(Bloomberg) — Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong warned the U.S. against isolating China over the war in Ukraine by framing it as a battle between democracies and autocracies, which would complicate an already fraught relationship between the two powers.
“You have to be very careful not to define the problem with Ukraine in such a way that automatically, China is already on the wrong side,” Lee said in comments published by his office on Sunday.
“We all have a problem in Ukraine,” he continued. “I think if we talk about sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity, a lot of countries can come along. Even China would not object to that, and would actually privately strongly support that.”
Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine has tested ties between the U.S. and China already strained by a host of security and economic issues from Taiwan, to the South China Sea, telecommunications technology and trade. Asian nations like Singapore have long sought closer ties between the two in order to cooperate on other global issues like climate change and a response to the pandemic.
Still, China’s muted response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has hardened views within President Joe Biden’s administration that President Xi Jinping may be moving closer to supporting Moscow as the conflict continues. Lee previously said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine raises “awkward questions” for China because it violates Beijing’s closely-held principles of territorial integrity, sovereignty and non-interference.
“Already, things are difficult enough,” he said in the remarks published on Sunday. “There is very little trust on both sides. It is not so easy to find the right level empowered to engage so that you can tee up to reach rapprochement to reduce the tensions, gradually to build up trust, and to work toward accommodations which are necessary, if you are going to coexist with them.”
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