Forging ahead with Singapore on modernizing

Editor's note: President Xi Jinping on Friday held bilateral meetings with foreign leaders on the sidelines of the ongoing 31st APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting in Lima, Peru.

President Xi Jinping said on Friday that China is willing to keep marching forward hand in hand on the road of modernization with Singapore and open a new chapter of high-quality development as both countries are at a critical stage of national development.

Xi made the remarks in a meeting with Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong. It was their first meeting since Wong became the country's prime minister in May.

Noting that China and Singapore are friendly neighbors and important cooperative partners, Xi said bilateral ties have continued to grow and are a good example of mutual benefit and common development.

Last year, the elevation of bilateral ties into an all-round, high-quality, future-oriented partnership has charted the course for the development of China-Singapore relations, he said.

As next year will mark the 35th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries, Xi said the Chinese side is ready to work with Singapore to intensify high-level exchanges, adhere to honesty and mutual trust, and respect each other's core interests.

Xi said that China welcomes Singapore — whose participation in China's reform and opening-up started early and has yielded fruitful results in a wide range of areas — to seize the new opportunities of the country's development.

He encouraged the Singaporean side to continue to build cooperation projects in China, further foster new growth-drivers of cooperation in digital economy, green development and artificial intelligence, and expand cultural and people-to-people exchanges.

Wong said that Singapore-China relations are based on mutual respect and trust and feature mutual benefit. He said that his country has always been fully confident in the prospects of China's economic development and looks forward to further participating in its modernization process.

He also said that Singapore fully understands the Chinese government's position on the Taiwan question, opposes any form of "Taiwan independence", and firmly abides by the one-China principle.