Stable US-China ties key to belt and road success, Singapore’s Heng Swee Keat says

Heng says tensions in region – including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea – must be better managed for belt and road project to boost growth and innovation

Speaking in a forum in Hong Kong, Heng urged parties to reduce tensions by maintaining open channels for dialogue, and identifying grounds for cooperation

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Workers at the site of the China-Laos railway – a project of the Belt and Road Initiative – in Vientiane, Laos, in 2020. Photo: Xinhua

Published: 7:30pm, 31 Aug 2022

Even as China faces questions over its ability to press on with its global connectivity plan amid an economic slowdown, Singapore views the Belt and Road Initiative as a timely project that can drive growth through global innovation and collaboration.

But for these to take place, Singapore’s deputy prime minister Heng Swee Keat said that tensions and flashpoints in the region – including those in the Taiwan Strait, South China Sea, and Korean peninsula – must be better managed.

Speaking at the 7th Belt and Road Summit Policy Dialogue held in Hong Kong on Wednesday, Heng said the bid for better infrastructure and a more integrated region was predicated upon stability.

Singapore’s deputy prime minister Heng Swee Keat. Photo: Bloomberg

“Peace has become more brittle in Asia,” said Heng, who is also Singapore’s coordinating minister for economic policies. With intensifying strategic competition in the absence of trust, “the next flare-up or miscalculation could shatter the peace”, he added.

“We must steer away from such a precarious future,” Heng said, noting that this required all parties to ratchet down tensions by maintaining open and constructive channels for dialogue, and identifying common grounds for cooperation.

After US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan at the beginning of August, China conducted its largest military drills near the island in decades while last weekend, two US warships passed through the strait between China and Taiwan.

Analysts have warned that any miscalculations might lead to a wider regional conflict or even war in the region, with Singapore’s former foreign minister George Yeo warning last week that constant provocation by the US would lead to a conflict “which will explode in our faces”.

Participants at the Belt and Road Summit in Hong Kong on Wednesday. Photo: AFP