Month: September 2024

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3 superpowers by 2050: Tony Blair on how world leaders’ voices can be heard loud and clear

By Clement Tan | Sept 30, 2024 | The Straits Times

SINGAPORE – Governing leaders should prepare to navigate a complex world order with three superpowers in ways that may enhance their own positions and interests.

That was the frank assessment of former British prime minister Tony Blair in an interview with The Straits Times on Sept 23, while he was in Singapore for the annual Asia Summit of American think-tank Milken Institute.

“You have got to decide where your country fits in the world, because it is going to be a world that is going to be multipolar, (where there) will be, in my view, by the middle of this century, three superpowers effectively: America, China and probably India,” said Mr Blair, who is a self-professed centrist.

“Therefore, you are going to have to build strong alliances that enable you to talk to these three superpowers with some level of, you know, equality,” he added.

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Polish Foreign Minister brings Ukraine rallying cry to South-east Asia

By Clement Tan | Sep 4, 2024 | The Straits Times

SINGAPORE – Two-and-a-half years after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Poland’s Foreign Affairs Minister Radek Sikorski’s exasperation is unmistakable.

“My frustration is that in some parts of the world, people don’t see this Russian aggression for what it is, which is a colonial attempt to regain its… former ‘colony’,” Mr Sikorski told The Straits Times in an interview on Sept 2, during his first official visit to Singapore in his second stint as his country’s chief diplomat.

United Nations member states had voted overwhelmingly to condemn Russia in the immediate aftermath of its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. However, deepening the support for Ukraine has proven a tougher sell outside of Europe and North America, as international attention was diverted by the Middle East crisis and intensifying US-China competition.

With their shared history of Russian control, Poland has been among Ukraine’s loudest and biggest advocates. If Mr Putin succeeds in Ukraine, the existential fear is that he would go on to invade and retake Poland and former Soviet territories such as Estonia, Georgia and Latvia.

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