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Saturday, 30 May 2015
Asia wants positive US-China ties: Singapore's PM Lee
Every country in Asia hopes that the relationship between the United States and China will be positive, and no one wants to have to pick sides between the two giants, said Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Friday.
Every country in Asia hopes that the relationship between the United States and China will be positive, and no one wants to have to pick sides between the two giants, said Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Friday.
China’s rise over the years has been peaceful and within the established international order, but whether this can go on depends on the state of US-China ties.
“The relationship is fundamentally different from the US-Soviet relationship of old. It’s not a zero-sum game,” he said at the annual Shangri-la Dialogue (SLD).
Asian countries are glad that successive US administrations and Chinese leaderships have worked together despite nationalistic pressures on both sides and occasional tensions, and have thus read it as a “good sign” that the two powers recently said that the Pacific Ocean was “vast enough” for them both. This was provided it did not mean dividing up the Pacific Ocean between them, “each with its own sphere of influence”. What the phrase “vast enough” should ideally mean is that there would be enough space for both sides to “participate and compete peacefully” and to work out problems constructively.
In a 45-minute speech, he said competition between major powers was unavoidable; the question was one about the form this competition would take. One model would be where they can strengthen their influence within international rules and norms.
There is a “competitive dynamic” between the US and China, and this is evident in the initiatives each is spearheading: China is setting up the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the first Asian-based international bank; the US and Japan are not among the AIIB’s 57 founding members. Meanwhile, the US is leading talks for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a free trade pact involving 12 Pacific-Rim nations, but not China.
Mr Lee said: “It is an open secret that the US has reservations about the AIIB and has discouraged its friends from participating. On the TPP, observers believe the rules are being crafted to raise the hurdle for China to join. I’m quite sure that is not the thinking of all TPP members, although China, as a matter of fact, is not yet ready to join the TPP.”
The prime minister said that Singapore, an Asian country taking part in both initiatives, hopes China will one day join the TPP, and that the US and Japan would eventually join the AIIB.
He also sketched out another model of competition - where win-win arrangements are more difficult to reach and unhappy outcomes, tougher to avoid.
Referring to the increasingly heated territorial disputes in the East China Sea and South China Sea, he said although non-claimant countries cannot take sides on the merits of the rival claims, they had a stake in these disputes and how they are handled, and that Asian countries would be poorer for it if regional security and stability were threatened. He warned that the present dynamic would lead to more tensions and bad outcomes, and urged China and Asean to draw up a South China Sea Code of Conduct, so that the disputes do not sour their broader ties.
Turning to the threat of terrorism in South-east Asia and the detention of a radicalised teen in Singapore this week, he said: “Even in Singapore, where we have a peaceful, well-integrated Muslim population, some individuals have been led astray. This is why Singapore takes terrorism, and in particular ISIS, very seriously. The threat is no longer over there; it is over here.”
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Asia wants positive US-China ties: PM Lee
Lee U-Wen
30 May 2015
Every country in Asia hopes that the relationship between the United States and China will be positive, and no one wants to have to pick sides between the two giants, said Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Friday.
China’s rise over the years has been peaceful and within the established international order, but whether this can go on depends on the state of US-China ties.
“The relationship is fundamentally different from the US-Soviet relationship of old. It’s not a zero-sum game,” he said at the annual Shangri-la Dialogue (SLD).
Asian countries are glad that successive US administrations and Chinese leaderships have worked together despite nationalistic pressures on both sides and occasional tensions, and have thus read it as a “good sign” that the two powers recently said that the Pacific Ocean was “vast enough” for them both. This was provided it did not mean dividing up the Pacific Ocean between them, “each with its own sphere of influence”. What the phrase “vast enough” should ideally mean is that there would be enough space for both sides to “participate and compete peacefully” and to work out problems constructively.
In a 45-minute speech, he said competition between major powers was unavoidable; the question was one about the form this competition would take. One model would be where they can strengthen their influence within international rules and norms.
There is a “competitive dynamic” between the US and China, and this is evident in the initiatives each is spearheading: China is setting up the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the first Asian-based international bank; the US and Japan are not among the AIIB’s 57 founding members. Meanwhile, the US is leading talks for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a free trade pact involving 12 Pacific-Rim nations, but not China.
Mr Lee said: “It is an open secret that the US has reservations about the AIIB and has discouraged its friends from participating. On the TPP, observers believe the rules are being crafted to raise the hurdle for China to join. I’m quite sure that is not the thinking of all TPP members, although China, as a matter of fact, is not yet ready to join the TPP.”
The prime minister said that Singapore, an Asian country taking part in both initiatives, hopes China will one day join the TPP, and that the US and Japan would eventually join the AIIB.
He also sketched out another model of competition - where win-win arrangements are more difficult to reach and unhappy outcomes, tougher to avoid.
Referring to the increasingly heated territorial disputes in the East China Sea and South China Sea, he said although non-claimant countries cannot take sides on the merits of the rival claims, they had a stake in these disputes and how they are handled, and that Asian countries would be poorer for it if regional security and stability were threatened. He warned that the present dynamic would lead to more tensions and bad outcomes, and urged China and Asean to draw up a South China Sea Code of Conduct, so that the disputes do not sour their broader ties.
Turning to the threat of terrorism in South-east Asia and the detention of a radicalised teen in Singapore this week, he said: “Even in Singapore, where we have a peaceful, well-integrated Muslim population, some individuals have been led astray. This is why Singapore takes terrorism, and in particular ISIS, very seriously. The threat is no longer over there; it is over here.”
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