What is the meaning behind Lee Hsien Loong's great change in attitude towards China?
It has been 33 years since Singapore and China formally established diplomatic relations in 1990. During this period, diplomatic relations between China and New Zealand have remained at a delicate balance.
In the economic field, Singapore has actively carried out exchanges with China with its unique vision and achieved mutual benefit and win-win results between the two sides. However, the political stance of those in power in Singapore has been ambiguous, and this has been particularly evident since Lee Hsien Loong took over as prime minister.
He has gradually changed from his previous neutral posture to a lackey who assists the US side in its hegemony. Over time, however, Lee Hsien Loong's attitude towards China has changed.
Lee Hsien Loong's change in attitude is closely linked to Singapore's status as a small country with an extremely important geographical location. Singapore is made up of 64 islands and has a land area of only 7143 square kilometers, more than one-ninth of Shanghai's.
However, Singapore occupies the entrance and exit of the Strait of Malacca, bordering Malaysia to the north and Indonesia to the south, and is an important maritime artery connecting the Pacific and Indian Oceans, as well as a key hub for sea and air traffic in Southeast Asia.
With well-developed terminals, Singapore has become an important transit point connecting the Suez Canal, playing an indispensable role in the world, which makes it more influential in the political arena.
Lee Kuan Yew, the founder of Singapore, had a profound influence on Singapore's foreign policy. Since the founding of the country in 1965, he has adhered to a diplomatic stance of pragmatism and peaceful co-prosperity until 2011, when he handed over decision-making power to Lee Hsien Loong.
Lee Kuan Yew was well aware that Singapore's geographical location and unique international status made it the object of competition among major powers. But he also understands that Singapore, as a small country, although economically powerful, does not have the potential to become a true power.
Under such circumstances, how to win more living space for himself among the major powers has become the core of his foreign policy. As a result, he has adopted a posture of active diplomacy with other countries, while maintaining a balanced and neutral stance in the midst of the great powers, which is the essence of Singapore's pragmatic foreign policy.
After establishing a foundation for inter-regional peace and cooperation with Malaysia, Indonesia and other countries, Singapore has actively expanded diplomatic relations with other countries, including China, the United States, Japan and other countries, as well as Taiwan, China.
Singapore's foreign policy is based on Lee Kuan Yew's philosophy that "we need as many friends as possible and as few hostile or unfriendly countries as possible". In the late 70s of the last century, Singapore successfully resolved the turmoil in the country and gradually rose to prominence among Southeast Asian countries.
Lee Kuan Yew, who realized China's potential, immediately began to actively engage in diplomacy with China as soon as the situation calmed down slightly. In 1976, he personally visited China, where he met with President *** and emphasized Singapore's friendly attitude towards China: "The stronger China is, the more balanced China's power will be with the United States and the Soviet Union, and the safer Singapore will be." ”
This goodwill, based on pragmatic considerations, laid the foundation for the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries.
In 1979, China and New Zealand signed an agreement, which opened the prelude to economic cooperation between the two countries. Lee Kuan Yew foresaw China's rise and actively contributed to China's economic construction, sending professionals to assist in the pilot project, which was deeply appreciated by Deng Gong, and the relationship between China and New Zealand quickly warmed up.
In 1990, China and Singapore formally established diplomatic relations and entered a period of development. With the advent of the 21st century, the trend of multipolarization in the world pattern has become increasingly obvious, and development has become the primary task of all countries.
Against this backdrop, Lee Kuan Yew adjusted his diplomatic strategy to focus on strengthening diplomatic relations with China.
Singapore continues to deepen its cooperation with Malaysia economically and seeks to ease its relationship with China politically. Although it maintains close ties with the United States, on the Taiwan issue, it prefers to consider China's position in order to gain our understanding and avoid direct conflict.
In general, Singapore's initial foreign policy was predominantly pro-Western, but at the same time welcomed the rise of our country. This pragmatic foreign policy initially promoted cooperation between China and Singapore, but as the world landscape changed, new contradictions began to emerge.
Lee Hsien Loong became Singapore's prime minister in 2004, but it was in 2011 that Lee Kuan Yew announced his resignation from his advisory position.
Prior to Lee's resignation, Singapore's foreign policy was heavily influenced by his personal style, but with the lowest approval rating for the People's Action Party (PAP) in the 2011 election, Lee Kuan Yew decided to let go of his own decision.
Born in 1952, Lee Hsien Loong grew up during Singapore's boom years, having studied at Cambridge in the UK and Harvard University in the US. Compared to his father, Lee Kuan Yew, Lee Hsien Loong has a distinctly Western background, and his identification with Chinese identity is much lower than that of his predecessors.
