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Call for open markets as world leaders gather in Singapore
SINGAPORE, Nov 12, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Singapore’s prime minister made an
impassioned plea Monday for open markets and warned “political pressures”
were driving countries apart, in a swipe at rising protectionism at the start
of a gathering of world leaders.
Dignitaries including Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and US Vice President Mike
Pence are attending this week’s summit in the city-state against the backdrop
of a months-long trade dispute between Beijing and Washington.
Some of the leaders are expected to announce major progress on a massive
China-backed trade deal that excludes the US, in a rebuke to President Donald
Trump’s increasingly unilateralist approach to international commerce.
Trump is skipping the annual summit — which was regularly attended by his
predecessor Barack Obama — in a sign of how far he has withdrawn from
attempts to shape the global rules of trade and raising new questions about
Washington’s commitment to Asia.
Addressing a business forum ahead of this week’s main meetings, Singapore
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong called for Southeast Asian companies to invest
more in each others’ markets and be more open to foreign competition.
“The more integrated and open our markets are, and the more conducive our
rules and business environments to foreign investment, the larger the pie
will grow, and the more we will all benefit,” he said.
The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) “has great
potential, but fully realising it depends on whether we choose to become more
integrated, and work resolutely towards this goal in a world where
multilateralism is fraying under political pressures”.
– Economic standoff –
The US-China trade dispute has seen Trump slap higher tariffs on roughly
half of Chinese imports, and Beijing retaliate with its own levies.
The standoff is having an impact far beyond the world’s top two economies,
and leaders at the four days of meetings will be keen to voice their
grievances to Pence, who is participating in Trump’s place, and China’s Li.
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Some export-reliant Asian economies have already seen manufacturing
activity weaken, while Singapore’s prime minister warned earlier this year
that a trade war would have a “big, negative impact” on the financial hub,
which relies heavily on international commerce.
While Trump has railed at trade deals and pushed his isolationist “America
First” agenda, Beijing has increasingly talked up the benefits of open
markets.
In an editorial in Singapore’s pro-government Straits Times newspaper
Monday, China’s Li said the world was facing “challenges of rising
protectionism and unilateralism”.
“We should work for an open world economy by advocating, practising and
upholding openness,” he wrote.
Many of those attending the Singapore summit are expected to send a message
in support of free trade by announcing major progress on a China-backed deal,
the 16-member Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).
With Trump having pulled the US out of rival pact the Trans-Pacific
Partnership (TPP), the RCEP is now the world’s biggest trade deal, covering
half the world’s population.
The pact — which is less ambitious than the TPP in areas such as
employment and environmental protection — groups the 10 ASEAN members plus
China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.
The TPP, which was championed by Obama as the economic plank of his “pivot
to Asia”, has been kept alive without the US and will go into force this
year.
BSS/AFP/HR/1330