Beijing appointed Mr Qin, formerly China’s ambassador to the United States, as foreign minister in December last year.
Monday’s introductory meeting between the two foreign ministers was “excellent” and lasted in total about three-and-a-half hours, Dr Balakrishnan told reporters.
Dr Balakrishnan also said that he expected continuity rather than a shift in China’s approach towards Southeast Asia under the new foreign minister.
“I expect China’s interactions and engagement with Southeast Asia to in fact accelerate in the years ahead,” he said.
He pointed out that in-person negotiations on a Code of Conduct in the South China Sea have commenced, and that China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are in negotiations to further upgrade their free trade agreement after doing so in 2015.
SINGAPORE-CHINA RELATIONS
Noting that this was his fifth visit to China since the pandemic began, Dr Balakrishnan said that the experience of COVID-19 has “deepened the reservoir of goodwill and trust” between Singapore and China.
With China lifting its “zero-COVID” policies and Singapore lowering its alert level to green in February, the next steps are about accelerating the pace of return to normalcy, he said.
Restoring full air connectivity with China is a key prerequisite for that, said Dr Balakrishnan, who pointed out that there are currently about 56 flights a week between the two countries, or 15 per cent of pre-pandemic levels.
The minister said he discussed with Chinese counterparts the need to restore flights to pre-pandemic levels as soon as possible, but did not indicate a timeline for this to happen.
He also pointed to the importance of business and people-to-people links, with Singapore students and business people “raring” to engage China.
“We still have a few students who are still in the queue waiting, we want to quickly resolve that,” said Dr Balakrishnan, adding that he has raised this with Chinese authorities.