The Patriarch’s message to the new Taiwanese government on official and unofficial Singapore-Taiwan ties with the Taiwanese media as the wild card,
“When Lee Hsien Loong was Deputy Prime Minister, he visited Taiwan. The Taiwanese media made big play of his visit. Beijing objected and suspended all government to government negotiations with us. Our Free Trade Agreement with Beijing has still not being signed after four years. New Zealand that started this negotiations after Singapore, have concluded the Free Trade Agreement. Beijing uses its economic and political clout to counter acts it sees as against its interests.”
“If cross-straits relations become friendly and cooperative again, and if there is no media publicity on my visits as in 1970s, ‘80s and early ‘90s when I frequently visited Taiwan, I will be able to visit Taiwan. But when such visits are used by Taiwan’s media to provoke Beijing, they set back Taiwan-Singapore interactions. It has made Singapore repeatedly re-affirm its one-China policy. If you return to the earlier practice of no publicity, our interaction will be quiet but more productive.”
Filed under: Foreign Relations | Tagged: Politics, Singapore
