In-person talks can build trust amid complex world order: PM

Small states can amplify their voice globally by working together amid big-power rivalry

- Hariz Baharudin

The world is in a new situation whereby the understanding that the major powers will compete with one another but stop short of damaging the peace no longer holds, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said on Saturday.

Such complex times put a premium on face-to-face dialogue between government leaders to build trust and forge multilateral cooperation, Mr Lee told Singapore reporters at the close of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (Chogm) in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda.

Today, there are not just competitors but in Europe’s case actual opponents, hostilities and bloodshed, he noted. In Asia, there is also the potential for things to go wrong if matters are not carefully handled.

“It is a new position that the world is in, the period where the US saw China’s emergence as benign, I think it’s past. The period when in Europe, people talked about the post-Cold War peace dividend, that’s also past,” he said.

“And therefore, it is no longer a situation where in the world, big countries are competing with one another but basically at peace.”