Issue 10, 2024|A "two-way trip" between me and Singapore

On January 25, 2024, China and Singapore officially signed the Agreement between the Government of the People's Republic of China and the Government of the Republic of Singapore on Mutual Visa Exemption for Ordinary Passport Holders in Beijing, which officially entered into force on February 9 (Chinese New Year's Eve). The China-New Zealand Visa Exemption Agreement came into force before the Chinese New Year of the Dragon, which is undoubtedly a New Year gift to the people of the two countries. For me as a visiting student in Singapore, my "hometown" has become my "second home", and I am eagerly looking forward to welcoming more family and friends in my second hometown.

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The friendship between us goes back a long way

In November 2015, President Xi Jinping delivered a speech entitled "Deepening Cooperative Partnership and Building a Beautiful Homeland in Asia" at the National University of Singapore, pointing out that China and Southeast Asia are linked by mountains and rivers, and have a history of exchanges that can be examined for more than 2,000 years. Chinese civilization and Southeast Asian civilization have learned from each other for thousands of years.

The day after I arrived in Singapore, I went to the National Gallery of Singapore to "check in" with great interest. I was visited by a Singapore lady named Jenny, who was warm and meticulous, confident and elegant, like this country. What is even more surprising is that this trip to the museum is a journey of time and space where history, politics, society and nature meet, and the gains I have brought far beyond art itself.

According to Jenny, the museum's treasure is a huge oil painting "Forest Fire", created by Indonesian painter Raden · Saleh in 1849, in which the raging fire on the cliff devours the beast, and the two ends of the cliff, one side is the flame, the other side is the sea, which deeply reflects the complex political and cultural conflicts and integration of Southeast Asia since the 19th century. Later, we visited a series of masterpieces by Mr. Liu Kang, the founder of the "Nanyang School" and a leading figure in Singapore's painting scene, who is a proud protégé of the famous Chinese painter Liu Haisu. Through the vivid paintings, I seem to have traveled through history and seen the friendship between teachers and students of Liu Haisu, Liu Kang and other artists for more than half a century. The final finale is Xu Beihong's "Portrait of Lin Lu", Lin Lu is Lin Mousheng's father, during World War II, Singapore overseas Chinese Lin Mousheng led the local people to resist the Japanese army in Singapore and Malaysia, and was unfortunately arrested and killed, and was regarded as a national hero. Because of his acquaintance with Lin Mousheng, Xu Beihong painted this oil painting for his father Lin Lu.

When I walked out of the museum and said goodbye to Jenny, I couldn't help but sigh that history has given art a more delicate texture, and it has also provided more strength for the emotions and bonds between the two peoples. No matter what moment in history, patriotism has always been the spiritual core of a nation and the spiritual bond of national unity and struggle and unremitting self-improvement.

We are experiencing the present and being self-reliant

In his speech at the National University of Singapore, President Xi Jinping also mentioned that over the past half century, the people of Singapore have built Singapore into one of the most developed countries in Asia with their hard work and wisdom, and have become an important economic and financial center, shipping center and refining center in the world, and the country's development has made achievements that have attracted worldwide attention. Singapore's achievements vividly illustrate the truth of "relying on people to fill the warehouse, relying on the sky to fill the rice tank".

A person's memory of a place is usually closely related to the people and things they meet in that place. The hard-working and intelligent people of Singapore will also be the most colorful part of my Singapore memories. I believe that in a few years, when I look back on my time studying in Singapore, I will have smiling faces in the tropical sunshine. Those smiling faces may be Jenny, who has her own unique perspective on each work of art, Christopher, my law school "grandfather" classmate who retired and entered the campus to pursue a master's degree, or the proprietress and young man at the restaurant where I often eat Hainanese chicken rice, they may have different skin colors or different languages, but they are all equally sincere and infectious.

In my memory, there will also be a different view of the city under the tropical sun. It may be the majestic and modern design of the law school building, the glittering Singapore River in the sunset, the large reservoir rebuilt by the Singapore government to ensure the source of drinking water for residents, or the flower dome of Gardens by the Bay, where more than 30,000 flowers and plants from five continents grow, and the grass and trees are verdant and the birds are chirping......

Singapore is not only one of the smallest countries in the world, but also the second most densely populated country in the world. Data shows that Singapore's population density is about 6.15 times that of Beijing. But in my daily life, I hardly feel crowded, and I rarely see traffic jams, why is that?

