NEW DELHI, Sept 11 — While tensions between major powers have affected multilateral cooperation, what Singapore has done is to work with “like-minded friends”, and there has...
NEW DELHI, Sept 11 — While tensions between major powers have affected multilateral cooperation, what Singapore has done is to work with “like-minded friends”, and there has been progress as a result, said Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong yesterday.“But if there’s not the trust or if there’s not the goodwill, or in some cases where you’re in conflict with one another, ‘I don’t want win-win, I want win-lose’.
On Singapore’s part, while it “would much prefer” to have a big framework that works for everyone, it acknowledges how things are in the current global situation. Earlier on Sunday, Lee met with the president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen. They reafffirmed warm relations between Singapore and the EU, and welcomed the recent launch of negotiations for the EU-Singapore Digital Trade Agreement, said a spokesperson from Singapore’s Prime Minister’s Office.
Over the weekend, Lee spoke to an audience of global leaders about tackling climate change, as well as the challenges facing multilateralism and how to overcome them. “We also put in principles, how to address them, but the specifics of it, the actual substance of the cooperation, I think that progress takes a lot of time in this environment,” he said.“But it’s also because ‘I don’t want you to have a successful result. And so I would rather there not be an outcome than there would be an outcome’. There is some of this dynamic in play,” he added.
Chinese premier Li Qiang and Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov attended in their stead respectively.