China's Vice-President Han Zheng at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing on April 9, 2024. - ST PHOTO: LIM MIN ZHANG
BEIJING (The Straits Times/ANN): Singapore Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat met China’s Vice-President Han Zheng in Beijing on April 9 as part of a six-day official visit to explore ways to strengthen bilateral cooperation.
During their meeting at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, DPM Heng said they have developed a very good personal relationship in the course of co-chairing the Joint Council for Bilateral Cooperation (JCBC), a top-level meeting between Singapore and China.
“We are now good friends and old friends,” DPM Heng told Han.
As counterparts, both leaders had helmed four editions of the annual JCBC meeting, which is typically headed by the first-ranked deputy prime ministers. From 2019 to 2022, dozens of agreements were reached, deepening cooperation in areas from youth exchanges to nature conservation and blockchain.
DPM Heng said that the JCBC, which started in 2004, builds on the good foundation of the Suzhou Industrial Park, which founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew was personally very committed to, together with the Chinese leadership.
“I think we have achieved something significant in the Suzhou Industrial Park,” he said of the first of three flagship inter-government projects, which marks its 30th anniversary in 2024, in his opening remarks.
DPM Heng’s China visit, which started on April 7, will also cover Shenzhen and Hong Kong. This is his first to the country since 2019, and is the latest in a series of high-level official exchanges between Singapore and China, after both countries upgraded their ties in April 2023.
Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said later in a press release that DPM Heng and Han “affirmed the deep and substantive bilateral relations between Singapore and China”, and exchanged views on recent regional and international developments.
In his opening remarks, Han also took stock of the JCBC meetings, which are now co-chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong and China’s Vice-Premier Ding Xuexiang. Mr Han, who was previously vice-premier, retired from the Communist Party of China’s apex body, the Politburo Standing Committee, in October 2022.
Wong was appointed DPM in June 2022. He announced that he would co-chair the JCBC with Mr Ding for the first time during a trip to China in May 2023.
Han said: “We have made some good progress in practical cooperation in different fields between the two countries, and in particular between different localities, and we have also formed close working relations and good personal friendships.”
He said he hopes DPM Heng’s visit will further contribute to practical cooperation across the board between the two countries, and thanked DPM Heng for his contribution to the relationship over the years.
On April 8, DPM Heng visited Tsinghua University’s Institute for AI Industry Research, which focuses on applying artificial intelligence technologies to real-world problems, and met the university’s party secretary, Dr Qiu Yong.
DPM Heng also took part in a discussion organised by a Beijing-based think-tank, the International Cooperation Centre, and met former China Construction Bank chairman Tian Guoli, whom DPM Heng described as an “old friend”.
Recent high-level visits between Singapore and China include Senior Minister Teo Chee Hean’s six-day visit to Sichuan, Zhejiang and Beijing in March.
That same month, Mr Liu Jianchao, who heads the Communist Party of China’s International Liaison Department, was in Singapore to meet its leaders, including Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. - The Straits Times/ANN
