I hope to develop our relationship with the Trump administration and with the United States. It's a very sound relationship that's based on the basic strategic congruence of views about the world, about the region.
I think every administration has a settling-in process. And there's always an adjustment between what you can say during a campaign and what you find are the possibilities and the imperatives when you win the election and you enter the Oval Office.
We have long depended on an America which has got a clear sense of its stakes in the world and how much it depends on the world as well as how much the world and its allies and friends depend on the United States of America, and we hope this will continue.
In every American election, crazy things are said. Positions are taken which the winners try very hard to forget afterwards.
The Chinese are quite clear what their interests are and very consistent on pushing their interests.
You have to have a sense of what it looks like, not from the point of view of the policymaker but from the point of view of those who are at the receiving end of your policies.
Every time you make a rule, somebody will think of a way to operate around the rule.
If you interview world leaders, everybody will say they are for free trade. But what they mean by it and what they do when they say they are pro free trade, you have to watch and see.
My infrastructure must run brilliantly. My whole system must be different from what you can get anywhere else in Asia.
What we can do in Singapore may not be doable elsewhere. Some things you know you need: you want efficient government, you want clean government, you want to do away with corruption, you must educate your people. You want to get housing and so on. All these are not such secrets, not so special to Singapore.
If you look at the young people today, they are passionate about all kinds of courses. We have dog-lovers, nature-lovers, those who are pursuing arts; we have quite many who are involved in religious activities through their church.
I would not say that the North Koreans will do anything that the Chinese want them to do.
If there are tensions between America and China, we will be asked to pick a side. It may not be directly, but you will get the message that, 'We would like you to be with us, and are you with us? If not, does that mean you're against us?' And that's to put it gently.
The world is a diverse place. Nobody has a monopoly on virtue or wisdom.
You look at the Americans. They don't lack fervour in moral causes. They promote democracy, freedom of speech, women's rights, gay rights, sometimes even transgender rights. But you don't see them applying that universally across the world with all their allies.
You have to have an idea of what you need to do, what needs to be fixed, what can be improved, what we should now imagine together which we didn't previously imagine. And having thought of it, decide to go it. And that's the government's role.
We want the U.S. to have constructive and stable relations with China. That makes it much easier for us. Then we don't have to choose sides.