SINGAPORE – Smaller countries cannot dictate what big powers choose to do, but they do have agency, said Senior Minister Teo Chee Hean, noting that China and the United States seem to have opted to show strength through confrontation rather than cooperation for now.
“The implications of this choice – to be dance partners or battling gladiators – are seismic,” SM Teo, who is also Coordinating Minister for National Security, said on March 28 at the inaugural ThinkChina forum, organised by the eponymous English-language digital magazine which comes under Lianhe Zaobao.
He cited three categories of issues between the two great powers: those that can trigger conflict, such as Taiwan; deep differences such as trade imbalances that should not on their own result in conflict; and issues of the global commons like climate change.
Both sides have declared that they do not seek nor want war with the other, he said, adding that if that is the case, then they should work to manage the first set of issues.
“But if one side or the other, or both, believe that confrontation and conflict is inevitable, then the second and third set of issues are merely bargaining chips to be accumulated in preparation for a conflict,” said SM Teo.
Uncertainty over US-China relations as well as global trade has deepened since US President Donald Trump took power in January 2025 and proceeded to impose across-the-board tariffs on imports from China, Canada and Mexico.
On what smaller countries, especially those in the region, can do, SM Teo said the current global uncertainties have added motivation for countries to tie up with one another.
India, for example, can potentially benefit from this, as it is being sought out as a partner by Britain, the European Union, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and New Zealand, among others.
He noted that Singapore has good relations, including free trade agreements (FTAs), with the US and China, and has built a wide network of FTAs with the GCC, EU, Britain, the South American trade bloc Mercosur, India, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and the Eurasian Economic Union, which includes Russia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
SM Teo added that countries in South-east Asia should continue to develop partnerships that include both the US and China, or just one or the other of the two great powers, or which exclude both these powers, so long as these tie-ups welcome economies that subscribe to the same principles and are prepared to abide by the same rules.
Some examples are the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, which includes both powers, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, which includes just China, and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, which has neither powers as members.
“These bilateral, multilateral and minilateral relationships are building blocks that can provide an environment where trade and investment continue to flow relatively smoothly,” he said.
SM Teo wrapped up his speech by quoting from an address by the late prime minister Lee Kuan Yew to the Joint US Houses of Congress in October 1985 on what the 21st century could look like:
“For 40 years the maintenance of political boundaries was made possible because thrusting, and usually aggressive, peoples have been able to fulfil their drive to better their lot through trade.
“If this method for adjustment and accommodation between societies moving at different speeds is no longer possible, then a return to the traditional ways of conquest or influence is likely.”
During a discussion that followed, eminent historian Wang Gungwu also delved into history, sketching out the evolution of the global world order for the 250-strong audience, made up of those at the Capitol Kempinski Hotel Singapore and others listening in from Kuala Lumpur via a live streaming.
Around the 1500s, when the Spanish and Portuguese started to turn to the oceans, was the beginning of a global world order that had never existed before, one that was based on naval power, he said.
By the 19th century, the world order was dominated by naval powers Britain and France.
After the two world wars in the 20th century, a bipolar world order emerged, with the US and former Soviet Union (USSR) fighting each other indirectly during the Cold War.
The demise of the USSR in 1989 bequeathed the world with a unipolar system led by the US and “they did their best from their perspective to make the world better”.
But today, this world order has been seriously challenged under the second Trump administration, said Professor Wang.
“We look at the US today, we are not sure where they are going to go. Trump says, ‘Make America great again’. Is it so that they can re-establish a unipolar position to dominate the world, or are they retreating from that position, maybe to an isolationist world at the other extreme?” he questioned.
Also drawing from the past, Professor Yasheng Huang of the US business school MIT Sloan School of Management noted that the rise of East Asian economies post-World War II has taken place in a context where they were moving towards a more open world and becoming part of the global economy.
He cautioned that it is a mistake to negate free trade and globalisation, like what the US is doing.
“It is incumbent on other countries, as the US goes in that direction, to continue on this path of collaboration,” he added.
Prof Huang was pessimistic about what the next four years hold in terms of the economy, saying that he has written off robust economic growth.
“We are going to have recessions and shocks,” he said.
The speakers at the forum, including Associate Professor Ngeow Chow Bing of the University of Malaya, who spoke via live streaming from KL, also discussed the challenges that China faces domestically, such as in creating enough jobs and boosting consumption to reinvigorate a sluggish economy.
On whether Taiwan, which China claims as part of its territory, would become a flashpoint, Prof Wang was sanguine.
He believed that this would not be the case, noting that the Chinese have said they would not attack Taiwan as long as the latter does not declare independence and that they would try to resolve the problem peacefully.
“I feel confident that the Chinese would not attack Taiwan unless they declare independence. The Taiwanese are intelligent enough not to declare independence. And unless somebody provokes it deliberately, to want to start something, there would not be a war with China,” he said.
* Ho Ai Li is assistant foreign editor at The Straits Times, helping to oversee its coverage of East Asia. She also writes columns on culture and heritage.
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