His Excellency Chen Wen Qing, Member of the Political Bureau, Secretary of the Political and Legal Affairs Commission of the CPC Central Committee, People’s Republic of China.
His Excellency Ong Ye Kung, Coordinating Minister for Social Policies and Minister for Health, Republic of Singapore
His Excellency Yin Bai, Secretary-General of the Political and Legal Affairs Commission of the CPC Central Committee of the People's Republic of China
His Excellency Wang Hao, Secretary of the CPC Zhejiang Provincial Committee of the People's Republic of China
Colleagues
Ladies and Gentlemen
1. Good morning, I am honoured to attend the Singapore-China Social Governance Forum once again, and I would like to extend my appreciation to Secretary Chen and our Chinese colleagues for hosting us in this beautiful city of Hangzhou.
2. This Forum, now in its fifth edition, has served as a bridge for our two countries to exchange insights, share experiences, and reaffirm our shared commitment to building cohesive, harmonious societies.
3. As we gather today, we are reminded of the transformation that our societies have undergone over the past few decades. Both China and Singapore have achieved remarkable progress and continue to lay strong foundations in key areas including education, healthcare, economic opportunity, and social cohesion.
4. Yet, as our nations evolve, we will face new and complex challenges including tackling the impact of an ageing population, low birth rates, and shifting aspirations of our youth. As Coordinating Minister Ong has shared, strong and cohesive societies are built on mutual trust between citizens and governments. Governments must therefore continually adapt by developing new policies and experimenting with new approaches to respond to an increasingly complex landscape.
Singapore’s Vision: A Society of Opportunities and Harmony
5. In Singapore, we strive to build a society of opportunities, where every individual, regardless of background, has a fair chance to succeed. We also seek to build harmonious communities, where people of different socio-economic backgrounds, race, language, and religion live together, interact daily, and support one another as neighbours.
6. As a multicultural and multireligious country, our guiding philosophy for social harmony has been to embrace and recognise strength in diversity, and not to erase our differences.
7. These values are instilled from early age – for instance, in schools, our students recite the national pledge daily, which emphasises the key principle – “regardless of race, language or religion”. They live out this principle through celebrating different cultural festivities, participating in learning journeys to heritage sites, and discussing Singapore’s multiculturalism and the importance of harmony. Students also commemorate Racial Harmony Day each year, which promotes cross-cultural understanding.
8. Another vital aspect of ensuring social cohesion is our state-supported inter-faith dialogues amongst religious leaders, to promote trust and understanding between different religious groups.
9. Despite these efforts, we are cognisant that divides will persist and new ones may emerge.
10. First, as we continue to progress economically, there is a risk that social inequality will widen, and those from less well-off families will find opportunities closed to them. This will certainly impact our social cohesion in the long-term.
11. Second, disputes within communities may arise. In a shared living environment, differences in lifestyles, values, and cultural practices may lead to misunderstandings. These could be daily living habits such as noise complaints among neighbours, or they could involve more complex cultural matters that require careful handling.
Upstream measures to ensure opportunities for all
12. To build a cohesive and harmonious society, Singapore adopts a multi-pronged approach to uplift families and give citizens a tangible stake in our nation’s success. We believe that families are the bedrock of society and our aspiration is for all families to have stability, self-reliance, and social mobility because strong families build a strong society.
Enhancing social mobility upstream
13. First, we are going upstream to enhance social mobility of lower-income families. This is to ensure that every family has pathways to progress and every child gets a good start in life regardless of background.
14. One key initiative is ComLink+. Under ComLink+, we go beyond assistance, to empower families to achieve their goals. We proactively reach out to lower-income families with children and address their needs early. Each family is paired with a dedicated family coach or case worker, who journeys alongside them and co-create action plans tailored to their strengths, needs, and goals. To recognise and supplement families’ efforts, families receive additional financial top-ups when they work towards specific goals, such as securing stable employment or sending their children to preschools regularly.
15. To help families stay resilient and navigate conflict, support ranging from financial assistance to family counselling and parenting workshops is also available through our Family Service Centres that are located within each neighbourhood. For more vulnerable households, we adopt a holistic case management approach to help them manage multiple stressors and break out of intergenerational problems.
16. Every citizen must have the opportunities to forge a better life, regardless of their starting position. When people believe they can succeed regardless of background, we reduce social divides and create a more cohesive society.
Creating shared spaces and experiences
17. Next, to build good relationships within our communities, we actively foster a shared national identity and common experiences. It is important that we establish a system where people have an active stake in nation building and see each other as part of the collective whole.
