I'm no Sino-apologist but I don't think they "over-reacted" at
all. Their official rebuttals to our MFA's initial clarification
attempt was completely valid; I scruntinzed closely then for
logical fallacies, except in vain. If anything, IMO they asserted
very compelling from their point of view - much
like we did in our spats against Malaysia - although they obviously
didn't know prior about our PM succession date.
In the same manner, I think Singaporeans didn't comprehend the
whole context either, unless they have long memories.
PM Lee was valid when he said he wanna get a personal, updated feel
of the Taiwan situation. But what's left unsaid is that
Singapore-Taiwan has, deliberately or not, an ongoing "private
visit" exchanges of once every 2 years or so. The ones I can most
recall is from Lien Chan & company's 1998 "vacation" here
onwards; LKY twice dropped by there in 2000 & then 2002, &
now LHL flew over in 2004.
China lodged complaints during each of the earlier trips, so I
don't think PM Lee didn't prepare himself for the (expected)
backlash this time around. I do think, however, that he
mis-calibrated their anger, since - let's be fair - he had 12 years
since his last visit in '92 to meet up with "friends" over
there.
I posited on another board that China cannot but acknowledge the
facts that:
(a) the PAP/Singapore Government has comparatively longer ties with
the KMT than with the CCP,
(b) Singapore politicians are chummy with certain DDP reps as well,
even though they collectively seemed to prefer courting our
opposition parties more.
[For the latter reason, I suggested that PM Lee maybe shouldn't
meet anyone higher than their Premier Yu Shyi-kun, rather than let
Chen Shui-bian & Annette Lu (who scolded LKY back in Y2K,
remember!) milk his presence to the max. But that would be rude to
their hosts on our part, wouldn't it?]
Along these lines, I don't really care too much whether China wanna
indirectly test PM Lee's mettle, or use him to signal how hawkish
they've become on the Taiwan issue, or whatever. What matters is
that they appreciate, in restrospect, his sense of urgency, upon
the revealing of the PM succession date. Even if they still reprove
his "stubbornness", so be it. The rest of the world knows it's
impossible to coordinate political timings when it comes to
international relations.
Thankfully, the dispute was conducted rather restrainedly at the
official level - both sides postulated their stands clearly -
without succumbing into the emotional bickerings ala online. For
that reason, I expect things will blow over quickly. Let's move
on.