State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi Meets with Singaporean Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan

On the evening of February 19, 2020, State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with Singaporean Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan in Vientiane, Laos.

Wang Yi expressed his appreciation to Vivian Balakrishnan for rescheduling to attend the China-ASEAN Special Foreign Ministers' Meeting on fighting the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Wang saidhe hoped that tomorrow's meeting would not only explore how to jointly deal with the epidemic, but also promote regional public health cooperation and improve the capacity of regional countries to deal with such public health challenges. Wang gave a briefing on China's latest progress and positive results in fighting the epidemic and said that Singapore has timely extended a helping hand to China and Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong publicly expressed his firm confidence in China's ability to prevail over the epidemic. This has reflected the fine tradition of China and Singapore of supporting and helping each other in difficult times. The friendship between the two countries will grow stronger in the fight against the epidemic and bilateral cooperation will be further expanded afterwards. We hope and believe that as we are progressing in combating the disease, Singapore will take positive measures to resume normal people-to-people exchanges between the two countries at an early date.

Wang Yi pointed out that China has the confidence in overcoming the temporary impact of the epidemic and striving to achieve the goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all aspects and eradicating absolute poverty. China-Singapore cooperation will also further grow in this process. This year marks the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries. China is ready to maintain high-level exchanges with Singapore and hopes that Singapore will play a positive role in enhancing the complementarity between the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity and signing the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreemen (RCEP) as scheduled.

Vivian Balakrishnan said that China has responded to the epidemic with a highly responsible approach and measures rarely seen around the world, sharing information with the international community immediately after the outbreaek and providing valuable help to Singapore and other countries in dealing with the epidemic. China has made hard efforts and sacrifices. Singapore highly appreciates and admires that and will continue to give China firm support. As a good friend of China, Singapore stands ready to strengthen communication and cooperation with China to minimize and overcome the impact of the epidemic and resume normal exchanges as soon as possible. As this year marks the 30th anniversary of the establishment of Singapore-China diplomatic relations between the two countries, Singapore looks forward to further promoting close high-level exchanges with China and steadily advancing the development of the "New Land-Sea Corridor." Singapore is ready to continue to pushing for signing the RCEP agreement and take an active part in BRI cooperation.