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October 7, 2026

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Singapore to push for deeper ASEAN integration, wider partnerships as bloc chair in 2027: Vivian Balakrishnan

Speaking at the Milken Institute Asia Summit, the foreign affairs minister also discussed navigating the US-China rivalry and warned of the risks posed by increasingly autonomous AI agents.

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SINGAPORE: Singapore will push for deeper economic integration within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and wider partnerships beyond the region when it takes over as chair in 2027, said Foreign Affairs Minister Vivian Balakrishnan on Wednesday (Oct 7).

He was responding to a question at the Milken Institute Asia Summit in Singapore, where Dr Balakrishnan was asked what Singapore would consider as a successful ASEAN chairmanship.

“If our economy within ASEAN continues to grow, continues to be more and more integrated, and if our respective strengths, say in energy and technology, could really be brought to a complementary where the whole is more than the sum of the parts, we would have succeeded,” he said.

“The more we can raft our economies, the better it is to cope with high waves and strong winds,” said Dr Balakrishnan to an audience of enterprise and business leaders at the Four Seasons Hotel.

On ASEAN seeking wider partnerships, he said this would go beyond the 10-member bloc’s traditional dialogue partners, to include regions such as Africa, South America, Pacific Islands and Canada as well in what he described as a “trans-Pacific strategy”.

The dialogue was moderated by the chief executive officer of the Milken Institute, Mr Richard Ditizio. The annual event, now in its 13th edition, brought together leaders in business, finance, government, technology and entertainment, with an expected turnout of 1,500 participants from 50 countries.

Health Minister Ong Ye Kung will also be speaking on a panel on Thursday with Milken Institute Women’s Health Network Jill Biden, who is the former US first lady from 2021 to 2025.

During the dialogue, Dr Balakrishnan said that despite the breakdown in trade and disruption in supply chains globally, ASEAN is still seeing significant growth, driven by artificial intelligence, semiconductors, and technology.

He cited the high economic growth rates recorded by Vietnam, Singapore and Indonesia, adding that the region still has “great growth potential in the next 20 years”.

“This is a moment of great potential and peril. This is a moment of great change and volatility,” he said.

“And if we can thread the needle, and not just for Singapore but for ASEAN as a whole, I think we’ve got quite a compelling narrative and great potential for ASEAN.”

ASEAN is currently chaired by the Philippines on a yearly rotating basis. It is expected to host a summit next month where its conclusion is typically marked by a ceremonial handing over of chairmanship to the next chair.

Singapore is already a key node in the global semiconductor supply chain, accounting for about one in 10 chips made worldwide.

Last month, VSMC, a joint venture by Taiwanese and Dutch firms, opened an S$8.5 billion wafer fabrication plant in Singapore, as growing demand for semiconductors is fuelled by developments including AI, electrification and industrial automation.

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Noting that Singapore has a high trust factor, Mr Ditizio then asked how Singapore can adopt technologies and regulate them in a way that people can trust.

To this, Dr Balakrishnan quoted a saying by former US Secretary of State George Shultz that “trust is the coin of the realm”.

“In fact, at a time of great disruption, trust becomes even more valid. So whatever happens, we intend to maintain our premium on trust,” he said.

Dr Balakrishnan then stressed the need for the government to be upfront with Singaporeans about the trade-offs, which is a key challenge in politics.

“That’s actually the missing ingredient in political systems in many other places, and that’s why you get the corrosive erosion of trust,” he said.

SINO-US RELATIONS AND INTERNATIONAL LAW

On navigating the growing US-China rivalry, Dr Balakrishnan said during the dialogue that this is a “peculiarly sensitive existential point”, and maintaining trust with both powers is vital to Singapore.

“The key challenge for us is to maintain trust with both the United States and China, not as a vassal state, not as a tributary state, but as a small but hopefully relevant and useful partner,” said Dr Balakrishnan.

He said that the US remains important to Singapore as a source of foreign investment and technology, as well as a key market for goods and services.

On China, Dr Balakrishnan pointed to Singapore’s deep linguistic, cultural and historical links with the country, noting that 74 per cent of Singapore’s population is of Chinese ancestry.

“As far as we can do so, we will refuse to choose because the moment you choose, in fact, you’ve lost strategic options,” he said.

Dr Balakrishnan added that Singapore also would not want to be in a position where either superpower could use the country as a proxy or a lever.

“My preferred option is to maintain a clear, steady, principled, consistent position, so that whatever they do, if I have to say no, we have to say no to you because we’ve done our own calculations of what’s in our enlightened long-term national interest.”

Asked by Mr Ditizio what the collective rejection of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz would mean in practice, and whether it would change how Singapore views regional energy security, Dr Balakrishnan stressed the importance of protecting the right of passage through international waterways.

The right of transit passage for vessels and aircraft through international straits is safeguarded under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

He noted that about 40 per cent of global trade passes through the Strait of Malacca and subsequently the Singapore Strait, with Singapore deriving significant economic value from providing services to vessels and trade passing through these waterways.

“This is absolutely crucial for us. When we look at the Straits of Hormuz, even without taking sides, any full-frontal assault on this regime of the right of transit passage for ships and aircraft over straits used for international navigation is a full-frontal threat to our business model.”

“LOSS OF CONTROL IS A REAL THREAT”

Dr Balakrishnan, who had experimented with building his own AI agents using open-source tools, spoke about the risks posed by the technology.

“I have spent enough time building, interacting and using agents to tell you that we have a real problem,” he said.

“Anyone who tells you I’ve got absolute control over my autonomous agent and I know exactly everything it’s going to do or not do, obviously doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Loss of control is a real threat.”

As such, rogue state and non-state actors could use the technology to develop new weapons of mass destruction, including in chemistry and biology, he said.

Dr Balakrishnan’s statement echoed recent warnings by other leaders as well as chief executives of AI-related companies about the risks posed by AI to humanity.

Anthropic, the company behind frontier AI model Claude, submitted US bourse filings that advanced AI could pose “catastrophic or existential risks to humanity” last month.

Leaders from Anthropic, OpenAI and HuggingFace on Sep 23 briefed the United Nations (UN) Security Council that increasingly powerful AI systems could soon improve themselves, slip beyond human control and pose a threat to international security.

Also in September, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong joined more than 20 other world leaders to urge companies, nations and UN member states to implement AI safety measures.

Giving his personal reflections on the matter of AI on Wednesday, Dr Balakrishnan said that the technology reflects the flaws and biases of the material it is trained on.

“If we train our agents on the entire corpus of stuff which has been published on the internet, and most of the stuff on the internet is violent, misogynistic, unfair, crazy, and then you are surprised that your AI agents are a reflection of humanity,” said Dr Balakrishnan.

“Now that can either be very scary, or it should be a moment of great contemplation.”

Source: CNA/nl(nj)

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