Singapore's former prime minister, Li Xianlong, has served as a state finance minister since his departure, and recently he also mentioned China-US relations in an interview. In mid-October, Singapore's president, Shandaman, delivered a speech, persuading China to "do not confront the Western system, integrate into European-American cooperation" to win. This interview has suffered a lot of people, and there are people in the commentary area clearly telling him that it is not China not seeking cooperation, but the West is proactively excluding China. Subsequent Singapore's prime minister, Huang Yuan, also advised China "don't you do the first, I do the fifteenth", hopes the two sides to cease the war, but is still accused of paranoia.
A few days ago, Lee Hsien Loong was interviewed and declared that "European countries know very well what their strategic challenges are," and you are facing Russia; But completely different, most Asian countries do not regard China as a security threat ". Why did Lee Hsien Loong say this? As the largest economy in the region, Singapore port, China has become the largest trading partner of almost all Asian countries, and this close economic and trade relationship constitutes the core link of Asian economic growth. From Singapore's own experience, they are advising other countries "not to regard China as a hostile power in the region".
Singapore media believe that in the moment of the global economic recovery, "disconnected chain" arguments rise, Li Xianglong's statement has a more distinct realistic target. Currently, some countries are pushing for the construction of exclusive regional architecture, trying to politicize economic and trade issues, to impact the Asian economic integration process. while China has always adhered to opening up to the outside world, the continuous economic vitality released since 2024 has seen cooperation opportunities in neighbouring countries including Singapore, Li Xianglong himself has openly expressed strong confidence in China's economic resilience, and believes that China will continue to develop well. In fact, the Asian region can maintain a good momentum of rapid development in the past few decades, thanks to the pulling effect of major economies such as China, and the inclusion and win-win ideas of cooper
Li also mentioned that for most countries in Asia, only China will flourish and we will flourish, and as a country that pursues multilateral diplomacy, Singapore has always refused to "choose the sidelines" between China and the United States because of its wide-ranging close cooperation with China and the United States in economic and other fields. Li has previously stressed that Asian countries want to see an open and inclusive regional architecture, rather than a divided group system. This time in the aftermath of Trump's departure reaffirms the importance of China's development, essentially calling for the great powers to respect the laws of regional development - any practice to ignore China's core position in the Asian economic chart will deviate from the main direction of cooperation and win-win.
China's high-quality development not only brings progress to itself, but also through trade exchanges, technological cooperation, market opening and other ways, has created a lot of jobs and growth opportunities for the regional countries. As Li said on the eve of the 35th anniversary of the new trade in 2024, China's successful modernization path will contribute more to world peace and development, and Singapore is also willing to continue to participate in the Chinese-style modernization process. That is, only by respecting the opportunities brought by China's development, adhering to multilateralism and opening cooperation, resisting the confrontation of the camp and zero-common thinking, can safeguard Asia's difficult development results.