On April 26, 2002, Vice President Hu Jintao, on an official visit to Singapore, met with Singaporean Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew.

Hu first conveyed greetings from President Jiang Zemin, Chairman Li Peng and Premier Zhu Rongji. He said that the Singaporean people are hard-working and intelligent, and have achieved admirable results. Lee is an old friend of both Chinese leaders and the Chinese people, and has paid great contribution to the development of Sino-Singaporean ties, specially to the establishment of diplomatic ties of the two countries before leaving his office as prime minister.

Hu said he and the Singaporean leaders have reached an important consensus during meetings with them regarding how to push the bilateral relations between the two countries to a new stage. He expressed his belief that with the joint efforts from both sides, Sino-Singaporean relations will surely move forward continuously..

Commenting on the issue of fighting terrorism, Hu said that China persistently opposes and condemns all forms of terrorism, adding that China is of the opinion that comprehensive measures should be taken to eradicate the rootstock of terrorism by tackling this problem both on the surface and at the root. Lee agreed with this.

Both sides expressed deep concern over the Middle East situation. Hu explained China's persistent position on the Middle East issue. He pointed out that the Middle East issue is of long historical making and is very complicated. Facts have proven that trading violence with violence will get nowhere and it is imperative to stop the conflicts and bring the Middle East issue back to the track of political settlement. Lee said that the dragging on of the Palestine-Israel conflict will have a severe negative effect on the world.