[Guangzhou]
1. It was good to visit Guangzhou again after 5-6 years. The new Baiyun Airport is a splendid facility linked to the city by a beautiful highway lined by shrubs and trees. The entire highway was cleared of traffic for PM's motorcade! Governor Huang Huahua hosted dinner for us at the White Swan Hotel this evening. After dinner, we cruised the Pearl River in a spacious boat. Both banks were beautifully lit up in different colours. Laser lights swept the evening sky. It all looked like a fairy land.



2. I recalled my first visit to Guangzhou in 1983 with my parents. We had just spent a week in our ancestral village near Chaozhou where I met my maternal grandparents for the first time, both already in their 90's. China was still very poor and backwards then. Deng Xiaoping's new policy of reform and opening up only started in 1978. In 1986, I brought my new wife to see Guangzhou on our way to Shantou. We walked through the wet market, which before the era of SARS, was an incredible place to visit. All kinds of sea creatures and animals were on sale. My wife saw a sad-looking dog in a cage. She asked whether it was being sold as a pet or for eating. The vendor said that it was for the buyer to decide.

3. In 1992, I did an official tour of the Pearl River Delta, starting with a ferry ride from Hongkong to Hu Men where Lin Zexu destroyed British opium. From there we visited Dongguan, Guangzhou, Foshan, Panyu, Zhongshan, then to Macao back to HK. The boom had already started. At night, we heard constant explosions as hills were blown up and sites were prepared for buildings and industrial estates. I read a report that 2000 bridges had been built in the preceding years. Today the Delta is a major pole of economic growth, not only in China, but in the world.

4. Each time I come back to China, I see remarkable improvement in the lives of ordinary people. Never before in human history has a transformation so breathtaking in scale and scope been seen. But the developments are uneven. Social tensions are a serious problem and preoccupy the Chinese leadership. When there is justice, it is rough. It is an incredible unfolding drama.

5. We are not simply observers of this drama. The Teochews, Cantonese and Hakkas in Singapore come from Guangdong Province. So too the Hainanese before Hainan became a separate province. We are linked by history, by blood, by culture and, now, by economics.