Jackie Chan is a man with a "big heart and a social conscience": Singapore former prime minister
Hong Kong’s most famous and controversial action star Jackie Chan is a man with a “big heart and a social conscience”, according to Singapore’s former prime minister.
Commending the martial artist for his newly minted role as the city state’s first celebrity anti-drug ambassador, Goh Chok Tong called Chan “charming and charismatic” after meeting him at the opening of a university campus on Friday.
“I like Jackie Chan not just because of his TV persona. I like him also because he has a big heart and a social conscience,” said Goh, who succeeded Lee Kuan Yew in 1990 and served 14 years as prime minster.
“He donated generously; he is an anti-drug ambassador,” Goh, 74, now a member of parliament for the Marine Parade constituency, said in a post republished on his official Facebook “fan page”, MParader.
Chan’s role as Singapore anti-drug spokesman comes just months after his son Jaycee Fong Cho-ming, 32, was sentenced to half a year in prison in mainland China for marijuana possession and "providing a shelter for others to abuse drugs".
Last week, Chan warned Singapore youths that drugs hurt “thousands and thousands of young children”, their country, and their family. Chan also told journalists that he supported the use of the death penalty for drug offences.
Capital punishment for drug trafficking offences can be enforced in both the Lion City and in the mainland.
Photos taken on Saturday showed Goh and Chan posing together for pictures at the Singapore University of Technology and Design, where Chan had donated an “antique opera house and pavilion” from the Ming and Qing Dynasties.
Goh said “Jackie likes Singapore” and that the last time the two had met was at a Singapore National Stadium concert in 1986.
While Chan still commands high popularity abroad, he is a polarising figure in Hong Kong and a lightning rod for controversy.
In 2012, Chan suggested that Hong Kong was a “city of protest” where the right to demonstrate should be limited. He also spoke out against the Occupy movement last year.
