CULTURAL AND PEOPLE TO PEOPLE EXCHANGES

Despite the challenges posed by the pandemic, China and Singapore are making concerted efforts in promoting cultural and people to people exchanges.

Besides online meetings between officials of the two sides, a fast lane connecting six Chinese provinces and municipalities with Singapore was established in June in the first phase to facilitate essential business and official travel between the two countries amidst the COVID-19.

Moreover, Yang Jiechi, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the CPC Central Committee, visited Singapore in August, and met with Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat and other senior officials.

Heng said at the FutureChina Global Forum that Yang is his first foreign visitor since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a message published on the English daily the Straits Times on Thursday to mark the 30th anniversary of the establishment of the diplomatic relations between China and Singapore and the 71st founding anniversary of the People's Republic of China, Chinese ambassador to Singapore Hong Xiaoyong said that China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has been a major platform for bilateral cooperation.

Under the BRI, the third-party cooperation is well underway, and the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor started to forge synergy with the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation, he said.

On the cultural front, Singapore's Asian Civilization Museum (ACM) and the Shanghai Museum are jointly hosting an exhibition on shipwreck treasures from the prosperous Tang Dynasty (618 AD-907 AD), which is the first international collaborative exhibition after the Shanghai Museum reopened this year.

Speaking at a seminar held by ACM in August as a prelude to the exhibition, Singapore's Senior Minister Teo Chee Hean said that the show is particularly significant as the collection is a tangible demonstration of the long-standing historical links between China, Southeast Asia and the Middle East, which continue to flourish today.

Singapore supports China's Belt and Road Initiative as it sees the benefit of enhanced connectivity and development in the Silk Road Spirit of "peace and cooperation, openness and inclusiveness, mutual learning and mutual benefit, Teo added.