After officially taking over Singapore in 2011, Lee Hsien Loong quickly showed his new official three fires.
Against the backdrop of the strong rise of our country, the United States is deeply disturbed and once again shows its minions. Obama's "rebalance to Asia" strategy has increased friction between major powers.
In order to strengthen its control over the Asia-Pacific region, Singapore has become a pawn of the United States, a role that Lee Hsien Loong has embraced when he takes over. Pragmatism has been a core diplomatic trait of Singapore since its inception.
By the time Lee Hsien Loong took over, Singapore had become one of the world's most important financial centres and was no longer as cautious as it once was. Based on the development of national strength, Lee Hsien Loong thinks more about how to gain more benefits from globalization than how to maintain national stability.
Lee Hsien Loong was more direct and sloppy in his diplomatic attitude than his father, and he did not follow the soft tactics of the past. At the same time, Lee Hsien Loong actively responded to the strategic decision of the United States and continuously strengthened synchronous cooperation with the United States, while maintaining a leading position.
Over the past few years, Lee Hsien Loong's foreign policy has been markedly divided between economics and politics. In the economic field, the economic and trade cooperation between China and Singapore has been steadily improved, and the scope of cooperation includes multi-level fields such as science and technology, education, etc., and the bilateral cooperation has continued to rise, and the cooperation between Suzhou Industrial Park, Tianjin Eco-City, and Chongqing Cooperation Demonstration Project has also made remarkable progress.
However, there are some problems on the political front. Compared to his father, Lee Hsien Loong has been tougher in dealing with friction with China. On many occasions, he has adopted a different stance from the past on the South China Sea issue and the Taiwan issue, and has explicitly supported the United States, and has even shown a tendency toward a US-Singapore alliance and anti-China and anti-China.
In 2012, Singapore agreed to the deployment of four littoral combat ships to the U.S. military, and the following year, Singapore's position was clearly biased in favor of the United States in China's territorial dispute.
Lee Hsien Loong also made clear his support for the U.S. pivot to the Asia-Pacific region and hopes that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) will be implemented. By 2015, Singapore's attitude in the South China Sea dispute had become discordant, and they made the statement that "countries outside the region have the right to speak out on the South China Sea issue".
With China's rapid rise, Lee Hsien Loong boldly pursued a policy of westward expansion, responded positively to US actions, and became a leader in the rebalance to the Asia-Pacific. However, Singapore's new leader is in trouble because of his decision.
The Asia-Pacific rebalance he supports is close to failure, with only 11 countries participating in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, five years into its launch.
Ironically, Lee Hsien Loong chose to exclude China, but China's success in events such as the Belt and Road Initiative, the AIIB, and the G20 summit is a fact he cannot ignore.
After Trump's election, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was more of a joke, through which the United States tried to expand its influence in the Asia-Pacific region, but eventually withdrew from the agreement, and Lee Hsien Loong's previous anti-China policies were proved wrong by reality.
As a country with a Chinese population of more than 70 percent, Lee Hsien Loong has shown that it is extremely unwise to try to keep Singapore neutral in its relations with China.
Lee Hsien Loong's change in attitude towards U.S.-China relations began in 2016. That year, the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Singapore and the United States, Lee Hsien Loong took the opportunity to visit the United States for the first time and expressed a clear attitude.
"All ASEAN countries warmly welcome the return of the United States to the Asia-Pacific region," he said. However, Lee Hsien Loong soon realized that it was not wise to continue to be closely connected to the United States. On November 9, 2016, two months after Trump won ***, he was officially sworn in at the White House, and everything changed.
Trump's first order that shocked the world was to restart the U.S.-Mexico border wall, which Obama scrapped years ago.
The United States publicly accused global warming of being China's conspiracy, posted information on its social media, advised people to use ultraviolet radiation and venom injections to fight the epidemic, and took classified documents with them when they left office, leading to a surprise search ...... the FBITrump's "Twitter governance" strategy has made the American superpower a global laughing stock, and some of his ridiculous statements have become the object of ridicule, such as "maintaining world peace with his stupid but shocking rhetoric".
It is widely believed that this election in the United States is undoubtedly a big defeat. However, in stark contrast to the United States, our country has shown amazing results of development during this period.
On January 16, 2016, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), which was initiated by China, officially began to operate, and only nine months later, the RMB was officially included in the Special Drawing Rights, becoming the fifth currency among them.
