A Tribute To Good Old Forum Banter

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Goh Meng Seng​

4h ·
After I have posted on the musing on the China's WWII Victory Parade, a friend messages me and indicated that President Xi has invited PM Wong to the parade during his official visit to China in June this year.
I didn't remember this invitation made by President Xi but my friend insisted that this invitation was made. He further said that according to his sources, Japan wasn't very happy about it!
I did a search through the official accounts and there wasn't anything mentioned about such invitation. But South China Morning Post (SCMP) puts up an interesting title for the report of PM Wong's visit to China
"Xi urges Singapore to join China on 'right side of history' as he meets PM Wong"
Well inside this news article, it refers to Trump's tariffs and "unilateralism". But to me, the Chinese likes to use phrases with "double meaning", 语带双关.
"Right side of History" could refer to acknowledging China's historical ownership claims on South China Sea or Taiwan as part of China.
It could also refer to the history of WWII as Japan was the aggressor.
Thus, it is actually quite possible that President Xi would have invited PM Wong to the 3 Sep WWII Victory Parade right in the context of "right side of history".
If that is so, more questions would arise. Did PM Wong decline to attend and that's the reason why SCMP didn't include Singapore in the list of ASEAN countries which will have their top political leaders to attend?
On the other hand, if PM Wong has acknowledged the invitation and prepared to attend the parade, then Shanmugam's Hacker Saga and LHL's Rising Sun conferment would make such attendence pretty awkward.
We are now caught in a very delicate situation if what my friend said is true.