Speech by Minister for Law and Second Minister for Home Affairs, Mr Edwin Tong SC, at the SIMC Tianjin Specialist Mediators Empanelment Ceremony

Mr Li Jun, Party Secretary and Director of the Tianjin Justice Bureau

Mr George Lim SC, Chairman of SIMC

Distinguished Guests

Ladies and Gentlemen

Introduction

1.                 It is indeed true that I just arrived from Beijing and this is my first visit to Tianjin. 这是我第一次来到天津， 但肯定不是最后一次。希望天津和新加坡能够多多交流， 欢迎你们到访新加坡。

2.                 I am making Tianjin my first stop of my trip here. I will be in Tianjin, then back to Beijing, followed by Shanghai and Shenzhen this week.  

Establish Common Grounds

3.                 As this is my first visit to Tianjin, I thought I should do some homework before coming to find out what is common between Singapore and Tianjin. I found out a few fun facts.

4.                 First, people in Singapore and Tianjin both love football. In Singapore, we love our football, and we continue to work hard to close the gap with our competitors. We did qualify for the Asian Cup for the first time in history and this is something that we look forward to at the start of next year.

5.                 I understand that Tianjin has Tianjin Jinmen Tiger (天津津门虎). I went to check the football results, and it was a close match against Shanghai Port. Both our teams have to catch up with our competitors. The Tianjin football team is called the Tiger and in Singapore, our football team is called the Lions, so we also have some similarities there too.

6.                 Second, both our cities are major port cities. We rely a lot on our container port to support our regional and international trade.

7.                 Third, both of us are strong advocates of free and open trade. The Tianjin Free Trade Zone is the first pilot free trade zone in North China, and one of the earliest in the country, offering businesses more relaxed trade and investment rules. This drives commerce and mercantile activities.

8.                 In Singapore, our entire city functions as a free trade zone. We are consistently ranked among the easiest places in the world to do business by the World Bank and other global indices and it is a big part of our economy.  Keeping our economy open keeps trade flowing, and drives productivity and business investments.

9.                 But of course, the ties between our cities go beyond these shared characteristics. We are also connected through meaningful collaborations. The most significant is the Tianjin Eco-city project, which was launched in 2007 as the second Government-to-Government project between Singapore and China, after the Suzhou Industrial Park.

10.             Today, we are going to embark on another similarity and that is in the field of mediation. This is not surprising, because mediation is deeply rooted in our Asian culture and values. Both of us approach businesses and disputes in the same way.

11.             I have spent 25 years practising litigation and arbitration. Over the years, I have come to appreciate how important mediation is and how efficient mediation can be in achieving an outcome that is win-win. In this context, mediation has driven the progress of dispute resolution – both in China, as well as in Singapore.

The Role of New Specialist Mediators

12.             Mediation is also about finding the right kind of solutions. Sometimes, solutions cannot be found only in legal principles. In mediation, you can adopt solutions that go outside the boundaries of legal principles to find the win-win solution.

13.             I thought I share a few thoughts before the empanelment ceremony later on how meaningful mediation is for both our countries.

14.             First, I encourage you to see mediation as a key part of the broader dispute resolution ecosystem. We have litigation and arbitration for commercial cases and for some cases, we might have conciliation. Mediation does not operate in isolation. Rather, it works alongside arbitration and litigation in an integrated dispute resolution approach.

15.             That is why many years ago, Singapore invested in building a full suite of dispute resolution institutions at Maxwell Chambers. For those of you who have not visited Singapore, when you come to Singapore, come and visit Maxwell Chambers.

16.             Second, mediation allows us to push cross-border businesses even further. China has been ASEAN’s largest trading partner since 2009, while ASEAN has been China’s largest trading partner since 2019.

17.             As trade and investments grow in China and ASEAN, businesses will increasingly require dispute resolution services. This has to be trusted, based on principles that we are familiar with and can also operate across borders.

18.             That is why SIMC have developed a diverse panel, comprising close to 70 international mediators from close to 20 jurisdictions and over 400 specialist mediators.

19.             All of you can play an important role, by developing strong cross-border mediation capabilities, and contributing to this important and growing pool of international mediators.

20.             Third, mediation helps to strengthen international collaboration based on rules. As our economies become more interconnected, there will increasingly be more cross-border disputes. As long as we are able to apply the rule of law and a rules-based framework to resolve disputes, we will be able to move forward.

21.             We can never expect investments and trade to be free from disputes. What is more important is for us to develop systems that provide trust in the resolution and to allow parties to accept the outcome after the disputes have been resolved. That is why international conventions like the Singapore Convention on Mediation is important.

22.             The Convention allows parties that come from different countries that have signed and ratified the Convention to know that once they enter into a mediation settlement agreement with parties from these countries, they will be able to enforce it across borders. That helps us to provide multilateral, rules-based international trade.

23.             Overall, between China and ASEAN, and I speak for Singapore, we hope to see mediation grow – which provides more opportunities for us to engage with one another and more opportunities for investment flows between our countries and more opportunities to grow trade with ASEAN.

24.             Therefore, this evening, as you receive your appointment as specialist mediators, know that you are more than just mediators. You are also ambassadors of trade, of openness, of multilateralism and of rules-based system. This is what we need to push trade along and I believe in this room, we have that expertise.

Conclusion

25.             I thank you for taking time to undergo training to become specialist mediators. I heard from George and Wee Meng that the training was very exuberant, with a lot of different ideas. I think this is very good because no idea is a wrong idea. There are no wrong answers, only right solutions.

26.             I hope that one day China will also be a signatory and ratify the Singapore Convention on Mediation. This will help us promote China and ASEAN trade even more as we look at the next bound.

27.             Finally, let me wish all of you a blessed evening and I open the invitation to all of you to visit Singapore, visit Maxwell Chambers and visit SIMC. Thank you very much.

Last updated on 24 May 2026