Washington and Beijing are leading the world into “dangerous territory,” Singapore’s future PM has told Bloomberg News
US-China tensions are rising in the wake of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan earlier this month, and the two countries are at increasing risk of stumbling into an unintended war, Singapore’s prime minister-in-waiting has warned in an interview.
“We are starting to see a series of decisions being taken by both countries that will lead us into more and more dangerous territory,”Bloomberg News interviewed Lawrence Wong on Monday, the Singapore Deputy Prime minister. Wong, who doubles as finance minister, has been picked by the city state’s ruling party to succeed Lee Hsien Loong as prime minister, though the timing for that handoff hasn’t been determined.
Future PM warns Taiwan that Taiwan is only one “flashpoint”In the relation between Washington, Beijing and other countries, miscalculations, regardless of intent, can rapidly escalate into conflict. “It can easily become very dangerous, as we have seen in recent events, and can even escalate quite quickly, not because either partly wants this to happen, because as I said, both sides understand the consequences and really do not want to go into conflict.”
Both sides’ leadership understands this. But as they say, no one deliberately wants to go into battle, but we sleepwalk into conflict, and that’s the biggest problem and danger.
Beijing cut off military and climate ties with Washington after Pelosi’s trip to Taipei, saying she had undermined China’s sovereignty and emboldened separatists in Taiwan. China responded to this with military drills and tensions escalated after another US congress delegation traveled to Taiwan on Sunday.
Wong stated that he expected US-China relations remain antagonistic, at the very least due to domestic politics between the two countries. Wong said that Singapore was a good example of this. “not an ally to America”Taiwanese independence and opposition
Wong repeated comments made by Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of US State and US Secretary of Defense, in which he said Washington has been recklessly pursuing wars with Russia or China.
“We are at the edge of war with Russia and China on issues which we partly created, without any concept of how this is going to end or what it’s supposed to lead to,” Kissinger said.
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