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In challenging times, it will do more to expand its work to forge more renewable energy deals and initiatives, including with partners beyond Southeast Asia such as in the Middle East and Africa, said the republic’s prime minister Lawrence Wong at the S Rajaratnam Lecture last week.
At the same time, Singapore will have to drive deeper integration with its regional neighbours in Asean, for example by accelerating the development of a cross-border power grid that will allow for multilateral power trading across Southeast Asia, he said.
In his speech, Singapore prime minister Lawrence Wong said Singapore is not without agency and it can shape its own destiny, despite its limitations as a small state amid the changing geopolitical order. Image: Vivian Balakrishnan / Facebook
The annual forum features the city-state’s political leaders who are invited to share their perspectives on security and geopolitical issues.
“By facilitating cross-border electricity trade, the grid will help our region to transition faster to green energy, draw in new investments, create better jobs and strengthen our collective energy security,” said Wong.
Wong also stressed that Singapore will not choose to be a “passive bystander” amid a chaotic transition marked by a fraying international order and defined by growing rivalry between major powers like the US and China, despite its limitations as a small state.
“The monsoon winds are blowing again. But we do not need to cower, and we certainly will not capitulate.”
Momentum for interconnected grid?
Wong stressed that the clouds shrouding the global economy are unlikely to lift for a while. Singapore’s trade and industry ministry has cut its growth forecast for 2025 to zero per cent to 2 per cent in the face of a US-China tariff war. Post-tariff measures announced by US president Donald Trump on 2 April include a universal 10 per cent tariff on all imports into the country, which impacts Singapore.
Higher “reciprocal tariff” rates had also been placed on countries deemed to have treated the US unfairly, though in a stunning reversal less than a day after the hefty duties kicked in for most of its trading partners, Trump said he would temporarily pause the measures for 90 days.
In his address, Wong outlined three responses that reflect Singapore’s strategy to “reach out and not retreat” in the face of these new global developments, including Trump’s tariffs. The policy thrusts include fostering deeper Asean integration, becoming a platform for “incubating” practical ideas, as well as contributing actively to the stewardship of the global commons.
On Asean, he mooted the idea of 100-per-cent tariff-free trade across the region and the reduction of non-tariff barriers to make it easier for businesses to operate. He said the republic will work with Malaysia – the current Asean chair – to translate an Indo-Pacific outlook strategy known as the Asean Outlook on the Indo-Pacific (AOIP) into concrete projects and initiatives. AOIP explicitly rejects zero-sum competition or dominance by any single power.
He observed that economic instruments like tariffs and sanctions are now being used “not for market purposes, but as instruments of statecraft to advance national interests”.
Experts have warned that the steep tariffs on imported goods into the US will impact the renewables transition across Southeast Asia or at least change the dynamics of how supply chains for clean technology are shaped.
The Asean power grid has been decades in the making, though headway has been made in recent years. In 2022, the Laos-Thailand-Malaysia-Singapore electricity import pilot was launched; subsequently, in August 2023, the Brunei-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines power integration project was announced. The renewed momentum has seen increased cooperation on regional subsea and overland cables, energy storage systems and solar projects.
On the interconnected grid which Asean nations have said would bring significant socioeconomic benefits for the region, Wong did not provide a specific timeline or more details on what Singapore would do to accelerate its implementation.
Climate needs more global cooperation, not less
Wong said climate change is among the world’s pressing challenges that “require more global cooperation, not less.” He cited the work of Rena Lee, Singapore’s special envoy of the Minister for Foreign Affairs, as evidence that it is still possible for the world to find consensus “despite a fraught geopolitical environment”. Lee led United Nations negotiations on the landmark High Seas Treaty on biodiversity.
Wong noted that countries everywhere are re-examining their strategic assumptions and recalibrating their policies in light of geopolitical shifts. For much of the past 60 years, Singapore had thrived in a post-World War II rules-based international order largely shaped by American leadership and it is in the context of the US being a force for stability that its economy has taken flight, he said.
Yet beyond the tariff measures, Wong observed that there is a growing impulse within the US to turn inward with remarks from members of the Trump administration reflecting “deeper, structural changes in the American society” of its desire to cut back on what it does abroad. “This may not be just a temporary change in policy. This could reflect the new normal in the US for some time to come.”
At the moment, neither China nor any other country is willing – or able to – fill the vacuum, he said.
The address was delivered a day after the Singapore parliament was dissolved for a pending general election to be held on 3 May. It will be Wong’s first as prime minister and secretary-general of the ruling People’s Action Party.
Wong said: “Many do not just want to know how Singapore will be affected by developments elsewhere; they also want to know how we are responding, and why.”
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