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 multiracial 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 in 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.
