Should Singapore be complacent?

 As for me, I think Singapore is doing well in many areas, even China's top officials are coming to Singapore to learn how to manage challenges, and to gain an international perspective. This may be true but still, Singapore should not be complacent. This is because other countries are also developing very quickly, we are not the only ones, other countries will be catching up to us or even surpass us. For example, China overtook Singapore which used to be the largest container port in the world in 2010. China also widened the gap between the number of containers processed in these last few years.

The top China officials came to Singapore to study shows that they are very humble, willing to learn from other countries in order to improve. If Singapore is satisfied for now, and stops improving, other countries will definitely overtake us one day, our achievements are only temporary. We must take note that there are others who constantly strive to improve and there is always room for improvement.

In one of the article, President Tony Tan Keng Yam said that Singapore should not be complacent in engaging China, as it is not the same "tenuous and hesitant" country that it was on the world stage 25 years ago, when it started diplomatic ties with the city-state. I agree with this, now Singapore should be learning as much from China as China does from Singapore, bilateral ties are now a two-way street.

Thus, it is very important that Singapore should not be complacent. We have to continue to work at it, upgrade it, bring it to new levels. Only this, Singapore will be achieving more than what it is now.

- Luqiong (20)