TRANSCRIPT OF QUESTION AND ANSWER SESSION WITH MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS GEORGE YEO ON CHINA'S RE-EMERGENCE ON THE GLOBAL STAGE, AT THE FUTURE CHINA GLOBAL FORUM, 13 JULY 2010
Moderator MP Josephine Teo: Minister, I would like to ask you about our ASEAN neighbours. In your interactions with them, what do you sense as their attitude towards China? And what is it that consumes the minds of the leaders in ASEAN when they think of the re-emergent China?
Minister George Yeo: Even when China was down, when it was economically inconsequential, all the countries of Southeast Asia bar none had a certain deep respect for China because they remember the China of the Qing Dynasty, they remember the voyages of Zheng He （郑和）. And all over Southeast Asia there are Chinese communities which by their performance and their abilities, are a reminder to them of what China can become again. For this reason the re-emergence of China is not completely unexpected among the countries in Southeast Asia and as the realities impinge upon them, in trade numbers, in visits and so on, the responses, which have historical antecedence, all come back. They do not want to be dominated by China but they want China’s friendship. They are careful about impinging on China’s core interests but at the same time, instinctively, they want diversification. I give you an example which is Myanmar. Myanmar, because of the western embargo has had to depend a lot on China. China has a lot of influence in Myanmar. But Myanmar does not want to be part of the Chinese realm. It prefers to remain in ASEAN even though it knows in ASEAN it gets criticised every time we meet. But it is prepared to bear with all that because it gives them some room to play. India, which is also a neighbouring country to Myanmar, doesn’t want China to have exclusive influence so it keeps its border also open. And I was quite surprised recently to read a report that recently between Myanmar and India, they decided to build a road from Arunachal Pradesh into Myanmar. We know Arunachal Pradesh is claimed by China but I think that the Myanmar government had decided that it would act in its own self interest and open up the border region because it would help its own development. So I would say that you find countries of Southeast Asia respectful of China, wanting China’s friendship and at that same time wanting diversification and wanting to have friends in all directions.
Question: Good afternoon, sir. My name is Chan Zhixing and I'm a third year law student from the Singapore Management University (SMU). You mentioned about elements of nei (内-internal) and wai (外-external). My question is: What are some of the guiding principles which determine what is nei and what is wai from a Chinese perspective? Do we know what is considered important to them, what is their core interest, but what is the guiding principle for them in deciding whether something is internal or external? Thank you.
Minister: You know, it's hard to reduce this into rules. I think those of us who are raised as Chinese instinctively feel it, and learn that as a core principle, learning as a young child how to deal with people who are not like you. And the way to treat those who are not like you is to be extra nice to them. You always treat strangers better than your own people because you are afraid of strangers. So the best food, the best items are reserved for strangers [Laughter]. Among yourselves you get the second best, but when a foreigner comes, always win him over by generosity because you are afraid of him. How do you define that? Is it genetic? It is not genetic because Han people are genetically very diverse. Is it a fixed set of cultural norms? But the norms in dong bei (东北-the Northeast) are very different from the norms in gan su (甘肃), very different from norms in the South. And strangely even the Chinese outside China often make this clear distinction between nei(内) and wai (外). If you talk to the Indonesian Chinese, the Malaysian Chinese, they make that distinction very clearly. And even those who are assimilated in the Philippines and Thailand, very often these distinctions persist. But I am hard put - I think it would require scholars to do research into this - to say look, these are the hundred rules by which you distinguish inside from outside.
Moderator: Well, even our grandparents think of us as nei sun (内孙paternal grandson) or wai sun (外孙-maternal grandson). When we visit China as wai bin (外宾-foreign visitor) we have to pay higher entrance fees. So sometimes if we can get away with it it's ok to pretend to be nei bin (内宾-domestic visitor) [Laughter]. But Minister, I have another question that I will like to pose to you. You said very briefly earlier that there are episodic levels of interest in Singapore from the Chinese and sometimes they like what they see in Singapore, sometimes they don't like what they see - that got me very interested. In your interactions, what have you uncovered as likeable aspects and not-so-likeable aspects, as far as the Chinese are concerned?
Minister: You mean, what they like of us and what they don't like of us?
Moderator: That's right.
