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PM Lee visits China to cement strained ties

Bloomberg Published on Wed, Sep 20, 2017 / 4:20 PM GMT+8

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(Sept 20): Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s visit to China this week signals efforts on both sides to reaffirm relations that have showed strains over the past year -- both in its timing and number of high-level meetings.

Lee began a three-day official visit Tuesday, getting face time with China’s top officials as they prepare for a once-every-five-years party congress next month. He is due to meet with President Xi Jinping later Wednesday, after meeting three other members of the Communist Party’s supreme Politburo Standing Committee: Premier Li Keqiang, national legislature chief Zhang Dejiang and top graft-buster Wang Qishan.

“This is an extremely high-profile visit that happened at an extremely critical time,” said Li Mingjiang, coordinator of the China program at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University. “It shows the high-level connection between the two nations is stable and they highly regard each other in the relationship.”