Chinese Premier Li Keqiang will start an official visit to Singapore from Monday to Friday, during which he will attend the 21st China-ASEAN Summit and related summits, as the two countries are expected to further level up their economic ties, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said.
It is the first official visit by a Chinese premier in 11 years. Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong will hold a welcome ceremony for Li, and they will hold talks and witness the signing of several memoranda of understanding (MoUs) and agreements, covering trade, finance and cooperation on the Belt and Road Initiative, culture and the environment. Li will also meet Singapore's President Halimah Yacob.
China and Singapore have established all-round cooperative partnership with the times since President Xi Jinping's visit in 2015, and the two countries have made achievements under the Belt and Road Initiative framework, Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister Chen Xiaodong said ahead of Li's visit. And China aims to further strengthen the partnership and collaboration and promote bilateral ties in a new era, Chen said.
China is now Singapore's largest trading partner, and the bilateral trade volume increased over 34 percent in the past decade.
China and Singapore signed a free trade agreement (FTA) in 2008, which took effect in the next year. The trade volume rose to 70.06 billion US dollars in 2010 from 60.83 billion US dollars in 2007, representing an increase of 13.1 percent. In 2013, China replaced Malaysia as Singapore's largest trading partner.
The two countries agreed to review the FTA during Xi's visit in 2015, and have held several rounds of negotiations over the upgrade of the FTA.
Singaporean Vice Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean said the two countries will conclude a substantive upgrade of the FTA by the end of this year. During this year's high-level economic forum, the Joint Council for Bilateral Cooperation (JCBC), Teo told reporters that he hopes the two sides can sign the agreement during Li's visit. It will hugely facilitate Singapore's business and investment in China.
The two sides are also expected to enhance cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative. Singapore is among the first developed countries that joined the mega project, and it is also one of the founding members of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.
When attending a trade fair in China in July, Teo said the Belt and Road Initiative is an area in which both countries can work together, and the two countries can combine their strengths on infrastructure and finance connectivity, cooperation and professional services.
The Chongqing Connectivity Initiative – a network of railway lines linking western and southern Chinese cities to Singapore and beyond by sea – is the latest joint project between the two countries. Teo commended the collaboration, saying it is one example of how countries can cooperate to lower logistics costs and increase the flow of goods and services.
Aside from the depth of economic relations, meetings held between leaders of both sides have also been making the headlines.
2015 marked the 25th anniversary of the establishment of the diplomatic relationship, and in November that year, President Xi made a state visit to Singapore and the two countries agreed to level up the ties to the all-round cooperative partnership with the times.
Although critics say the ties chilled in 2016 when Singapore supported an international arbitration ruling on the South China Sea and Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong was not invited to China's first Belt and Road Forum the next year, high-level interactions were never frozen.
Lee was invited to attend the G20 Summit held in east China's Hangzhou in September 2016, during which he met President Xi for talks. He also visited southwest China's Chongqing. Later in that month, Premier Li held talks with Lee during the East Asia Summit in Laos.
In February 2017, then Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli and Singaporean Vice Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean co-chaired the JCBC in Beijing. This mechanism was created in 2004 aiming to steer ties. It's been held almost every year since then. In September last year, Lee paid an official visit to China. In April this year, the prime minister also attended the Boao Forum for Asia in south China's Hainan Province and paid a working visit to China.
Meanwhile, China and Singapore are seeking more common ground amid the rising challenge of anti-globalization. Speaking after President Xi at the Boao Forum, Lee strongly defended globalization and free trade. He highlighted China's growing role in the international system and the importance of its efforts to uphold openness and multilateralism. He warned that a trade war will undermine the multilateral trading system and global prosperity.
