Singapore won't accept being powerless on international stage as its fate: PM Lee

[SINGAPORE] Small as Singapore is, it has refused to accept being powerless on the international stage as its fate, said Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Friday.

Delivering the annual S Rajaratnam lecture organised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he said the country is determined to be a master of its own destiny in a world where power often determines which countries prevail and set the agenda."Our foreign policy is a balance between realism and idealism," he said to an audience of diplomats, foreign service officers and students at the Fairmont Hotel. "We know we have to take the world as it is and not as we would wish it to be. But we believe that we can and must defend ourselves and advance our interests." Emphasising that Singapore's fundamental interests are to have peace in the world, stability and security in the region, a network of friends and allies, and to ultimately preserve its sovereignty, he set out four ways for these interests to be advanced.

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