Speaking to reporters on the last working day of the 20th Shangri-La Dialogue, a regional security forum in Singapore, the Minister said that Singapore and ASEAN have a vested interest in making sure that communication lines between the two superpowers are working properly.

He noted that the US and China do not want a physical conflict, but it will take time for them to reach an acceptable state of affairs.

The US and China are the first and second largest economies and it’s not possible to solve many big problems without both of them working together to come up with a solution or find a way forward, the Singapore defense minister said.