The growing dispute between the US and China on trade and technology is increasing the risk of military conflict or outright war in Asia, a region that hosts some of the world’s most dangerous geopolitical flashpoints, south-east Asian defence ministers cautioned at a security forum on Sunday.
The warnings at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, the annual Asian defence summit, came as China at the weekend stepped up its counter-offensive against the US in their trade war, announcing an investigation of delivery group FedEx and a potential blacklist of foreign companies or individuals considered “unreliable”.
“With the untethering of our networks of economic interdependence comes growing risk of confrontation that could lead to war,” Delfin Lorenzana, defence minister of the Philippines, said on Sunday at the Shangri-La Dialogue, the annual security conference in Singapore. “Our greatest fear, therefore, is the possibility of sleepwalking into another international conflict like world war one.”