China keen to boost cooperation with Asean, top diplomat tells Singaporean leader

Beijing willing to work with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations ‘to deepen strategic mutual trust and pragmatic cooperation’, Yang Jiechi says

Singapore ‘willing to maintain high-level exchanges’ with China, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong says

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Chinese diplomat Yang Jiechi (left) and Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong meet in the city state on Thursday. Photo: Handout

Published: 5:30pm, 21 Aug 2020Updated: 11:11pm, 21 Aug 2020

China is keen to work with its Southeast Asian neighbours to promote regional stability and boost the economy, Beijing’s top diplomat said on Thursday in Singapore.

In a meeting with the city state’s prime minister, Lee Hsien Loong, Yang Jiechi, a member of the Chinese Communist Party’s Politburo, said Beijing was willing to increase trust with Singapore and other countries in Southeast Asia.

China and Singapore “have been helping each other ensure industrial and supply chains are stable and smooth” he was quoted as saying by state news agency Xinhua.

Cooperation was key, “as uncertainties and instabilities have been aggregating in international relations amid the Covid-19 pandemic”, he said.

“China is willing to work with Singapore and members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations [Asean] to deepen strategic mutual trust and pragmatic cooperation, to jointly safeguard economic globalisation, and defend international fairness and peace so as to make new contributions in promoting regional and global peace, stability, development and prosperity,” Yang said.

Lee said “rational communication” was needed in the face of the challenges posed by the global health crisis and that Singapore “is willing to maintain high-level exchanges” with China.