America’s Asian role crucial

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has underlined the symbiotic relationship between trade and security by expressing hope that America will continue to pursue deeper ties with Asia at a time when security concerns are trumping trade considerations. Launching Enterprise Singapore’s San Francisco Overseas Centre on Tuesday, he noted that strategic and security concerns were increasingly overriding free trade and economic welfare considerations amid a more complex global environment. But he hoped that America would maintain and even strengthen its relationship with Asia and the rest of the world despite this trend. This is so, he added, because countries, even big countries, need to do business and trade with one another – not just in the interests of collective prosperity but also because trade is an important facet of international cooperation and peace. Major economies such the US, which act as anchors, need to be deeply engaged with the world.

PM Lee’s presence at the annual leaders’ meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in San Francisco attests to the importance that Singapore attaches to the peaceful agency of economics in global affairs. The United States plays a crucial role in upholding the international architecture of peace. If international relations are ultimately determined by the combination of guns and butter, the American military presence in Asia underwrites the stability of the region by maintaining a balance of power which preserves the status quo and helps countries such as Singapore. However, a policy that is all guns and no butter cannot win, particularly when other major powers are rising economically in a way that cannot but translate into military power. Hence, in its own interests, the US needs to be engaged economically with Asia (as with other parts of the world) so that its military prowess continues to be financed by its economic achievements, which are substantial but which need to be sustained.