Singapore’s prime minister Lee Hsien Loong recently managed what few other global leaders would be able or willing to do: travel to China and publicly praise a US-led Asian initiative.
“Asia should always remain an open region,” Lee said at the Boao Forum for Asia in Hainan. “As Asian countries develop co-operation among ourselves, we should also cultivate our relations with the US, Europe and other parts of the world.”
That Lee commended the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework — a trade initiative intended to reassert US engagement in the region with an alternative to Beijing’s economic statecraft — at one of China’s largest annual international conferences pleased many American policymakers, said one US official based in Singapore who asked to remain anonymous.