Best of 2025 - A masterclass in agency: What Singapore can teach Australia about China |
Singapore’s new Prime Minister Lawrence Wong sat down with the ABC on 2 October and offered something rare in Australia’s China debate: clarity, confidence, and a middle-power strategy that doesn’t involve shouting or submission.
A repost from 10 October 2025
In one interview, he delivered more useful insight than some of our pundits and politicians have managed in years — saying things many here wouldn’t dare admit, or have simply never thought of.
Wong, calm as ever, laid it all out: build real defence ties, do tech and logistics with friends, don’t pick fights for fun, and — the killer line — don’t get dragged into “what-if” games about Taiwan. “We don’t talk about hypotheticals,” he said, like it was the most normal sentence in the world.
Imagine saying that in Australia. By morning tea you’d be accused of appeasement, flagged for disloyalty, and chased off breakfast TV with a pitchfork and a poll from some foreign owned media pretending to be Australian.
Wong doesn’t grovel, posture, or go looking........