‘Like-minded’ Singapore and Germany must work together to tackle challenges in Asia, Europe: PM Lee

LIKE-MINDED partners like Singapore and Germany must work together to tackle common challenges confronting Asia and Europe, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said on Monday (Nov 14), after both countries endorsed a joint declaration on cooperation in areas such as climate change, defence, and the economy.

He was speaking at a joint press conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, after a delegation meeting during Scholz’s first official visit to Singapore as head of the German government.

At the meeting in the Istana, both leaders discussed regional and international issues including Russia’s war in Ukraine, and reaffirmed their support for international law’s prohibition on aggression against sovereign states.

In German, Scholz said the Russia-Ukraine war has shown the consequences of strategic dependencies, and is a reminder of the need to reduce dependencies, minimise risks, and diversify political and economic ties.

Both leaders also discussed the risk of polarisation in the Indo-Pacific region. Scholz said that the right path for Germany is to strengthen partnerships with countries who similarly stand up for international law, and avoid one-sided dependencies. Therefore, Germany is looking for reliable and trustworthy partners in the region, including in South-east Asia. Asked about opportunities here, Scholz replied: “I think it’s obvious that the world will change and South-east Asia will play a very important role in the world to come, and so we are working very hard to cooperate, to develop our already good relations.”

Germany sees a lot of advantages within the region, including in business, he added. Having been accompanied by a business delegation of top German companies’ chief executive officers on his trip, Scholz said that these leaders were “very convinced that this will be a very good future if we cooperate”.

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Asked how he saw Germany’s role in South-east Asia, PM Lee said he would like to see a “broad and deep engagement” between Germany and the region. For Singapore, he named trade, security, public health and counterterrorism as potential areas of collaboration. Noting that German companies have had a long history of engaging with Singapore, PM Lee added: “If we can continue that consistency, whatever happens up and down in the region and the world, then this mutual cooperation will deliver benefits for both sides for a long time to come.”

The joint declaration issued by both countries, titled “Partners for a Resilient and Sustainable Future”, spans political ties; trade and investment; and cooperation in areas such as renewable energy, climate protection, research and innovation, connectivity, defence and security, and cyber issues. It builds upon a previous declaration signed by PM Lee and then-chancellor Angela Merkel in 2005.

In economic cooperation, among other things, the declaration supports ongoing negotiations for the EU-Singapore Digital Partnership; partnerships in areas such as renewable energy, agrifood technology, infrastructure, and smart manufacturing; and cooperation in infrastructure projects, particularly in renewable energy and low-carbon technology. Both countries also intend to deepen cooperation in sustainability and the green economy, including initiatives which support the net-zero transition. As for research, one area of collaboration is in life sciences, with a focus on digital health, pandemic preparedness and food security.

In his opening remarks, Scholz noted that Germany’s approach in the Indo-Pacific was not about decoupling, but maintaining supply chain resilience. Asked later what this meant, Scholz replied that Germany is against decoupling with China, as it believes that globalisation has brought great progress by raising people out of poverty. But at the same time, globalisation is not about looking to one country, but to others, including elsewhere in Asia, he added. For China, Germany hopes to see its development to a market economy, respect for intellectual property rights, as well as fair investment conditions.

Separately, asked about the G20 Summit that begins on Nov 15, PM Lee said he does not expect any breakthrough on issues such as climate change and the Russian-Ukraine conflict, though he hopes for a consensus on most of them. “This is not a situation like it was after the global financial crisis when the G20 came together and made dramatic moves to save the financial system,” he said. “But I believe that the opportunity for the leaders to get together to engage with one another and speak and hear one another will help us to be able to grapple with the issues, and I hope, make more progress.”