PM’s Bloomberg Interview

Earlier this week, a friend send me a video clip of PM’s Bloomberg interview. I had read about that interview in the mainstream papers and so I didn’t feel the need to open it to view the clip.

Yesterday evening, that same friend called me up to grumble about how the PM could say such things in that interview. So I asked him to summarize what the PM was supposed to have said.

He said PM had talked about the current China Japan spat and had said Singapore had forgotten and forgiven the Japanese for what they had done during WW2 and that China should learn to do the same and move on. According to him PM also said that ASEAN has accepted that Japan is a reliable security partner for this region.

I was surprised PM would have said such things and as I was outside, I said I would watch the video clip and revert to him.

Last night I watched that clip and I was shocked to discover that what PM said was completely different from what was told to me. Nothing he said in that interview was even remotely close. The position that he took was conciliatory and nuanced and carefully phrased.

But what surprised me is how some people believe a narrative told to them without verifying the information from the actual source and then spread it to others. But more significantly, who are these people with such ulterior motives to completely come up with a false narrative and spread it?

I understand that many of these narratives are from overseas actors based in HK. Singaporeans need to wake up and be alert and not be swayed by overseas actors appealing to clan and ethnic roots to support them in their own agendas.