S'pore, China will remain different

CHINA will take at least another 10 or 15 years before it can catch up with Singapore, and even when it does, the two countries will not be quite the same, said Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew last night.

He also said that while he expects the connections between the two nations to grow, he believes that Singapore will remain quite different from China because of the city state's ties to the rest of the world.

He told about 140 Singaporeans during a reception in Beijing: 'Singapore is a very different place and it has to be different because we are connected to the world in a way they have not yet been connected to the world.

'And I don't think they ever will be because the foreign intrusion in their economy is marginal whereas the foreign intrusion into our economy is massive, across the board.'

He observed that the nature of the two societies is different. 'We are more rule-based, we do not depend on guanxi (connections). We are more meritocratic, we are more open.

'And we have the advantage of being bilingual,' he said at the event organised by the Singapore Chamber of Commerce and Industry in China.