Hello everyone, I'm Lu Lu. Today, let's talk about the special arrangements for old friends to visit China.

Recently, China's old friend, Singapore's Defense Minister Chen Zhengzhou, opened a four-day visit to China, which is also the first time he has visited China since taking over the Ministry of Defense in May this year.

As an important part of this visit to China, Chen Zhengzhou will first arrive in Beijing to attend the 12th Shanghai Forum, which brings together senior global defense, military and diplomatic personnel on the theme of "protecting international order and promoting peaceful development".

According to Singapore media reports, during the period, Mr. Chen will not only deliver a speech outlining Singapore's views on regional security, but will also meet with high-ranking Chinese officials.

He will also participate in the roundtable discussions of senior generals of the Liberation Army and Chinese provincial officials, and visit the National Defense University of the Chinese People's Liberation Army to exchange in-depth views on topics such as bilateral defence cooperation and regional security governance from a strategic level.

After his trip to Beijing, Chen Zhensheng will be invited to go south to Guangzhou to visit the Southern Theater of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, and to Zhanjiang to inspect the navy of the Southern Theater stationed here.

It is worth mentioning that Chen Zhensheng's arrangement of "going to the capital to talk about strategy first, and then going to the war zone to see practice" is not common during the foreign defense minister's visit to China. This not only highlights the unique positioning of China-Singapore defense relations, but also sends a clear signal for the two sides to deepen strategic mutual trust.

As an important force in charge of China's defense in the South China Sea, the scope of responsibilities of the Southern war zone is directly related to regional maritime security and other issues of Singapore's concern, and Chen Chen has faithfully explored the Southern war zone, which can both intuitively understand the actual actions of the Chinese military inining regional stability, but also build a more direct communication bridge for the practical cooperation between the two sides in specific defense fields.

Although this visit to China was Chen Zhengzhou's first visit to China in defense of his position as prime minister, he had a tremendous background with China in the past. He has been deeply involved in China's new cooperation for many years. As early as a decade ago, when Singapore and China decided to carry out the third cooperation project between the two governments in Chongqing, Chen Zhengzhou was the new minister responsible for the whole process of promoting the project from concept to ground implementation, and now the project has become a model of China's new practical cooperation.

Not only that, as early as his tenure as Chief of Staff of Singapore's three armed forces, Chen Zhensheng visited Guilin with senior officials of the People's Liberation Army to observe the Sino-Singapore bilateral army joint exercises. At that time, the Sino-Singapore army joint exercises had been carried out for many years, and subsequently extended to the naval field. These past experiences have laid a solid foundation for him to deepen Sino-Singapore defense cooperation as defense minister this time.

Before his visit to China, Chen Zhensheng repeatedly mentioned his thoughts on China-Singapore relations, three of which attracted special attention. He clearly pointed out that China's evolution at every stage of development is extremely rapid. If Singapore wants to make substantial contributions to the partnership between the two sides, it must closely follow China's national needs and concerns and understand China's plan for the future vision before putting forward practical cooperation ideas.

He also stressed that Singapore has always adhered to the fundamental concept that "a stable and progressive China is beneficial to China itself, as well as the region and the world."

Based on this awareness, Chen said that Singapore will continue to seek opportunities to interact with China and promote China's constructive role in the area of regional security by deepening its understanding, which is consistent with China's years of active participation in military exercises in the region and practical actions to maintain regional stability.

More importantly, even if China's new relationship reaches such a height, Chen Zhengzhou still said that he will "not be satisfied", and will continue to promote cooperation with China, and in this process for the interests of both sides, he will not rule out some "contribution beyond bilateral relations".