Asian leaders meet amid talks of ‘domino effect’ of protectionism

Singapore, November 13 

Asian leaders gathered for a summit on Tuesday amid warnings that the post-World War Two international order is in jeopardy and trade tensions between Washington and Beijing could trigger a “domino effect” of protectionist measures by other countries.

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad told a business forum ahead of the summit in Singapore that other developed countries would take a cue from the US and China if their tit-for-tat tariff war is allowed to spiral.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, for a second day, struck a conciliatory note on the trade spat, saying he was hopeful that the two sides will find a way to prevent it escalating further. “I still hope we can hold talks based on mutual respect, balance and mutual benefits to resolve the issue. There are no winners in a trade war,” Li said .

US Vice-President Mike Pence will attend the Singapore meetings instead of President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly panned existing multilateral trade pacts as unfair and has railed against China over intellectual property theft, entry barriers to American businesses and a yawning US trade gap.

It was not clear if Li and Pence would meet separately on the sidelines in Singapore, which would be a prelude to a summit scheduled between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the end of the month in Buenos Aires.

Before he arrived in Singapore on Monday, Li said China would further open its economy in the face of rising protectionism, though he did not refer directly to China’s bruising trade war with the US.

Mahathir, a veteran strongman of the region who in May returned to the prime minister’s office he had occupied for 22 years, told reporters that the US is “a colonial power” that uses “economic pressure to cow people”. That was echoed by summit host Singaporean Prime Lee Hsien Loong, who told a welcome ceremony for his ASEAN counterparts that “the international order is at a turning point”.  — Reuters