Singaporean PM meets Chinese defense minister

SINGAPORE, May 31 (Xinhua) -- Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong on Friday met with Chinese Defense Minister Dong Jun at Istana, the country's presidential palace.

Singapore and China have maintained close and friendly ties for a long time, with extensive and in-depth cooperation in economy, people-to-people exchanges, education, and other fields, Wong said.

The two countries have achieved continuous progress in developing an all-round high-quality future-oriented partnership, he said.

Stressing that the current international and Asia-Pacific regional situation is undergoing profound changes, the prime minister noted that Singapore is willing to provide more platforms for communication and exchanges for all parties.

Wong also hoped the two militaries could further deepen and expand practical cooperation in various fields and jointly safeguard regional peace and security.

For his part, Dong said that as close neighbors, China and Singapore share profound historical ties, highly compatible cultures, similar concepts, and common interests.

Confronted with security risks and challenges in the region, the two countries should safeguard true multilateralism, Dong stressed.

The two militaries have solid foundations for cooperation and China is willing to work with Singapore to build a new pattern of security cooperation to promote prosperity and stability in the Asia-Pacific region, Dong said.

Singaporean Defense Minister Ng Eng Hen held a ceremony to receive Dong and had formal talks on Thursday.

The two ministers exchanged in-depth views on state-to-state and military-to-military relations, as well as international and regional situations.

They agreed to upgrade bilateral military relations based on the important consensus reached by the leaders of the two countries.