Beijing’s infatuation with Singapore had already been evident during
the 2012 once-in-a-decade transfer of power within the Chinese Communist
Party (CCP), in which references to the city-state featured prominently.
A Central Party School media organ under Xi Jinping praised
Singapore’s People’s Action Party (PAP) for its “high efficiency, incorruptibility,
and vitality” over several decades of one-party rule. Moreover,
it has been widely reported that Xi’s anticorruption drive is part of
the effort to establish a merit-based civil service emulating that of the
PAP. According to former Singaporean foreign minister George Yeo, Xi
lavishly praised Singapore in a November 2013 meeting, and in his condolence
letter to Singaporean president Tony Tan after Lee Kuan Yew’s
death, Xi called Lee “an old friend of the Chinese people.