Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) said that Southeast Asian nations might be forced to choose between the US and China, as concerns deepen about a Cold War-style conflict between the world’s two biggest economies.
“The circumstances may come where ASEAN will have to choose one or the other,” Lee said on Thursday night at the close of a regional summit hosted by the 10-member association. “I hope it does not happen soon.”
Lee’s remarks reflect fears among smaller nations that the US-China trade war could disrupt supply chain integration throughout Asia, leading to different sets of rules for operating with either powerhouse.
Photo: AP
Southeast Asian nations have long sought to balance the world’s major powers to avoid getting caught in another conflict like the Vietnam War. That strategy has underpinned stability, leading to increased trade with China, as well as closer security ties with the US to hedge against Beijing’s territorial claims in the South China Sea.
In another sign of regional realignment, Australia, India, Japan and the US — a group informally known as the “Quad” — met on Thursday in Singapore to reaffirm their “shared commitment to maintain and strengthen a rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific in which all nations are sovereign, strong, and prosperous,” the US said in a statement.
It was that same rules-based order that Lee said was “fraying” as China’s rise and US President Donald Trump’s “America First” policies encourage nations to pick a side.
Lee called for greater economic integration and said that ASEAN must understand where it might need to make a choice between one of the other.
“If you’re talking about economic cooperation, theoretically that is win-win,” Lee said. “But if the global economy pulls apart into different blocs, then ASEAN will be put in a difficult position.”
Speaking alongside Lee after finalizing a tax agreement yesterday, US Vice President Mike Pence underscored the strategic tension with a few thinly veiled jabs at China.
“Empire and aggression had no place” in the region, Pence said, while pledging to defend freedom of navigation in the South China Sea.
“The South China Sea doesn’t belong to any one nation,” Pence said. “And you can be sure: The United States will continue to sail and fly wherever international law allows and our national interests demand.”
In Beijing, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Hua Chunying (華春瑩) said that no country, including the US, had ever provided any evidence of problems with freedom of navigation or overflight in the South China Sea.
“May I trouble you to remind Mr Pence that the United States has yet to ratify the United Nations’ Law of the Sea Convention (UNCLOS),” Hua told a daily news briefing. “If the United States can at an early date ratify and abide by UNCLOS, then I think this will benefit even more the protection of peace and stability in the South China Sea area.”
The 1982 convention defines how coastal states are allowed to establish sovereignty over territorial seas and exclusive economic zones.
China has signed and ratified it.
Additional reporting by Reuters
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