Image: Flickr User - Ash Carter |
By Prashanth Parameswaran
The city-state’s defense minister calls for “a new accommodation” between the United States and rising powers.
Singapore’s defense minister told a forum in Washington, D.C. last week that a new accommodation needed to be found between the United States and other rising powers like China as part of a more inclusive security architecture for the Asia-Pacific.
While the United States has been the preeminent power since the end of the Cold War, Ng Eng Hen told an audience in a speech on December 9 that China’s growing heft as well as the rise of other actors such as India and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) called for a “a new accommodation” as part of a more inclusive security architecture.
“The Asia-Pacific region is changing as it enters the new millennium with different forces shaping its future from the past,” Ng said at an event organized by the Center for a New American Security, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. “To maintain stability and allow regional nations to continue their progress, we will need to be inclusive and accommodate rising powers and the aspirations of individual countries.”
Whatever the merits of China’s claims that the post-WWII system does not allow it to fully fulfill its rising aspirations, Ng said that the world “cannot ignore the rise and influence of China and other growing powers.” Over the past decade, he noted that military spending in Asia and Oceania had increased by about 62 percent, about ten times more than that of Europe.
“The search for inclusivity and for common rules that will bind us all is necessary, even urgent, as we are now dealing with a more militarized Asia,” Ng said.
Read the full story at The Diplomat