Stand Tough With China, Top Asian Statesman Says
NewsMax.com
April 14, 2001
Take off the gloves and do what is needed to keep China from running over smaller and weaker neighbors, the respected leader of Singapore's government warns.
''Just as Nato opposed the Soviet Union and checked its hunger for power, China's power has to be contained,'' Singapore's Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew told the German business magazine, Wirtschaftswoche, this week.
Mr. Lee, an influential figure in Asian politics for decades, urged the US to take an uncompromising stand against China in the now concluded standoff over the fate of the 24 US service personnel then held on Hainan Island.
Mr Lee told the magazine that he feared that if China is not challenged, weaker countries in the region could be run over by a China that is growing economically stronger.
''We need a long-term presence of the Americans in the region,'' Mr. Lee said.
''In the power struggle surrounding the spy plane, the new relationship is being tested,'' he said
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
China/Taiwan