Minister: Well, I think because Singapore is so small and has a different history, so there are limits to what the Singapore model can hold to the Chinese. But at the same time, the leaders in the mainland know that there are deep historical and cultural connections between Singapore and China going back to the Qing dynasty. I had a discussion about Wan Qing Yuan （晚晴园 ）the other day which was the house which Sun Zhong Shan lived in when he was in Singapore. He was there eight times, he lived in the house six times with his mistress and I think three or four of the uprisings in China were organised in Singapore and the money was collected in Singapore. In fact the Tong Meng Hui （同盟会）after it was established in Dong Jing （东京-Tokyo）, six months later it was established in Singapore and that became the precursor to the Guo Ming Dang（国民党）. And the Guo Ming Dang flag, which is the flag of Taiwan today, was chosen from four different specimens and the contest was held in Singapore. When they chose the model, the owner of the bungalow Teo Eng Hock, who was our Defence Minister’s great grand uncle, his wife sewed together the flag and that original flag today is in the KMT Museum in Taipei. Then during the anti-Japanese struggle in China, Singapore was a major base for the raising of funds, to help. Volunteers went from throughout Southeast Asia but Singapore was the Zong Bu （总部-headquarters）. A lot of the discussions were held in the Yi He Xuan(怡和轩 - Ee Hoe Hean Club) which was the business club still existing today, refurbished recently. The Japanese Imperial Army, when they drew up their plans in Taiwan to invade Singapore, they had already drawn up a list of thousands of Chinese community leaders in Singapore who would have to be neutralised. So it was not an accident that after Nanjing, the place where the greatest slaughter took place was in Singapore. And then after that, the great twists and turns in China all had their reflections here in Singapore. I think a scholar who wants to write the history of the left wing movement in Singapore attributed, I think it was in today’s newspapers, the decline of the Barisan Socialis to its aping of Cultural Revolution policies in China which was so out of line to reality in Singapore that they were defeated. Under Mao, the contacts were minimal, but after Mao, when China was opening up, when Deng Xiaoping was trying to find a new way forward for China, Singapore became an inspiration to China because of all the connections there. If Singapore could succeed, why can’t China succeed? Because China has more people, cleverer people, a prouder tradition. So when the special economic zones were established, the Chinese Foreign Minister appointed Dr Goh Keng Swee as Adviser to the State Councillor Gu Mu. Since then, whether it was special economic zones, industrial estates Suzhou, Tianjin and so on, from time to time, whatever was China’s focus - go to Singapore and see whether it could abstract lessons, and then moving on if it feels that it has learnt already. But I notice in recent years, a great interest in the management of urban politics, because the PAP, the People’s Action Party, is probably the most successful urban political party in Asia, and the Chinese want to know what is the secret. And there are, every year, many Chinese delegations visiting our constituencies, visiting the Members of Parliament while they are holding their meet-the-people sessions, their political clinics. Well, if we can play a helpful role to China, we should. It costs us nothing, and a strong China, a wealthy China, is good for Singapore. We hope also that it is not just China learning from our mistakes and failures; I think we should also have the good sense and wisdom, the humility, to learn from China’s experiences and failures, and in the process, also improve ourselves and keeping the relevance of our own model.
Moderator: On that note Minister, I have a question about the role of Singapore. Is it a farfetched idea to think of Singapore as a bridge between China and the world? If there is one thing we can do to strengthen ourselves…?
Minister: No, Singapore cannot be a bridge. A bridge suggests a certain exclusive channel of communication. We are in a networked-world, there are numerous, almost infinite number of bypasses. What Singapore can do…
Moderator: So a bridge rather than the bridge.
Minister: It can be a node. If we are creative, if we are far-seeing, we can enlarge this node and increase its connectivity to other nodes. But if we become self-satisfied or inward-looking, then we will shrink and then become less relevant to others. But it is becoming a networked-world, and everybody has bypasses. No one is indispensable.
Moderator: And the one thing we can do to strengthen ourselves as that node?
Minister: It is a little paradoxical, that the more we want to strengthen our links with China, and we should, the more we must strengthen our links to other parts of the world. Because if you look at it as a node in the brain with many synaptic connections, the more connected we are to India, to Southeast Asia, to Europe, to Japan, to Africa, the more valuable are our links to China, to the Chinese people. The key to Singapore’s good relations with China is in our ability to grow synaptic connections to other parts of the world, in particular the parts of the world which in an earlier age of globalisation created Singapore. It was the age of the British Empire which brought Indians, which brought Jews through Baghdad and Calcutta into Singapore, which brought Indonesians and Malaysians, and Thais and Vietnamese, which brought Australians and Japanese here. All those links which created us in the 19th century, we should now revive because these are now the links which will give us all our life nutrients in this century to grow and to prosper.
Moderator: Well ladies and gentlemen, although we invited Minister George Yeo to speak to us on China, but you can see from the breadth of his knowledge and his interest in history, and also his keen observation of everything that’s going around in the world, you do not get just China, you will get synapses, you will get TCP/IP, you will get everything else that is related to this in the most interesting, stimulating and engaging way. May I just ask all of us to just show our appreciation to Mr George Yeo for sharing with us so generously. Thank you so much!
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