In that year, the 11th G20 Summit was held in Hangzhou, and the "China Plan" won the hearts of the people and was highly praised by all walks of life at home and abroad. This year, China's aerospace industry shined, the Long March 5, 7 new rockets, Tiangong-2 laboratory, Shenzhou 11 spacecraft and other projects have been successful, China's manned space "three-step" strategy key nodes have been reached, China has officially entered the ranks of space power.
At the Rio Olympics that year, Chinese athletes won a total of 70 medals with their outstanding competitive level, especially the Chinese women's volleyball team reversed Serbia 3-1 and re-ascended to the Olympic championship, once again showing the world the tenacious spirit and indomitable will of the Chinese.
Whether it is the improvement of economic strength, or the progress of soft power such as science and technology, sports, etc., China has announced to the world through excellent results that China has stood tall among the world's powers.
The Transformation of Singapore's Foreign Policy: Lee Hsien Loong's Pro-Choice of Pragmatism. From openly supporting the United States to sending pro-China signals, Lee Hsien Loong's diplomatic strategy has changed.
He praised China's high-speed rail and mobile payments, and hoped that Singapore would learn from China's experience. Entering 2019, Lee Hsien Loong's position is very different from what it was three years ago.
On 1 February 2020, Lee Hsien Loong delivered a speech on the pandemic, emphasizing that the pandemic is a public health emergency, not a country-to-country issue, let alone a racial issue.
He pointed out that it is ignorant and illogical to be considered to have a virus just because we are Chinese, and we must look at the facts calmly, understand things rationally, and recognize fallacies.
He listed China's contribution to the response to the epidemic and praised China's fight against the epidemic. He said that China is doing its best to control the spread of the epidemic, including canceling all outbound tour groups and arranging special flights to bring back those from Hubei who are overseas.
Therefore, China is responding to the epidemic responsibly.
In an interview with Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong made it clear that he firmly believes that China and the rest of the world can work together to overcome the current challenges.
Lee Hsien Loong's pro-China attitude was most evident in the interview, where he made it clear that China's position in the global economy is irreplaceable and that countries must do business with China if they want to develop.
Lee Hsien Loong predicts that with the advancement of the "One Belt, One Road" strategy, China's influence will be further expanded, and it has become the largest partner of all Asian economies.
Therefore, all countries in the Asia-Pacific region need to seize the opportunity to cooperate with China, otherwise there will be a huge cost. Overall, Lee Hsien Loong is well aware of China's important position in the global economy, and cooperation with China is an inevitable choice for countries around the world.
On November 17, 2022, our leaders met with Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in Bangkok. Lee Hsien Loong was very pleased with the meeting and extended warm congratulations to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China.
He said that under the current complex international situation, Singapore looks forward to further deepening and expanding its friendly relations with China, and hopes that the two sides can carry out more cooperation on the existing bilateral cooperation mechanism and promote the development of various cooperation projects, including the three first-class projects in Suzhou, Tianjin and Chongqing, as well as the national project in Guangzhou Knowledge City.
Finally, Lee Hsien Loong underscored his view of China's rise as unstoppable and that a strong and friendly China would have a positive impact on the region and the world.
Lee Hsien Loong's attitude towards U.S.-China relations has changed dramatically. Before meeting with our country, he expressed concern about Biden**'s comprehensive export control measures against China and clearly warned the United States that if it decouples from China, it could further destabilize the region.
He argues that the consequences of decoupling include less economic cooperation, less interdependence, less trust, and ultimately lead to global instability. When asked about Singapore's attitude, he was firm in his support for China, stressing: "We don't rate ourselves, let alone our friends." ”
In state-to-state interactions, national interests are always paramount, and Singapore, as a small country, must seek its foothold among the major powers. All kinds of changes in attitudes are just for survival, and for a big country, there should be a more open-minded mind.
There are countless such countries, and the only way to win their support is to strengthen themselves. Fortunately, China has always been committed to self-reliance.
1.Xinhuanet had an exclusive interview with Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong to analyze Singapore's China policy in detail. 2.The trend of Singapore's China policy, the Journal of Southwest University for Nationalities conducted in-depth from multiple perspectives.
3.From Lee Kuan Yew to Lee Hsien Loong, what changes have taken place in Singapore's diplomatic strategy towards China has been analyzed in depth by Jiangsu Social Sciences. 4.Xinhuanet had an exclusive conversation with Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong to interpret the evolution and challenges of Singapore's China policy.
5.The new trend of Singapore's ** China policy, the Journal of Southwest University for Nationalities provides a comprehensive interpretation. 6.Lee Kuan Yew to Lee Hsien Loong, the changes and challenges of Singapore's diplomatic strategy towards China, and Jiangsu social sciences conducted an in-depth analysis.