尊敬的先生女士们，大家上午好！
首先，非常荣幸能受国务委员兼国防部部长魏凤和上将之邀，再度参加北京香山论坛。这已是我第三次以新加坡国防部长的身份在此论坛发表演讲。其次，我由衷地感谢中方和主办当局给予我和我团队的热情款待。最后，对于能够借此北京之行与老朋友叙旧，并认识新朋友，我感到非常高兴！接下来我用英语继续演讲。
Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen,
distinguished panelists, co-panelists, moderator of our session General Yao,
Let me thank State Councilor and Minister
of National Defense General Wei Fenghe for inviting me and my delegation to
speak at the Beijing Xiangshan Forum this year. This, as General Yao said, is
my third time speaking. And let me just say that Xiangshan Forum has gone from
strength to strength. And let me congratulate the China Association for
Military Science, and the China Institute for International Strategic Studies
for the success of this 8th Beijing Xiangshan Forum.
Doctor Henry Kissinger in his book "On
China" aptly begins its first chapter titled "The Singularity of
China" - a China that has always existed, as early as any known human
civilization and one too that will doubtlessly exist far into mankind's future.
Due to China's durability and plain
vastness, superlatives abound in its descriptions. I think every student in
schools here in China would be familiar with the list of inventions or
discoveries by Ancient China, including paper, movable type printing,
gunpowder, the compass, silk, acupuncture, iron smelting, even rockets. I am
sure Defense Minister Wei would be very proud that the ancient China discovered
rockets, much earlier than many civilizations, or any other civilizations. And
the list goes on. But those same students may also know the cautionary tale of
how despite the greatness attained by China in the past, and at its zenith, by
some accounts an astonishing 30% of the World's GDP, somewhere after the 15th
century, China turned insular and closed its doors to the world. The tragic events
that followed particularly in the 18th and 19th centuries with the decline of
Imperial China and its "humiliation" are again familiar to Chinese
citizens.
But here we are sitting comfortably today
in this beautiful building in modern Beijing. It's hard to believe whether you
travel across China, driving, travelling by high-speed rail, or flying across
the many modern skyscraper cities of China that it has been barely 70 years
after the devastation of the Second World War. As many speakers before me have
alluded to, this is the 40th year anniversary of Deng Xiaoping's economic
liberalization that started in 1978. And all of us would agree that
transformation has been astounding. It is a modern miracle powered by the
industry and innovativeness of the Chinese population.
After joining the International Monetary
Fund and World Bank in 1980, as well as the World Trade Organization in 2001,
China's total trade has multiplied by nearly a hundred fold to USD$4.2
trillion. It is now the world's biggest trading nation and through that
peaceful rise, more than 800 million people have been lifted out of poverty.
Today, ASEAN and China economies are deeply
integrated. China has been the top trading partner of ASEAN for 8 consecutive
years, accounting for 17.1% of ASEAN's total trade last year. In fact,
bilateral China-ASEAN volume hit a record high last year, amounting to more
than US$515 billion. The ASEAN-China Free Trade Area is one of the world's
largest and was upgraded in 2015. Singapore is no exception and our trade with
China was nearly US$100 billion - the largest among Singapore's trading
partners.
If there is any lesson to be drawn from
these two Chinas - one in decline that started from the 15th century and one
that is rising in the 21st century, it must be that even as large and venerable
as China is, it needs the World, as much as the World needs China. That
"Singularity of China" cannot thrive in isolation. China's well-being
and that of the world at large are co-dependent. China's singularity depends on
the state of the health of the Cosmos in which it inhabits and in which it must
also shape to maintain.
This year's Beijing Xiangshan Forum comes
on the heels of the conclusion of the annual ADMM/ADMM-Plus meetings that were
held in Singapore just last week. Here is a thriving example of China taking
pains and expending much effort in contributing to and shaping the common
regional security architecture. Allow me to draw some practical observations as
the current Chair of ADMM and ADMM-Plus. We should be aware that the 18
countries represent four billion people and 90% of the world's military, so the
impact has indeed a global reach.
First, the positives. That Defense
Ministers could and should meet regularly, exchanging views and ideas rather
than bullets and missiles, is a modern concept and a virtuous one. To quote
Winston Churchill, "To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war". We
started the meeting of 18 Defense Ministers and their delegations with the hope
that there would be commitment if we met once in three years. We need not have
been faint-hearted. Indeed, on their own accord and momentum, it was the
ADMM-Plus countries that proposed that we meet more often. From the 1st
ADMM-Plus to now only the 5th, we have agreed to meet every year.
Our military troops are engaging each other
more than ever. Since its inception in 2010, the ADMM-Plus has conducted seven
field training exercises that have brought together more than 12,000 military
personnel. Next year, the ADMM-Plus is poised to conduct six training exercises
across six different domains - HADR, counter-terrorism, peacekeeping
operations, military medicine, humanitarian mine action, and maritime security,
as well as table-top exercise on cyber-security. China currently co-chairs the
ADMM-Plus Experts' Working Group on Counter-Terrorism together with Thailand.
Despite this busy schedule, individual
countries are proposing more troop exercises. An excellent example, which
Defense Minister Wei mentioned, is the ASEAN-China Maritime Exercise, now
currently ongoing in Zhanjiang, first mooted by then-Chinese Minister of
National Defense Chang Wanquan in 2015.
I visited the ASEAN-China Maritime Exercise
in Zhanjiang just two days ago. This exercise featured both ASEAN navies and
the PLA Navy, with a particular focus on CUES, the code for unexpected
encounters at sea. Next year, the ASEAN-US Maritime Exercise will also be
taking place. These frequent military-to-military and defence leadership
interactions build trust and confidence that can lead to even more significant
institutional ballasts. Another prime example is GAME. What is GAME? GAME is
Guidelines for Air Military Encounters, that all ASEAN member states had
adopted and with all of the ADMM-Plus countries including China giving their
in-principle support. It's a counterpart of CUES, but in the air.
These positive developments should give us
all encouragement to deal with more difficult bilateral or multilateral issues,
which we must not paper over, thinking that they will go away or solve themselves.
The China-US rivalry in this region, the tensions in the South China Sea and
nuclear threat on the Korean Peninsular are ongoing challenges that can push us
all into a negative vortex, if things go awry. At this ADMM-Plus meeting, the
ASEAN defense ministers expressed concerns over the recent incidence between
two destroyers of US and China near the Spratly Islands.
As a rising power, China's development will
benefit itself, the region and the world. China should continue and step up its
engagement the world, as it does here in the forum, ADMM-Plus and Shangri-La
Dialogue. It's essential for our military leaders to build rapport,
understanding and confidence through interactions at various levels especially
the top leadership. For today's modern militaries with modern platforms and
armaments, with many parts moving quickly and far, it is essential to build
these personal ties which can prove very useful to de-escalate tensions and
prevent miscalculations.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Let me thank you for this invitation to
Xiangshan Forum. And I would like to close that when other agencies between
states have disagreements, I think that those would be the exact situations in
which Defense Ministries and their militaries must not only maintain but
strengthen communications to maintain the peace and allow diplomatic
initiatives time to take effect.
Thank you very much.