18. An important part of ensuring that our citizens have a strong sense of national identity and belonging is by creating shared experiences that help individuals from different backgrounds relate and bond over shared memories, both in good times as well as in overcoming challenges together.
19. We start building these connections early. In our preschools and schools, children from different backgrounds come together, interact, and build friendships through co-curricular activities and outdoor adventure learning. At school, students participate in our “Values in Action” programme, which helps them learn about community issues by coming up with projects that address each other’s needs. By encouraging students to take ownership of designing, planning and executing these projects, we nurture socially responsible citizens who become active community members. Beyond school, experiences such as National Service further strengthen these bonds across society.
20. Our public housing policies are designed to foster inclusive and diverse communities by ensuring a balanced mix of different ethnic groups across neighbourhoods. This creates vibrant, cohesive communities where collective memories and shared identities are naturally formed.
21. In our local communities, we have also intentionally built common spaces—schools, community centres, parks, and eateries — with active programming, to allow Singaporeans of all backgrounds live, study, play, and dine side-by-side. This harmonious living in the same neighbourhood is the very essence of our social fabric and helps to foster understanding between different communities.
Giving back to the community
22. Finally, we create opportunities for citizens to give back to their community.
23. At the last Forum, I shared about how we launched the Forward Singapore exercise in 2021 to gather diverse perspectives and discussed the future we want to build together. Since then, we have been working to follow up on the ideas and feedback received. In other words, we are not just building a Singapore for Singaporeans but building a Singapore with Singaporeans.
24. To this end, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong put forth a call for Singaporeans in his National Day Rally speech last year to adopt a “We First” mindset. At its core, the “We First” mindset is about everyone doing their part to care, contribute, and look out for one another, because when the whole is strong, each of us become stronger too.
25. We are committed to work with Singaporeans to cultivate this “We First” society, by actively encouraging citizens to give back to society through their time, talent and treasure.
26. Last year, to commemorate Singapore’s 60th year of independence, we launched the “SG Share” campaign, a national programme that encourages citizens to make a small monthly donation to charitable causes. The response has been overwhelming – individuals and companies have pledged more than 100 million Singapore dollars to social causes, with donations rising by almost 19 percent in 2025 compared to the previous year. To amplify our effort, the Singapore Government is matching these donations dollar for dollar.
27. Our People’s Association Youth Movement has increased volunteer recruitment, where more young volunteers are stepping forward to initiate and run projects that serve their communities as part of their school-community partnerships. Across Singapore, the People’s Association has also established close to 100 Youth Networks, led by youth volunteers to provide other youths with meaningful opportunities to contribute to the community and develop a lasting commitment to service. Many of these youth volunteers have in turn, also stepped up to mentor their peers and newer volunteers in contributing to sustainability efforts.
Avoiding escalation of conflict
28. Nonetheless, when conflicts do occur, what is important is our ability to manage these well and prevent them from escalating and causing faultlines in society to deepen.
29. Singapore has progressively strengthened its dispute resolution framework through a graduated approach that emphasises harmony and amicable resolution. We start with grassroots mediation for simpler disputes and escalate to professional mediation services when needed. For more difficult situations, as Coordinating Minister Ong highlighted, we have authorities with enforcement powers at the community level. This gives residents a trusted platform they can turn to and helps safeguard our social compact. My colleagues from various Government agencies in Singapore will also share about our graduated and structured framework in the subsequent sessions.
30. Beyond this, the integration of technology and AI in social and community services also presents exciting opportunities to enhance both the reach and effectiveness of our support systems.
31. Just two weeks ago, I visited various technology and AI companies based in Shanghai and Shenzhen, where they shared about advances in the technology and how they have integrated this into new products that better the lives of people. From technology which can analyse and predict an individual’s actions, to products which can help regulate and calm an individual’s emotions, I believe there is room for us to continue to explore how we can leverage technology even in building harmonious communities.
Conclusion
32. The journey of building harmonious and cohesive societies is a continuous one. Ultimately, a harmonious society is built not just by the government, but by people caring for one another. While Singapore has been successful over the past few decades in building a more cohesive society, we are aware that the challenges we face in future means that we must keep refreshing our social compact to meet the evolving needs of our people.
33. We will continue to work with our people to do more to enhance social mobility upstream, to create shared spaces and experiences, and to allow more to give back to the community and create a harmonious society with a strong “We First” spirit.
34. Thank you, and I wish everyone a fruitful and enriching Forum.