First of all, thanks to urban planning, as a typical city-state, it spreads the population pressure in the city center through satellite towns, such as Punggol New Town, which was taken by local classmates to visit, where you can find all supporting facilities including restaurants, supermarkets, clinics, schools, kindergartens, etc. within 5-10 minutes of residential areas. With these satellite towns, there will be no traffic congestion in the city center.

Secondly, in the planning and construction of the city, the high level of intelligence based on informatization has been fully demonstrated. As early as the 80s of the 20th century, Singapore proposed the "Smart Island" plan, taking the Singapore Management University Singapore(Singapore Management University) where I visited, for example, the school equipped each staff member and student with a chip card for the use of various facilities of the school, including access to teaching buildings, classrooms, meeting rooms, laboratories, etc. Different faculties and departments have different mandates. At the same time, the school has a dedicated IT service center that handles all technical issues for all staff and students. This kind of highly intelligent, information-based and centralized management has saved a lot of manpower and material costs for the school.

Finally, we have to mention the sustainable use of water resources in Singapore. A local student told me that due to its geographical location and climatic conditions, Singapore's natural water resources are quite scarce, and in the past, drinking water was imported from Malaysia. In order to solve this problem, the government spent 10 years between 1977 and 1987 cleaning up all the heavily polluted and smelly water ditches. By 2011, Singapore had built 17 reservoirs, more than 7,000 kilometres of ditches and one rainwater collection tank system that can double flood protection during heavy rainfall, accounting for two-thirds of the country's catchment area. Seeing the pride on my classmates when they said that "Singapore has finally gotten rid of Malaysia's dependence on fresh water", I couldn't help but feel that when a country's vital resources are scarce or overly dependent on imports, the country's development will also be constrained.

As a customs officer, I can't help but think of the unfair treatment that the mainland has suffered in international trade, such as "decoupling and breaking chains" and "small courtyards and high walls". As a national guard, I am reminded of General Secretary Xi Jinping's important reply to all the customs officers of Khunjerab Customs. In the face of the uncertainty of the global economy and the external environment, our generation should focus on the "two overall situations", bear in mind the "great man of the country", respond to the needs of the times, answer the questions of the times, lead the changes of the times, solve the problem of "stuck neck", strive to be the pioneer of Chinese modernization with customs modernization, and contribute more to the construction of a strong country and national rejuvenation.

We grow together, cooperate and open

In the spring of 2023, then Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong paid an official visit to China. During this period, China and New Zealand have upgraded from an "all-round cooperative partnership that keeps pace with the times" to a "forward-looking partnership of all-round and high-quality", which has set a clear direction for the future development of bilateral relations between the two countries. Singapore and China are partners in the Belt and Road Initiative, and economic and trade cooperation between China and Singapore has been continuously enhanced in recent years. Since 2013, China has been Singapore's largest trading partner for nine consecutive years, and Singapore has been China's largest source of new investment. In 2022, the bilateral trade volume between China and New Zealand reached US$115.13 billion, a year-on-year increase of 22.8%. At the same time, a number of landmark projects of the "Belt and Road" jointly carried out by the two countries have a certain demonstration and driving role in neighboring countries.

Therefore, as a customs officer, I also have a dream of visiting Singapore to go to this "Belt and Road" agreement.

On November 1, 2021, China officially applied to join the Digital Economy Partnership Agreement (DEPA). DEPA is the world's first independent inter-state agreement to deal exclusively with digital trade. The "modular" topic portfolio arrangement provides an inclusive institutional framework for digital economy cooperation, and has become an important path choice for formulating global digital trade rules. In May 2022, the 28th APEC Trade Ministers' Meeting was held, and at the regular press conference of the Ministry of Commerce after the meeting, the spokesperson of the Ministry of Commerce of China said that China will continue to promote its accession to the CPTPP (Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership) and DEPA, adhere to high-standard international economic and trade rules, and comprehensively expand high-level opening-up. In his congratulatory letter to the 2023 Annual Meeting of the China Development Forum, President Xi Jinping pointed out that China will steadily expand institutional opening-up in terms of rules, regulations, management and standards, and promote all countries and parties to share the opportunities of institutional opening-up. The construction of the digital trade rules system is a key topic of the mainland's institutional opening-up, and it is also an important part of promoting international cooperation and realizing the construction of a digital trade power. In this context, the study of international regulation of digital trade is closely related to the accurate understanding of digital trade, scientific statistics and policy making, and is more related to China's claims in international digital trade rules and future international bilateral (multilateral) trade rules negotiations.

