Singapore

Chinese ambassador to Singapore Sun Haiyan explains China’s stand on building global security, premised on its recent position papers on the Global Security Initiative and the Ukraine crisis.

Former Zaobao editor Lim Jim Koon believes that the balloon saga between China and the US in February gives much food for thought around the role of political leaders and mass media in sensationalising the trivial incidents.

Teo Han Wue tells us more about the life and work of Singapore’s veteran photographer, Chua Soo Bin, who took striking profile shots of leading Greater China artists and went on to make fellow Singapore artists the subject of his portraiture.

Academics Wong Lung Hsiang and Looi Chee Kit note that information and AI literacies are or will become essential for anyone living in the IT era. One must possess both literacies to responsibly and constructively produce and disseminate information, as well as to understand and appraise the functions and limitations of AI tools, and the challenges they pose.

Lianhe Zaobao associate editor Peter Ong looks into why Asian countries are facing a declining population, especially those that have witnessed successful economic transformation. What social conditions have led to the staggeringly low birth rates? And is migration a solution?

Hua Language Centre director Chew Wee Kai ruminates on ageing and what goes on inside and out as one inevitably moves into the twilight of life, not least the obvious signs of failing eyesight. Where once it was a joy to read The Water Margin and The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, now the spirit is willing but the eyes are weak.

As the sabre-rattling continues in the Taiwan Strait, there seems to be no clear solution in sight for reunification. Zaobao’s correspondent Woon Wei Jong speaks to commentators and experts to take soundings on feasible solutions.

Lee Huay Leng, editor-in-chief of SPH Chinese Media Group, looks back at Singapore’s active role in the Chinese-speaking world and in the 1980s and 1990s, and whether it can – or wants to – resume such a role in a changing world.

Hua Language Centre director Chew Wee Kai thinks back to the first time he attended a university graduation — in a tent. However, the solemnity of the event still shone through, in a fitting tribute to the effort of the graduates, as well as the travails of that storied university called Nanyang University (Nantah), and all that it came to represent.