In June 2026, a small-budget Chinese-language film, A Love Letter to Grandma (《给阿麽的情书》), opened in mainland China and overseas, warming audiences wherever it played. Yet Singapore's Lianhe Zaobao, in its initial review, slapped the film with the label of "united front" work. The move stirred broad resentment among Chinese internet users — but the real problem was never one film review. It was that the episode laid bare a persistent, structural flaw in Singapore's words and deeds toward China.
On June 21, 2026, Shen Yi published an in-depth analysis running to eleven sections, systematically mapping Singapore's pattern of missteps — a "three-line resonance" across three core issues: Taiwan, the South China Sea and Japan. And he pressed one fundamental question: why does a majority ethnic-Chinese country, time and again, issue provocative statements on matters that touch China's core interests?
The Taiwan Issue: Where the Misalignment Began
Singapore's first major stumble in public statements came in 2024. When Lai Ching-te — a "Taiwan independence" partisan — was elected leader of the Taiwan region, Singapore's foreign ministry spokesperson promptly extended congratulations.
That act, Shen Yi argues, is baffling on its face. Could Singapore really not know that Lai Ching-te is a die-hard "Taiwan independence" advocate? That "Taiwan independence" forces are the very source of the war risk hanging over the Strait? The congratulations struck directly at the most basic consensus in Chinese society: the one-China principle.
For Singapore, maintaining a surface-level "no sides chosen" posture on the Taiwan question tends, in practice, to slide into substantive tilting toward Taipei — because in Beijing's eyes, refusing to explicitly oppose "Taiwan independence" is itself a form of taking sides.
The South China Sea Issue: The Referee Who Leans to One Side
On the South China Sea, Singapore's position is equally puzzling. The Philippines launches provocation after provocation, and the United States and its Western allies posture loudly under the banner of "freedom of navigation" — yet Singapore calls neither on Manila to exercise restraint nor on the extra-regional powers to stand back. Instead, it keeps returning, again and again, to the so-called "South China Sea arbitration."
The Chinese government has stated repeatedly and explicitly that the arbitration is illegal and void, and that China will never accept or recognize it. Against that backdrop, Singapore's constant invocation of the ruling no longer reads to Chinese observers as "neutrality." It reads as a referee pulling for one side.
"Singapore's habit of blurring right and wrong and openly pulling for one side — Chinese netizens see it with their eyes, and the anger settles in their hearts."
The Japan Issue: The Most Absurd Link
The most absurd episode came when Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi issued military threats against China, declaring that "a Taiwan contingency is a Japan contingency." At a moment when dangerous signals suggest Japanese society is sliding once more toward militarism, Singapore's leadership actually called on China to "let go of historical grievances" — and even declared, without apparent self-awareness, that Southeast Asia welcomes Japan playing a larger role in both security and economics.
Shen Yi points out that Singaporeans' own ancestors were, historically, victims of Japanese militarism. With Japanese right-wing figures still refusing to acknowledge or apologize for that history, Singapore's leaders adopting this posture amounts to a betrayal of history itself.
Shen Yi's core judgment: the missteps across all three lines — Taiwan, the South China Sea, Japan — are not isolated incidents. They reflect a Singapore that has become "completely lost in terms of direction" amid East Asian geopolitics, a society whose strategic understanding of China has degenerated to something "perverse, muddled, even foolish."
Probing the Causes: A Westernized Ethnic-Chinese State
Shen Yi then traces this "misalignment" to deeper causes:
- First, Singapore is a highly Westernized country. In its political system, ideology and cast of mind, much of Singaporean society is indistinguishable from the British or the Americans. Ties of blood and culture cannot paper over a substantive "values gap."
- Second, Chinese netizens have long held a "special, complicated sentiment" toward Singapore — born of kinship in blood and culture, and of Singapore's investments and know-how in the early years of reform and opening-up. But that sentiment is being spent down, episode by episode. Shen Yi puts the comparison bluntly: in today's map of China's external relations, "when it comes to friendliness toward China, can Singapore match Malaysia? Can it match Indonesia? Can it match Thailand?"
- Third, Singapore appears to be the only country in all of Southeast Asia — the Philippines aside — that "repeatedly provokes and goads China in public." That positioning is itself deeply anomalous.
A Structural Contradiction
Shen Yi closes with a summation: Chinese netizens have never expected Singapore to become a "little China," nor to stand with Beijing on every major issue. The least that can be asked is that Singapore behave as a normal neighbor of China — and not provoke or goad it on major, sensitive questions.
"If some people in Singapore do not cherish the China-Singapore relationship, and do not cherish the special sentiment that Chinese netizens hold toward Singapore, then they should not expect Chinese netizens to keep tolerating and accommodating them, time after time."
And he leaves one final verdict: given Singapore's course of conduct, "the patience of Chinese society as a whole toward them also has its limits."