Impervious to pressure from Beijing, Singaporean
Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) is
visiting Taiwan this week in a private capacity prior to officially taking up his appointment as prime minister next month.
Despite the low profile of the visit and the secrecy surrounding his schedule, the media nonetheless caught the pomp and ceremony extended by President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and members of his government to the young national leader. The visit not only benefits Lee's personal reputation, but also substantially promotes the relationship between Singapore and Taiwan. This visit is a masterly diplomatic move.
Building a positive communication channel between the leaders of Taiwan and Singapore is obviously what is expected by the international community and the people of the two countries. Lee Kuan Yew (李光耀), the father of Lee Hsien Loong, during his term as prime minister and since his retirement has maintained an active commitment to cross-strait and East Asian affairs. Moreover, Lee Kuan Yew's hard work for Singapore's prosperity has earned him recognition and respect in the international community.
But in the 1990s, in the face of a growing Chinese economy and the active democratic reforms in Taiwan, the older Lee proposed strengthening regional cooperation in order to develop the Chinese market. To this end, he made several speeches unfavorable to the rise of an awareness of national sovereignty in Taiwan. This had the obvious effect of changing the relationship between the leaders of Singapore and Taiwan. The move also cost Lee the role of a special envoy between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait.
Nevertheless, the older Lee retained his political insight. Shortly after Chen was elected Taipei mayor in 1994, Lee enthusiastically and repeatedly invited Chen to visit Singapore and built close private relations with him. Although former Taiwanese president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) often criticized his Singaporean counterpart for his differing political views, Chen rolled out the red carpet for Lee Kuan Yew after winning the 2000 election. Invited to Singapore by the Lee family, former Taipei County commissioner Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) secretly visited the city state in May before he assumed the post of the secretary-general at the Presidential Office.
Right after the younger Lee's visit to China last month, he came to Taiwan and met the leaders of both the government and opposition camps, as well as American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) director Douglas Paal. He was well received in every respect and successfully boosted his international image. The Singaporean government's diplomatic maneuver and its sophisticated efforts to maintain cross-strait relations are self-evident.
Taiwan-Singapore relations are founded largely on trade and discussions surrounding a free trade agreement between the two countries, cooperation on security issues and the degree of Singapore's involvement in regional affairs. All of this will take place in private, out of the ceremonial limelight.
As for any breakthrough on cross-strait relations, we hope that Lee Hsien Loong will seek to understand Taiwan with even greater sincerity and convey what he has learned about Taiwan to the authorities in Beijing.
As a reasonable man and spokesman for Taiwan, he will be able to help reduce the possibility of a misunderstanding between the two sides. But our expectations for this soon-to-be prime minister should not be raised too high. Even though Singapore has played a role in cross-strait relations, the resumption of cross-strait dialogue will depend entirely on Beijing's attitude.
If Beijing continues to reject political change in Taiwan and continues to put its faith in extremist unificationist political groups, then it doesn't matter how magnificent the stage is on which these international events take place.
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
The military is conducting its annual Han Kuang exercises in phases. The minister of national defense recently said that this year’s scenarios would simulate defending the nation against possible actions the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) might take in an invasion of Taiwan, making the threat of a speculated Chinese invasion in 2027 a heated agenda item again. That year, also referred to as the “Davidson window,” is named after then-US Indo-Pacific Command Admiral Philip Davidson, who in 2021 warned that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had instructed the PLA to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. Xi in 2017
RSS