SHANGHAI: When China prospers, more opportunities open up for Singapore and its businesses. And it is such shared interests that underpin the relationship, as opposed to having the same ethnic majority, said Senior Minister Lee Hsien Loong.
He added that as long as there are multiple participants in Asia – and Singapore has partnerships with all the major economies in the world – the Republic can manage any dependencies and avoid being over-reliant on a single partner.
“Identity is something which we have to manage, whether we have a lot of engagements with them or less,” SM Lee said of Singapore-China relations when asked about anxieties over these issues in an interview with Singapore media in Shanghai on May 22.
“We are a Chinese-majority country, but we are a multiracial society. We are a separate country with separate sovereignty from China. We cooperate as friends and in order to have mutual benefit,” he told the media on the final day of a five-day visit.
“When I meet my Chinese partners, I try to explain it to them. And I think they kind of understand when they see me and they see my delegation, and I come here with a multi-racial delegation,” SM Lee said.
“But what really will help them to understand is if they visit Singapore, and they spend time with us and they see how society operates… I think it will help them to understand why, while we are good friends and we wish each other well, sometimes our interests do not completely align, and well, then friends have to be able to manage these differences in views,” he added.
With China expanding its influence through its growing economic prowess and massive infrastructure spending, and the US seeking to reassert American dominance on the Western Hemisphere, there has been growing concern about a fracturing global order and pressure on Singapore to pick a side.
Noting the importance of Asia to major powers around the world – from the Japanese to the Europeans and even to the Americans – SM Lee made the point that having rival spheres of influence where certain countries are excluded from one part of the world or another, will not be acceptable, including to the Chinese themselves.
“I don’t think we will end up with an exclusive bloc and only one direction to go,” he added.
Responding to a question about whether China is seeking more than economic deliverables, SM Lee said: “Whether it’s China, whether it’s America, both participants would, of course, like us to take positions which are more closely aligned with their positions.”
He added: “Our attitude is we are friends with both. We do not wish to cross either if we do not need to, but we have to take a stance which is based on Singapore’s interests.”
SM Lee’s trip to China began on May 18. He spent two days in Guangxi’s capital Nanning, where he visited a port operator and a logistics park that have major roles in facilitating growing trade between China’s western provinces and South-east Asia.
In Shanghai, SM Lee had some hands-on time with Chinese-made humanoid robots during a tour of a government-backed incubator. He also spoke at a dialogue titled “Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty” at the closed-door J.P. Morgan Global China Summit and met with Shanghai Mayor Gong Zheng.
Asked about his takeaways from his trip, SM Lee said other countries, China in particular, are advancing quickly in the use of technology such as artificial intelligence and Singapore has to move forward as well.
“We also have to learn from others and engage with others and have the confidence that if they can do it, we can do it, too. It is not something which is easy to do. The Chinese are not finding it easy to do either. But they know that it has to be done, and it is happening on a nationwide scale,” SM Lee said.
Noting that China has made technological development a key national focus, he sees this as a learning opportunity for Singapore and an opening for the Republic to receive high-tech investments.
“The Chinese are actually using AI in a very extensive way… At the same time, they are thinking ahead (about) what is this going to do to employment, to individuals who may need to find new jobs, on the social impact and how to cope with that,” SM Lee added.
“So that’s something I think we should learn from… Both leaning forward and applying it as well as thinking ahead for the impact on us and how we can best respond to it and prepare for the consequences,” he said.
Another area that Singapore can draw lessons from China is how they are adapting to an ageing population.
“They are talking about nursing homes and elderly living facilities, and how to make the society friendly to old people, and able to use old people and keep them active and productive,” SM Lee said.
“If only they could push their birth rates up, we could learn from them that, too. But that’s not so easy for them, or for us.”
SM Lee said as China grows, there will be opportunities for Singapore to tap its market for exports and investment. At the same time, there are also chances for Chinese companies to invest in Singapore, whether in manufacturing or as a regional hub for internationalisation.
“We need to understand China and know what role we can play in this context, so that China, or at least Chinese companies, will find it beneficial to engage with Singapore,” he later added in Mandarin.
“So I think it’s essential for us to visit China every year or two, to explore new investment, trade, or cooperation opportunities in places we haven’t visited recently.”
During his interview on May 22, SM Lee was also asked for his view on the outcomes of the recent visit by US President Donald Trump to Beijing, and the implications for Singapore.
Marking the first visit by a US president to China in more than eight years, Trump had met with Chinese President Xi Jinping over two days on May 14 and 15 in a highly watched summit that was big on optics but modest in terms of concrete agreements.
The clearest signal of where the US-China rivalry may be headed that came out of their meeting was a new idea of “constructure strategic stability”. Beijing said the new framework, which was mooted by Xi and agreed to by Trump, will guide China-US ties over the next three years and beyond.
It is centred on cooperation and managed competition, implying that Beijing wants Washington to see China as a peer, rather than a junior partner, analysts have said.
SM Lee said that based on briefings from the two sides and what they have said publicly, the summit appears to have gone well.
“From Singapore’s point of view, we hope that tensions will be moderated, because stable US-China relations are one of the most important things for a stable world,” he added.
“However, US-China relations have a long history, and in the last year, it has seen very major ups and downs. So we will have to see whether the tone which has been set at this summit will be sustained,” SM Lee said.
“Even if it stabilises the trade relationship, I think the issues are longstanding and complex and not something which can go away easily.” - The Straits Times/ANN