In recent years, Singapore has continued to promote digital trade governance and expand the influence of its digital economy. Singapore's digital trade rules are established with a focus on its leading Digital Economy Agreement (DEA). At present, Singapore has basically formed a "1+N" digital economy agreement framework. Among them, "1" refers to the DEPA signed by Singapore, New Zealand and Chile in 2020, and "N" refers to other digital economy agreements signed by Singapore, including the Singapore-Australia Digital Economy Agreement (SADEA), the United Kingdom-Singapore Digital Economy Agreement (UKSDEA), the Korea-Singapore Digital Partnership Agreement (KSDPA), and the EU-Singapore Digital Partnership Agreement (EUSDP). Singapore is also negotiating bilateral digital partnership agreements with Canada and China, and is focusing on promoting ASEAN's digital integration.

As the supervision and management department of import and export trade, customs is an important link in the cross-border supply chain. The digital transformation of customs is of great significance to promote global digital trade facilitation and enhance the resilience of global supply chains. Compared with the European Union and the United States, China's laws and regulations on cross-border data flow are scattered and unsystematic. For example, the boundaries of data security are not clear, and it is not clear which data is relevant to national security and what information can be transferred across borders. China's customs legal system is ineffective in supervising the export of digital products. According to the Customs Law, the Customs is responsible for the supervision of the import and export of goods and articles. However, it is unclear whether, what and how digital products that rely on trade in goods need to be regulated. In the process of promoting the digital transformation of trade elements, the impact of digital trade on the supervision of traditional trade in goods, especially the issues involving cross-departmental management boundaries, has not been followed up in a timely manner, and clear management rules and regulations have not yet been formed, which is easy to form a management vacuum. Therefore, there is an urgent need for theoretical support and practical models in the field of cross-border supervision of digital products, so as to conduct a comprehensive and in-depth study of customs response strategies.

When I came to Singapore the Yong Pung How School of Law, I visited the Centre for Public International Law and Trade Law with my dream. Through participating in various lectures and courses of the Law School, and communicating and discussing with the professors of the Law School, I have gained a new understanding and thinking on how to actively explore new ideas for international trade management under the global trend of digital development, help solve the technical bottlenecks of digital trade governance, and how the Customs can take the lead in implementing high-standard digital trade rules.

Faculty of Law, Singapore Management University

Singapore has enhanced its international discourse power by signing a digital economy agreement, making Singapore an important pole in the field of global economic and trade rules. In recent years, the mainland has continued to promote institutional opening-up and the construction of its own digital trade rules system. So far, the mainland has signed a total of 22 FTAs with 29 countries and regions, but only a few bilateral FTAs, Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership agreements (RCEPs) and upgraded versions of some existing FTAs involve digital trade rules, and the relevant rules cover limited content. Drawing on Singapore's experience, on the basis of the top-level design of digital trade, the mainland can improve laws and regulations related to the digital economy, formulate relevant digital technology standards and business specifications, expand the depth and breadth of digital trade issues, build a digital platform to promote collaborative governance, and promote institutional opening-up. When establishing rules and regulations for digital trade, the General Administration of Customs should actively participate in and promote the improvement of the rules and regulations of the digital trade management system, and work with relevant departments to study the establishment of laws and regulations and management systems that are in line with the actual development of digital trade.

Time flies. The cause of China-New Zealand friendship and cooperation needs to be carried forward by the younger generation, and the baton of friendship between the two countries needs to be taken up and carried forward by the younger generation of the two countries. Having come to Singapore from China to study, I saw with my eyes the dream stories of Singapore locals, and felt with my heart that the tree of China-Singapore friendship and cooperation has now flourished and yielded fruitful results.

Mr Lee Hsien Loong proposed that "high-quality" partners are not simply exchanging with each other, but "I have an idea, you have an idea, and together we create a new, more effective and more creative idea". Looking to the future, Asia is once again at the forefront of historical development. We were born and grew up in Sri Lanka, and our future and destiny are maintained in Sri Lanka. 2024 marks the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China and a crucial year for comprehensively advancing Chinese-style modernization. After returning to China, I will continue to carry forward the spirit of "not knowing others and not knowing others", and be a loyal inheritor, active participant and enthusiastic contributor to China-New Zealand friendship, and become a new force in the development of China-New Zealand relations. An Asia, united, inclusive, friendly and symbiotic, will continue to serve as an anchor of peace and stability in the world, a source of growth and a new highland for cooperation. We are willing to work together to create a new situation of all-round and high-quality cooperation and build a better home for Asia. (The author is the head of the Statistical Analysis Section of Shanghai Pudong Customs Comprehensive Business No. 1, and visited Singapore Management University from December 2023 to March 2024)

Author: Xu Ying