Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has said that ASEAN countries need to focus on regional cooperation and away from domestic agendas as the region gears up to set up the ASEAN Economic Community by the end of 2015.
Mr Lee also took questions from business leaders at the Singapore Summit on Saturday (Sep 19) on China's recent moves to devalue its currency and prop up its stock market, which have prompted concerns among industry watchers with some seeing its approach as ‘heavy-handed’.
ON CHINA'S ECONOMIC GROWTH
While Mr Lee acknowledged the actions taken were not easy, he said China needs to examine how it can manage its structural reforms to sustain economic growth: “And I think what they need is political preconditions so that the leadership can push on these very difficult structural issues.
PM Lee Hsien Long at the 9th Asia-Europe (ASEM 9) summit in Vientiane, Laos. (AFP/HOANG DINH Nam)
"Whether it's SOEs, whether it's taxes, whether it's land, particularly agricultural land, whether it's urbanisation. These are things where they have big decisions to make, and I think they'll need to make progress, not necessarily in military style nationwide, but with experiments and trials and successes and progressive implementation.”
ON CHINA'S RELATIONS WITH JAPAN, US
Amid China's development and rising influence, Mr Lee said its relationship with the United States should be managed in a way that does not undermine smaller countries in the region.
"You've got to work through this in order to cooperate with each other, and yet cooperate with in each other in a way that smaller countries, Japan not so small, Korea not so small, Southeast Asian countries mostly small, that they've been edged out and there's a condominium of the big powers,” said Mr Lee.
He added: “You've got to institutionalise this. It's not just the top leader but also the officials and militaries. That's a very challenging job. Because you're talking about a very major change in the balance of power, in the landscape internationally, with China becoming a much more prominent and influential. And America has to be able to accommodate that without saying, ‘Well you do what you like because I'm in sunset' because America's not in sunset.
On China's relationship with Japan, Mr Lee said that while the temperature has come down slightly, historical differences continue to cast a shadow on reconciliation.
He said: “It’s also a question of how China as a growing power can fit Japan into its aims and how Japan as a considerable economy still much more advanced than China can hold its own without souring its relationship with its growing and very steadily developing neighbour.”
FOCUS ON REGIONAL COOPERATION
Closer to home - as the region gears up for the ASEAN Economic Community 2015, Mr Lee said the countries should devote political attention and capital towards regional cooperation and away from domestic agendas: "Domestic agendas have to be attended to but if that becomes all-consuming and you don't have space for ASEAN cooperation or you're unable to make the case for ASEAN cooperation - for example in investment guarantees, trade, technical cooperation or human resources - then we'll have the form of it, but not have fully fulfilled the substance."
ASEAN's target is to achieve regional economic integration by the end of 2015.
- CNA/hs
