Singapore’s leader downplayed the likelihood of an imminent conflict over Taiwan, saying China isn’t "trigger happy” about taking over the self-governing island it has long viewed as its territory.
"They would like Taiwan to be part of ‘one China,’” but aren’t sure how to make it happen, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said Wednesday at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Singapore. Unless Beijing is provoked, the world isn’t "going to wake up one day and find that they’ve decided to launch D-Day,” he added.
Referring to a brutal World War II battle between the U.S. and Japan over another Pacific island, Lee said that "Attacking Taiwan is not like doing Iwo Jima, and Iwo Jima was bloody enough.”