Singapore’s former ambassador to the US warns no roadmap for worsening US-China ties

[SINGAPORE] Former Singapore ambassador to the US warned there’s no roadmap to improve ties between the US and China as the two square off over everything from trade to Taiwan.

Any US leader “would want to see America dominant, so there will be this contest,” Chan Heng Chee, currently Ambassador-at-Large with Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and formerly ambassador to the US between 1996 and 2012, said in an interview with Haslinda Amin at Bloomberg’s New Voices event in Singapore. “There will be a clash head to head.”

At the same time, “I would not say President Trump himself comes to the table feeling very hostile and wanting to contain China,” she said on Wednesday (May 7). “One cannot give a roadmap in such a relationship.”

President Donald Trump’s rewriting of US trade and defence policies has rocked ties with allies from Europe to Japan, while punishing levies of as high as 145 per cent on China. But South-east Asian nations were also on the receiving end of some of the highest proposed tariff hikes introduced last month.

Nations across the region have pledged in response to increase purchases of a swathe of US goods to strengthen their case for lower tariffs, as the International Monetary Fund warned of significant economic fallout for the trade-reliant region.

“Candidate Donald J Trump ran on the promise of disruption,” Ambassador Chan said. “He laid out all the policies that he said he would do, and he did exactly that.”

“Most of us were shocked and some were awed. You know why,” she asked. “It’s because of the speed in which things have happened.” BLOOMBERG