Singapore’s leader downplayed the likelihood of an imminent conflict overTaiwan, saying China isn’t “trigger happy” about taking over the self-governing island it has long viewed as its territory.“They would like Taiwan to be part of ‘one China,’” but aren’t sure how to make it happen, Prime MinisterLee Hsien Loongsaid Wednesday at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Singapore.Unless Beijing is provoked, the world isn’t “going to wake up one day and find that they’ve decided to launch D-Day,” he added.Referring to a brutal World War II battle between the US and Japan over another Pacific island, Lee said that “Attacking Taiwan is not like doing Iwo Jima, and Iwo Jima was bloody enough.”Lee’s comments about Taiwan underscored a touch of optimism about one of the biggest sources of tensions in US-China relations ahead of an expected meeting between Presidents Xi Jinping and Joe Biden next week in California — their first face-to-face encounter in about a year. Those talks are a positive development but won’t resolve all the challenges in the relationship between the world’s two biggest economies, Lee said.“You need a meeting to head in the right direction but you don’t expect a meeting to make everything sweetness and light or something,” Lee said in the interview with Bloomberg News Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait.Southeast Asian nations have grown concerned over the prospect of a conflict as the US-China relationship deteriorated in recent years over a wide range of issues including Taiwan, human rights and access to advanced technology. Leaders have urged both sides to avoid having competition splinter critical supply chains and destabilize the region.Looking at another regional hot spot, Lee said Southeast Asian nations seek to calibrate their response to Beijing’s claims in the South China Sea.Tensions in the waterway escalated recently after Chinese vessels collided with Philippines ships on two separate occasions near a Filipino military outpost in Second Thomas Shoal — which both nations claim as their own. China went on to accuse the US — a Philippine treaty ally — of encouraging provocations by other countries in the disputed maritime area, where nations including Vietnam, Brunei and Malaysia have also staked claims.“Four Asean countries have claims in the South China Sea,” Lee said. “All of them want to work an arrangement out between themselves and with China, but at the same time all of them have other stakes with China.”
China unlikely to launch ‘D-Day’ on Taiwan, Singapore PM says … – IndiaTimes Feedzy
