MM Lee: We cannot be a satellite of any nation

Correction :

In yesterday's report, "MM Lee: We cannot be a satellite of any nation", Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew was reported as saying that there are 500,000 people from China who now live and work in Singapore. This is incorrect. He said, in Mandarin, "we now have 50,000 new migrants from China in Singapore". We are sorry for the error.

Singapore must retain own point of view to be effective

SINGAPORE has built up an unspoken understanding with China that will serve it well in future relations with the emerging giant, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew said last night.

But it must never descend to becoming a satellite of Beijing or any other power, he stressed to some 200 officials and businessmen who have dealings with China.

Singapore must keep its "own point of view", or it will lose all effectiveness in the new world order, he said in a wide-ranging dialogue, part of a dinner to mark networking group Business China's second anniversary.

Mr Lee is patron of the non-profit organisation, which helps Singaporeans – especially businessmen – learn more about China. It was set up by the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

The 50-minute dialogue, which spanned the highs and lows of nearly 20 years of bilateral ties, was chaired by Mr Robin Hu, Singapore Press Holdings' senior executive vice-president of Chinese newspapers and newspaper services.

Also at the dinner were Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan, Manpower Minister Gan Kim Yong, Minister in the Prime Minister's Office and labour chief Lim Swee Say, and China's ambassador to Singapore Zhang Xiaokang.

Mr Lee singled out, as chief among the milestones in China-Singapore relations, the 15-year-long partnership on the Suzhou Industrial Park. It weathered early bilateral disagreements to become a model for industrial parks elsewhere in China.

"For 15 years, we got to know them and they got to know us. We've been training over 2,000 officials, we converted our rules into Chinese, had discussions with them in Chinese," said Mr Lee of the Suzhou experience.

As a result of the industrial park's success, Beijing and Singapore are currently developing an eco-city in Tianjin.

But there have also been rocky moments in bilateral ties, notably after then-deputy prime minister, and now Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong's private visit to Taiwan in 2004, which angered the Chinese government in a way that Singapore did not anticipate.

What adjustments must Singapore make in the next 30 years to benefit from "a confident, ambitious, if not an arrogant and haughty China" as it rises in the world? Mr Hu asked yesterday.

Mr Lee replied that the two countries have reached "a certain unstated understanding of each other", and this will keep relations growing.

Adding to the bilateral comfort level are the 500,000 people from China who now live and work in Singapore {SEE CORRECTION ABOVE}, he added.

These new residents "become more like Singaporeans with each passing year, for example, even refusing to get married and have children, or having only one kid", he said, to laughter.

However, he acknowledged that Singapore could not "stand still" and would have to offer China new forms of expertise to avoid being "squeezed out", as the emerging power is now learning from the best in the world and will one day surpass even that.

He noted a dangerous trend for the region: some Chinese citizens are already "over-confident and assertive" as a result of the country's economic rise.

Here, he cited how Chinese netizens took umbrage to his remarks made during a visit to Washington in October. There, he had called on the United States to retain a key role in Asia to balance China's growth, as Beijing is not yet ready to take on equal responsibility for managing the international system.

Chinese netizens argued that as an ethnic Chinese, Mr Lee should be standing with China and not making such statements.

Recalling their attacks, he said: "Those are very clever arguments. So I think Lianhe Zaobao wrote a piece saying: 'Your leaders say you are not cheng ba (seeking hegemony) but the way you are talking, you are already cheng ba.'"

Asked by Mr Hu what such incidents say about the Chinese psyche, MM Lee said that China has the force of 1.3 billion people behind it, and small states like Singapore understand that.

"But that does not mean you have no independence of action. We must retain that or we'll have no meaning to anybody."

He has held to this view of Singapore as "connected to the world" but "not in anybody's pocket" right from the earliest days of engaging China.

He recalled how, during his first visit to China in 1976 when he was PM, chairman Mao Zedong's designated successor Hua Guofeng had chided Singapore for holding military training activities in Taiwan. Beijing regards Taiwan as a renegade province and claims the island as part of China.

Unfazed, Mr Lee said he challenged China in return for supporting the Malayan Communist Party which in the 1970s was still trying to undermine Singapore's sovereignty and security. The two countries "understood each other better after that".

MM Lee on an exchange with Chinese leader Hua Guofeng in 1976

"He said to me: 'You are in a military alliance with Taiwan.'

I said: 'What gave you that idea?'

He said: 'Your troops are there. Taiwan is part of China. You need our permission.'

I said: 'No, we train separately, we are not part of the Taiwanese armed forces.'

He was not satisfied.

I said: 'I understand your position, and the day you are in control of Taiwan, I will come to you to ask for permission.'

After that, he provoked me into asking him a difficult question.

So I said: 'You said last night, China does not interfere in the affairs of other countries. But you are interfering in my affairs. You are helping the Malayan Communist Party to undermine Singapore. You are giving them support.'

He knew nothing about it (but did not want to) lose the argument. So he said: 'Let me tell you this, wherever Communists go, we fight, we win.'

So I said: 'Thank you, we understand each other better.'

So it was a good start."

Courtesy of The Straits Times, 30 December 2009