A Quote by Lee Hsien Loong

The U.S. is not a claimant state in the South China Sea or in the China-Japan dispute over the Senkaku Islands. But, of course, the 7th Fleet has been a presence in the region since the Second World War, and it is the most powerful fleet in the region.

Lee Hsien Loong

Quote Topics

Been China Course Dispute Fleet Islands Japan Most Most Powerful Over Powerful Presence Region Sea Second Second World War Since South State War World World War

Quote Author

Lee Hsien Loong
Singaporean - Politician
Born: February 10, 1952

It's easier for China to assert its maritime power by creating artificial islands in the South China Sea than by defying the U.S. Pacific Fleet with an aircraft carrier.

David Ignatius

Japan has good reasons for wanting to transform its relationship with Russia. Tokyo has openly expressed serious fears of a military confrontation with Beijing over China's claims to the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea.

Fiona Hill

China's island-building in the South China Sea poses a threat to U.S. national security interests in the region.

Evan Bayh

In the South China Sea and underneath the South China Sea, of course, there's a lot of raw materials. There are very rich fishing grounds there, so there are some economic concerns in the South China Sea as well.

Michael W. Michalak

We can squabble between the siblings in Europe and not be very productive and then see China and the U.S. win over the European region. Or - and this is my preferred choice - we team up together and are the strong region that we want to be, using each others' strengths and building on our commonalities to become the smartest region in the world.

Frans van Houten

Revolutionary war is an antitoxin that not only eliminates the enemy's poison but also purges us of our own filth. Every just, revolutionary war is endowed with tremendous power and can transform many things or clear the way for their transformation. The Sino-Japanese war will transform both China and Japan; provided China perseveres in the War of Resistance and in the united front, the old Japan will surely be transformed into a new Japan and the old China into a new China, and people and everything else in both China and Japan will be transformed during and after the war.

Mao Zedong

I don't share the view that China and the U.S. need to reach some kind of strategic accommodation to carve up the Asia-Pacific region - that is an arrogant proposition and deeply insulting to other countries in the region, including Japan and potentially also India and Indonesia.

John Howard

In terms of our region, what we need to ensure is that the rise of China [is] conducted in a manner that does not disturb the security and the relative harmony of the region upon which China's prosperity depends. Now - now, that requires careful diplomacy, it requires balancing.

Malcolm Turnbull

A China-friendly North Korea serves as a buffer between southern China and the U.S.'s sphere of influence in the region - something of which China is perpetually skeptical.

Will Hurd

Japan cannot conquer China with America in her rear, Soviet Russia on her right and England on her left - her most powerful enemies in the South Sea all flanking her. It is this international situation that constitutes one of Japan's great weaknesses.

Chiang Kai-shek

If we were building our navy, rather than reducing our navy to pre-World War I levels, China would not be thinking about increasing its navy to take over the South China Sea.

Rudy Giuliani

The problem of ISIS is not recent. Ever since the Second World War, people in this region have been, and are today, living under brutal dictatorships governed by nationalistic fervor. As for the Kurdish question: nobody from the Arab world is serious about fighting ISIS. It's only the Kurdish people who are standing firm against ISIS. And I think Europe, the United States, and most other democratic countries of the world are beginning to look at the Kurds in another way. The Kurds are really becoming their partners in the region.

Mano Khalil

China has become a major presence for most countries around the world but notably for its neighboring countries in Asia. So I think it is a common position for Japan and its Asian neighbors that we certainly would strive to maintain as much as possible friendly relations with China.

Naoto Kan

There's a national ambition, a collective, in a sense, political ambition, which I think is the thing we see from far away. That's the fact that China's building roads and airports and extending its reaches out into the East China Sea and the South China Sea, and in a way that's putting it into some tension with its neighbors.

Evan Osnos

To be sure, China is nowhere as powerful as the U.S., but it has acquired the ability to impose its will on individual nations around the world. From Australia to Germany, South Africa to South Korea, political leaders are careful not to rub China the wrong way.