PM Lee to be hosted to lunch by Emperor Akihito on Tuesday

TOKYO — Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and his wife Ho Ching will be hosted to lunch on Tuesday (Sept 27) by Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko, as part of PM Lee’s official visit to Japan this week. 

The lunch will be held at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo. The Imperial Couple last hosted tea for Mr Lee during his previous official visit to Japan in March 2007.

This year, Singapore marks 50 years of diplomatic relations with Japan. PM Lee’s four-day visit will see him hosted to a banquet by Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. He will  receive an award on behalf of the late founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew — the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Paulownia Flowers — from Mr Abe. The award is one of Japan’s most prestigious and only four other non-Japanese have received the award since it was elevated to a class of its own in 2003: Former Prime Minister of India Manmohan Singh, former US Senator Daniel Inouye and former US Ambassadors to Japan Walter Mondale and Howard Baker. The award for Mr Lee Kuan Yew is the first time Japan is awarding the honour to a foreign national posthumously.

On the same day, PM Lee will also meet Singaporeans living in Japan at a reception. There are about 1,500 Singaporeans living in Japan.

On Thursday, PM Lee will deliver a speech at the Special Session of the Nikkei 22nd International Conference on “The Future of Asia”.