Singapore says US, China both risking status quo with actions

SINGAPORE (June 3): Singapore Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen criticised both the US and China for taking “unilateral actions,” lumping the two rivals together as nations challenging the current global order.

In a speech to the annual IISS Shangri-La Dialogue security forum in Singapore, Ng said the world’s two-biggest economies were similarly using security considerations to justify their behaviour -- the US on trade and China for its military buildup in the disputed South China Sea.

“Whatever the merit of these arguments, these deviations from global norms challenge the status quo and accepted rules which have hitherto benefited Asia and the regions beyond,” Ng said. “It is plainly obvious that local politics and the shift in relative strengths of global or regional powers are in fact changing the rules of the international order previously entrenched.”

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