Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) called on Singapore’s prime minister to join the fight against “hegemony” and protectionism in trade as they met in Beijing yesterday.
Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong’s (黃循財) first official visit to China lasts until tomorrow.
He met Xi yesterday morning at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People, with the Chinese president urging the two nations to work to “stand on the right side of history, and on the side of fairness and justice,” state broadcaster China Central Television reported.
Photo: Reuters
He told Wong that “the world cannot return to hegemony or be dragged back to the law of the jungle,” a veiled swipe at the US, after US President Donald Trump launched a barrage of tariffs this year on nations including China and Singapore.
Wong, in turn, told Xi he believed the Singapore-China relationship was “more important than before” in a time of “global turbulence and uncertainty.”
“We can work together to establish closer ties and ... continue to strengthen multilateralism and the rules-based global order for the benefit of all countries,” Wong said.
Wong, who last year succeeded former Singaporean prime minister Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍), the son of founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew (李光耀), has warned that the trade-dependent city-state could be hit hard by Trump’s tariffs.
Although Trump imposed a baseline 10 percent tariff on Singapore, the nation is vulnerable to a global economic slowdown caused by the much higher levies on dozens of other countries because of its heavy reliance on international trade.
Following his meetings in Beijing, Wong is to head to the northern Chinese city of Tianjin for a meeting of the World Economic Forum.
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