Senior US officials were allegedly told during a private meeting with Singaporean Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew (李光耀) that Beijing aims to bring Taiwan into its fold by forging greater economic links and that it did not matter if the process took one or even three decades.

Held in Singapore’s Presidential Palace in May last year, the meeting was attended by US Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg and former US charge d’affaires Daniel Shields, according to reports of the confidential talks revealed as part of the recent cache of classified US Department of State cables released by whistleblower site WikiLeaks.