Singapore eyes Asean connectivity amid new US-China dynamic: Lawrence Wong

At the Singapore Press Club Eminent Speaker Series on Monday, Wong noted that keeping communication lines open between Chinese President Xi Jinping and his American counterpart Donald Trump was important to reduce the risk of misunderstanding and miscalculation, but stressed that was not the panacea for all problems.

Wong, who is also Singapore’s finance minister, said that increasingly both sides must recognise they had to coexist since the two economies are too deeply intertwined.

He added that it was not possible for either side to dominate or exclude the other, and any move by one party would spark a significant reaction from the other.

“It reminds me of what happened during the Cold War, when people talk about, M.A.D – mutually assured destruction – and perhaps now there is a similar dynamic happening, a different type of M.A.D … because any attempt by one side to impose restrictions on another will trigger a response from the other side, and in the end both parties will be worse off,” Wong said.

Wong stressed that the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ view was that the region should not be dominated by a single power or zero-sum competition, nor should it have exclusive commitments to any single party, as the regional bloc wanted an open, inclusive environment to engage with all major players.