The Chinese go around with lollipops in their pockets. They have aid. They have friendship deals. They build you a Prime Minister's office or President's office or Parliament House or Foreign Ministry. For them, trade is an extension of their foreign policy.

I think we are paying a lot of attention to China one way or the other. They are a big factor in the world. They are successful; they are growing. They want to grow their influence, and all the countries in Asia want to be their friend and want to benefit from China's development and success.

You need people who have their own views, whose views you respect, whom you can have a productive disagreement with, and work out ideas which you might not have come up with, or who improve on ideas you had.

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.

The world is a diverse place. Nobody has a monopoly on virtue or wisdom.

At some point, there will be some other financial crisis. It's in the nature of a capitalist system.

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.

China is a very big and complicated country; it's not easy to govern. But with courage and unity, China will certainly overcome all difficulties and continue to develop and move forward.