Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, taken on December 14, 2022.Bloomberg News
Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said on the 8th that China would not easily use force to achieve reunification, downplaying the possibility of imminent conflict across the Taiwan Strait.
Bloomberg News reported that Lee Hsien Loong said at the Bloomberg Innovation Economic Forum in Singapore that China “wants Taiwan to be part of ‘One China'” but is not sure how to achieve this goal.
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Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong declared that unless Beijing was provoked, the world would not “wake up one day and find that they (China) have decided to launch a surprise attack”.
Lee Hsien Loong also said: “An attack on Taiwan is not like an attack on Iwo Jima, and Iwo Jima is bloody enough.” During World War II, the United States and Japan suffered heavy casualties in the Battle of Iwo Jima in the Pacific Theater. According to statistics, more than 6,800 US troops lost their lives, and 2 Japanese troops lost their lives. 2,703 people were killed.
The Taiwan Strait issue is one of the biggest sources of tension between the United States and China. Lee Hsien Loong’s remarks showed some optimism about the situation in the Taiwan Strait. Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Joe Biden are expected to meet in San Francisco next week, which will be the first meeting between the two sides in nearly a year. Lee Hsien Loong said the meeting represented a positive development but would not resolve all challenges between the world’s two largest economies.
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In an interview with Bloomberg News Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait, Lee Hsien Loong said: “We have to meet to move in the right direction, but we don’t expect to get along well when we meet.”
Regarding the South China Sea sovereignty dispute, Lee Hsien Loong said that Southeast Asian countries are seeking to adjust each other’s responses to Beijing’s claims of sovereignty over the South China Sea.
Chinese ships have recently collided with Philippine ships twice near the Philippine military outpost in the Second Thomas Shoal (Ayungin Reef in the Philippines), raising tensions in the South China Sea. Vietnam, Brunei and Malaysia also claim sovereignty over parts of the South China Sea.
Lee Hsien Loong said: “Among the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), four countries claim sovereignty over the South China Sea. They all hope to find some kind of agreement with China, but at the same time, they also have other interests with China. “
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2023-11-09 05:43:53