Has China outgrown its need for Singapore as a role model?
Thousands of Chinese officials have trained in the city state, but domestic programmes have caught up as Beijing gains confidence in its own development model, analysts say
A “key pillar” propping up China and Singapore’s strained bilateral relationship, the Lion City’s role as a top overseas training ground for Chinese officials, appears to be shifting.
Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s notable absence from Beijing’s biggest diplomatic event of the year last week, viewed by observers as a deliberate snub by China, cast a fresh spotlight on tensions stemming from a diplomatic spat over the South China Sea last summer.
But just a day later, a senior Communist Party leader called on Lee during a visit to Singapore for a bilateral forum on leadership development. Politburo member Zhao Leji, who’s in charge of party personnel matters, and Lee affirmed the “strong and substantial relationship” between their two countries and agreed that human resource development had become an important area of bilateral cooperation.
The Singapore-China Forum on Leadership, first proposed by a senior Singapore minister in 2008 during a visit to Beijing, is viewed by Singaporean officials as a “key pillar” in bilateral relations.
“The ability to have deep, wide-ranging and substantive discussions on such issues of national interest reflects the high degree of mutual trust between Singapore and China, as well as the depth, breadth and strength of our bilateral ties,” Singapore’s Deputy Prime Minister, Teo Chee Hean, told the sixth such forum in his keynote address on May 16, The Straits Times reported.