woman ambassador from an East Asian country to be assigned to the United States. Chan expressed surprise at her appointment, noting "I'm anti-establishment and was a bit of a dissident before I was appointed ambassador. It came as something of a shock to me when I was offered the ambassadorship because I was highly critical of government in a society that is not used to being critiqued." In 1998, Chan received the Inaugural International Woman of the Year Award from the Organization of Chinese American Women (OCAW), and Singapore's first "Woman of the Year" award in 1991. Chan received Singapore's Public Administration Medal (Gold) in 1999, Meritorious Service Medal in 2005 and the Distinguished Service Order, the highest National Day Award, in August 2011. Chan left her post as Singapore's Ambassador to the US on 23 July 2012, and was replaced by Ashok Kumar Mirpuri. During her tenure, bilateral relations between Singapore and the US improved tremendously. In May 2003, Singapore and US signed the US-Singapore Free Trade Agreement (USSFTA), the first FTA that the US entered into with a Southeast Asian country. Both countries also enhanced their ties in areas of defence and security. During October 2012, in relation to a discussion on the choice Asian nations may have in terms of supporting China or the US, Chan was quoted as saying, "The United States should not ask Asian countries to choose. You may not like the results if you ask countries to choose." Chan was appointed to the Presidential Council for Minority Rights in 2012 and was re-appointed in 2015. She was also appointed as the chairman of the National Arts Council in 2013. From November 2012 to October 2015, the Singaporean government appointed her for a three-year term service as Singapore’s Representative to the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR), succeeding Singapore’s first AICHR Representative, Mr Richard R. Magnus. Controversies In October 2015, Chan's call to retain the Chinese-Malay-Indian-Others framework as it "sets minority communities here at ease" sparked a debate, with a Malay Singaporean finding her "very wrong. She is from [the] majority and she is elite. She doesn't represent us". An online poll on Dialectic.sg found a majority of 52.8% of the respondents in favour of abandoning such racial categorisation. In November 2015, Chan spoke at the Singapore International Film Festival (SGIFF) to defend the National Arts Council (NAC)'s censorship policies, prompting calls to