George Yeo is a visiting scholar at the National University of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.
He started his career in the military before entering politics in 1988. During his 23 years with the Singaporean government, Yeo held ministerial portfolios ranging from arts to health, trade and – for seven years – foreign affairs.
After he left politics, Yeo was vice-chairman of Kerry Group in Hong Kong from 2012 to 2021 and chairman and executive director of its logistics arm from 2012 to 2019.
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This interview first appeared in SCMP Plus. For other interviews in the Open Questions series, click here.
First to Taiwan, which you’ve described as a ticking time bomb. How can it be defused, and how likely is a military conflict across the Taiwan Strait?
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We don’t have crystal balls. Politics develops often in unexpected ways. In our minds, we have to think of scenarios. Now imagine the day when, for lack of money, the US has to leave the western Pacific because voters choose butter over guns. That’s one possible scenario. Then unification will happen naturally because I don’t see Taiwanese dying for an independent Taiwan.
Taiwan is separate only because the US is there. The Taiwan issue is a subset of US-China relations. Right now [US President Donald] Trump doesn’t want Taiwan to be an issue because he’s got a big agenda with China. That’s why he did not allow [Taiwanese leader William] Lai Ching-te to make a stopover in the US. It caused Lai to cancel his trip to Paraguay.