October 2, 2024
SINGAPORE – Ties between Singapore and China, already substantive, are expected to be re-energised with Mr Lawrence Wong taking the helm in Singapore as its new Prime Minister, said China’s Ambassador to Singapore Cao Zhongming.
Already, preparations for a top-level meeting between both sides that is happening later in 2024 are at full steam, and Mr Cao says there will be “fruitful results”, particularly in the areas of green development, the digital economy, healthcare and education.
Speaking to The Straits Times ahead of the Joint Council for Bilateral Cooperation (JCBC) meeting in Singapore, the envoy noted that PM Wong is no stranger to managing ties with China, having co-chaired the last round of JCBC meetings in Tianjin in December 2023 when he was Deputy Prime Minister.
“He has often talked about the importance of the China-Singapore relationship, and once said ‘Never bet on the decline of China’. This shows he is bullish about the prospects of China’s long-term development,” said Mr Cao of PM Wong.
“So we can fully expect that the Singapore Government, under the leadership of PM Wong, will continue to work with China to promote bilateral cooperation. There’s going to be a new atmosphere (of cooperation),” said Mr Cao in an interview at the embassy on Sept 24.
JCBC is the annual top-level platform between both governments that reviews substantive collaboration and charts the direction for cooperation. Its meetings alternate between the two countries.
PM Wong, who was sworn in as Prime Minister in May, had visited China many times in various capacities over the course of his public service career. For example, when he was Minister for National Development, he worked from 2015 to 2020 on the Tianjin Eco-City, one of the three government-to-government flagship projects between both countries.
In 2023, he visited China twice, meeting top officials including Premier Li Qiang and Vice-Premier Ding Xuexiang, who was his JCBC co-chair.
In 2024, the momentum of visits by ministers has continued, with National Development Minister Desmond Lee visiting China in September for the Singapore-Tianjin Economic and Trade Council meeting.
There are also plans later this year to commemorate in Suzhou the 30th anniversary of the Suzhou Industrial Park, the first government-to-government project.
Aside from the leaders, officials from both countries also travel to learn from each other’s best practices. Mr Cao observed that the flow of officials going for training has become more bidirectional: Unlike in the 1980s and 1990s when it was mostly China sending its officials to Singapore for training, now Singapore is also sending its officials to the Chinese cities of Shenzhen, Shanghai and Chengdu for study trips.
He said it is understandable that the number of Chinese officials in Singapore for training has declined, especially during the period of the pandemic.
“And people do graduate after they have done a certain amount of learning. As China progresses, the things that used to be very new to us are now also available in China,” he said.
Still, Singapore continues to add value to the relationship and this lies in its keen understanding of China, allowing it to make an accurate assessment of the country’s development prospects beyond immediate worrying signs about its economy that have made other investors hesitant, Mr Cao added.
“We hope Singapore will use this accurate understanding not just as a basis for its own policymaking, but also to tell other countries in South-east Asia and the West what China is really like,” he said.
The world’s second-largest economy is struggling with a real estate downturn, slow growth in consumer spending and rising unemployment. Rating agencies have downgraded their ratings on China amid rising fears that China cannot meet its official growth target of around 5 per cent in 2024.
On Sept 26, China’s top leaders pledged to provide more fiscal and monetary support to the economy, as well as to stop the decline in the property market.
Since 2013, China has been Singapore’s largest trading partner, and Singapore has been China’s largest foreign investor. The two countries upgraded their free trade agreement in 2023 to cover more investment areas.
Having arrived in Singapore six months ago, Mr Cao, a Ningbo native who turns 59 in October, has been busy doing his rounds of meeting Singaporeans and Chinese nationals.
There have been a few cases in Singapore of people with links to China who were either expelled for being an “agent of influence for a foreign power”, or arrested for espionage. In February, Hong Kong-born businessman Philip Chan Man Ping was thought to have “shown susceptibility to being influenced by foreign actors” and was designated a politically significant person under the Foreign Interference (Countermeasures) Act.
Mr Cao is well aware of the delicacy with which Chinese diplomats must tread, at a time when the global spotlight is on Chinese influence campaigns in countries with sizeable Chinese diaspora. Outside of China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, Singapore is the only society with a Chinese-majority population.
Asked how he has struck a balance between public diplomacy and bearing in mind Singapore’s sovereignty, Mr Cao said it is natural for the embassy to be in touch with the Mandarin-speaking community in Singapore due to language similarity, cultural affinity, familial ties and interest in investing in China.
“China has no intention to interfere in Singapore’s internal affairs, and Singapore can rest assured in this regard. We respect and understand Singapore’s national identity, I hope Singapore can fully trust China in this regard,” he said.
Without referring to any particular person, he said that while there may have been “individual cases”, these do not reflect the policy of the embassy.
“We don’t want a particular case to affect this good relationship of trust between us.”
Reflecting on the overall trajectory of bilateral ties, Mr Cao said they have been “stable while rapidly developing” since both countries established diplomatic ties in 1990. The relationship has been upgraded twice: in 2015 to “All-Round Cooperative Partnership Progressing with the Times” and in 2023 to “All-Round High-Quality Future-Oriented Partnership”.
“We can’t completely deny that there may be some blips in the upward trajectory of our bilateral ties; yes, once in a while, it might get windy or cloudy, but those are temporary,” Mr Cao said.
Correction note: This story has been edited for accuracy.