Xi Jinping Meets with Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong
On the morning of November 15, 2024 local time, President Xi Jinping met with Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong on the sidelines of the 31st APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting in Lima.
Xi Jinping noted that China and Singapore are friendly neighbors and important cooperation partners. Under the careful nurturing of successive generations of leaders of the two countries, China-Singapore relations have kept growing, setting a good example of mutual benefit, win-win results and common development between countries. Last year, China-Singapore relations were upgraded to an all-round high-quality future-oriented partnership, which has charted the course for the future development of China-Singapore relations. At present, the two countries are in a critical period of national development, and next year will mark the 35th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Singapore. The Chinese side is ready to work with the Singaporean side to keep to the general direction of China-Singapore friendship, intensify high-level exchanges, adhere to honesty and mutual trust, respect each other's core interests, continue to move forward hand in hand on the path of modernization, and start a new chapter of high-quality development.
Xi Jinping emphasized that Singapore's participation in China's reform and opening-up process started early and has yielded fruitful results in a wide range of areas. Singapore is welcome to seize the new opportunities of China's development, continue to develop cooperation projects such as the China-Singapore Suzhou Industrial Park, the China-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City, the China-Singapore (Chongqing) Demonstration Initiative on Strategic Connectivity and the China-Singapore Guangzhou Knowledge City, further foster new growth drivers of cooperation in the fields of digital economy, green development and artificial intelligence, and continuously expand people-to-people and cultural exchanges. In the face of transformations unseen in a century in the world, China is willing to strengthen cooperation with Singapore in multilateral arenas such as the United Nations and APEC, and jointly advocate an equal and orderly multi-polar world and a universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalization.
Lawrence Wong said that Singapore and China have maintained close high-level exchanges and strong development momentum of economic relations, and both sides have celebrated the 30th anniversary of the founding of the Suzhou Industrial Park. Singapore-China relations are based on mutual respect and trust, and feature mutual benefit and win-win results. Singapore fully understands the Chinese government's position on the Taiwan question, opposes any form of "Taiwan independence", and firmly abides by the one-China principle. Singapore has always been fully confident in the prospects of China's economic development and looks forward to continuing to further participate in China's modernization process. The Singaporean side is ready to take the opportunity of celebrating the 35th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries next year to open up a new chapter of an all-round high-quality future-oriented partnership. Singapore is willing to work closely with China in multilateral areas such as ASEAN and APEC, oppose protectionism, promote trade and investment facilitation and liberalization, and safeguard regional stability and development.
Cai Qi and Wang Yi, among others, attended the meeting.
Source: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the People's Republic of China