Hawks sit it out as Bloomberg’s Singapore forum calls for calm heads amid escalating US-China conflict

Speakers at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Singapore feel there is plenty of room for cooperation between Beijing and Washington

The likes of Henry Kissinger and Wang Qishan are maintaining an optimistic outlook despite the ongoing trade war and current tensions

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Wang Qishan, China’s vice-president, speaks during the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Singapore. Photo: Bloomberg

Published: 9:00pm, 6 Nov 2018Updated: 3:05am, 7 Nov 2018

Political and business leaders gathered at the newest sanctum of the global elite – the Bloomberg New Economy Forum – on Tuesday preached realism as their mantra when reading the tea leaves on United States-China ties, and cautioned against excessive alarmism at the current state of feuding between the two powers.

Pitched as an Asia-and-Africa-focused rival of sorts to the annual World Economic Forum gathering in Davos, the first edition of the conference saw intense discussion on issues that have dominated the news cycle in recent months: the escalating US-China trade war, strategic tussles between the two, as well as the prospect of them eventually engaging in armed conflict.

Members of the commentariat who expected geostrategic hawks on both sides to slug it out at the two-day forum in Singapore were likely to have left disappointed.

Speakers, ranging from Chinese Vice-President Wang Qishan to American foreign policy doyen Henry Kissinger, overwhelmingly signalled that there remained ample scope for US President Donald Trump’s administration and Beijing to cooperate.

Setting the tone for calm heads to reign was Kissinger, the 95-year-old former American secretary of state who brokered US rapprochement with China in 1971.

“The objective needs to be that both countries recognise that a fundamental conflict between them will destroy hope for the global order,” he said in a brief dialogue session. “That objective can be achieved and I am in fact fairly optimistic that it will be achieved.”

Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger says the US and China should “recognise that a fundamental conflict between them will destroy hope for the global order”. Photo: AFP

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