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TAIWAN: Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew underscored his pragmatic outlook when he stressed that that it would not be wise to provoke China in the way some quarters have, by launching protests to mar the Olympic torch relay and talking of boycotting the Beijing Games.
"The Chinese leaders have made great efforts to make the Beijing Olympics a success. The people of China are angry at these protests that they view as intended to sour the Games," said Mr Lee in an interview with the Central News Agency of Taiwan.
"I will be attending the opening ceremony," said Mr Lee, when asked if the Beijing leadership might be putting too much hope on the Games.
The Chinese, said Mr Lee, are confident that after the Games and protests have ended, the country will continue with its remarkable economic progress.
Boycotting the Beijing Olympics will not be cost-free, unlike boycotting the Moscow Games in 1980, he warned. The Soviet economy was of no interest to the rest of the world.
Not so the Chinese economy which will continue to grow stronger year by year, and one in which all major countries would want to participate in, said Mr Lee.
The Chinese will remember those who act against its efforts to make the Games a success.
"Beijing uses its economic and political clout to counter acts it sees as against its interests," said Mr Lee.
Singapore, he recounted, had annoyed Beijing when Mr Lee Hsien Loong (then Deputy Prime Minister) had visited Taiwan and the Taiwanese media had made big play of the visit.
"Beijing objected and suspended all government-to-government negotiations with us. Our Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Beijing has still not been signed after four years," he said, adding that New Zealand, which started similar negotiations after Singapore, have concluded its FTA with China.
Excerpts from the interview
What kind of President do you think Mr Ma Ying-jeou will make?
We have to wait and see how he responds to crisis, that's when a leader is tested. I have not lived under his mayorship of Taipei so I do not know. He has said as president he wants to represent all the people of Taiwan. We must assume he will want to win over the light Greens who did not vote for him.
The other important duty of the presidency is how to get the country out off its present stagnation.
I believe he's got a good vice-president who can manage the economy and get the Taiwan economy to move ahead. I hope he will give Vincent Siew full scope to push ahead.
From the appointments of the experienced people into key economic and finance portfolios they will get going without losing time learning on the job.
Singapore has done very well in creating an environment conducive to international economic activities. If there is one lesson that Taiwan should learn from your country, what would it be? An incorrupt government or a meritocratic government will be more successful in terms of efficiency?
In Singapore, the key issues with political debates and contests between the PAP and the opposition are about promoting and generating economic growth for jobs, housing and health for the people.
Taiwan's politics especially in the last eight years have been about independence and separateness from the mainland by Taiwanisation or "Ben Tu Hua".
Those debates have dampened investments and economic activity and increased unemployment. Taiwan blocked trade and investments with China. Taiwan lost sympathy and support internationally when President Chen Shui-bian was seen as a trouble-maker even by the American President.
With new President-elect Ma Ying-jeou, I hope Taiwan's intra party politics will be about promoting trade, investments and economic opportunities, not more sterile arguments over independence, or separateness from the mainland, and redefining Taiwan's history, identity and language.
Do you have any plans to visit Taiwan in the near future?
If cross-straits relations become friendly and cooperative again, and if there is no media publicity on my visits as in 1970s, '80s and early '90s when I frequently visited Taiwan, I will be able to visit Taiwan. But when such visits are used by Taiwan's media to provoke Beijing, they set back Taiwan-Singapore interactions.
It has made Singapore repeatedly re-affirm its one-China policy. If you return to the earlier practice of no publicity, our interaction will be quiet but more productive. - TODAY/fa
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