Ex-Singapore minister for stronger Indo-China ties
Says New Delhi should match Beijing’s 'openness on visas'
Emphasising the importance of closer regional cooperation, former Singapore Foreign Minister George Yeo Yong-Boon on Wednesday urged India to consider issuing more visas to Chinese nationals, saying such openness could pave the way for improved relations and mutual growth in Asia.
“There is so much to gain by working together. I think, bit by bit, things will improve,” Yeo said, while delivering the CD Deshmukh Memorial Lecture-2026 on the theme ‘India in a New Asia’.
EAM Dr S Jaishankar along with former J&K Governor and The Tribune Trust President NN Vohra participated in the lecture.
Recalling a recent trip to Beijing, Yeo said he was struck by the large number of Indian travellers he encountered. “Two months ago, I was in Beijing for a peace conference. At one of the airport gates, I found too many Indians...Some were businessmen, but many were tourists. I learnt that China has issued a large number of visas for Indians, and I hope India would do the same, which, actually, India should,” he said.
Referring to reports that the Government of India may lift a five-year-old restriction on Chinese firms bidding for government contracts, Yeo said, “I hope it is true as it would signal that things are back on track.”
Yeo, who played a key role in shaping ASEAN’s engagement with both India and China, said tensions between the two Asian giants reverberate across South-East Asia.
Sharing insights from ASEAN’s experience in dealing with China, Yeo said the region had “learned how to manage China — to ride on China’s growth, but not to be in China’s grasp. It requires a little bit of agility, and in this moment, we look naturally towards India as a counterbalance.”
However, he cautioned that ties between India and ASEAN still lag behind their full potential. “In Singapore, we sensed it some time ago,” he said, recalling a period of optimism during India’s early reforms in the 1990s.
“When India’s former PM Narasimha Rao faced an impossible fiscal situation, he took India on a different path of economic reform. I think it was October 1991 — Chidambaram was the Commerce Minister and Manmohan Singh the Finance Minister — they gave a seminar we still remember in Singapore today,” Yeo said.
He added that his 1993 visit to India as head of a large business delegation coincided with a sense of transformation. “The country was in early ferment, we could feel it,” he said, describing the reforms as the start of India’s long journey toward global integration.
