Singapore’s prime minister used an interview with the Financial Times to warn that the world is entering a potentially turbulent phase as the long era of unquestioned American predominance gives way to a more contested international order. The remarks reflect a pragmatic approach from a city-state whose prosperity depends on open trade routes, secure investment flows and stable relations with both the United States and China.

“So when you look at these sorts of dynamics and the consequences of actions, I think America and China may well come to a new modus vivendi. So if they can find ways to coexist, going back to your earlier question, Singapore, and all of the Asean countries, will be able to navigate this new environment. So the point is not to come together to do a FTA [Free Trade Agreement] but to think about what new ideas we can put on the table, including facilitating investments, making it easier for businesses to inter-operate across our economies by standardising rules, regulations, customs, documentation, and enabling using technology as an enabler with electronic invoicing, documentation, data flows.”

The remarks highlight a shift in emphasis from grand geopolitical alignment to granular, technical cooperation. For Singapore and many Southeast Asian governments, the task is less about choosing sides than about building resilient frameworks that allow commerce to proceed despite strategic rivalry. Standardising customs procedures, harmonising regulations and enabling digital trade infrastructure are concrete measures intended to lower transaction costs and reduce the risk of decoupling along geopolitical fault lines.

This practical posture carries implications for international law and trade governance. Efforts to standardise documentation and data flows will collide with divergent regulatory philosophies on privacy, data localisation and national security. Crafting interoperable systems that respect domestic legal frameworks while maintaining cross-border functionality will require careful diplomacy and legal coordination, including between regional bodies and global institutions such as the World Trade Organization.

Singapore’s approach also reflects cultural and diplomatic norms common across ASEAN — hedging, incrementalism and a preference for consensus over confrontation. For smaller states, the priority is preserving agency and economic opportunity in a system shaped by rival great powers. That means cultivating technical cooperation, advancing digital trade facilitation and seeking legal certainty for investors, rather than pursuing geopolitical statements that could jeopardise market access.

For businesses, the prime minister’s remarks are a reminder to plan for an environment where rules may diverge and where interoperability — whether in supply chains, digital platforms or customs procedures — will be an asset. Policymakers face the twin tasks of insulating commercial corridors from geopolitical shocks and ensuring that new standards uphold human rights and regulatory safeguards.

If Washington and Beijing can negotiate a workable modus vivendi, as the prime minister suggested, the result may be a patchwork order in which multilateralism survives through practical mechanisms rather than hegemonic stability. For Singapore and its neighbours, the immediate priority is to turn that fragile coexistence into systems that sustain growth and preserve sovereignty in an increasingly multipolar world.