Singapore Top Diplomat Says ‘Peace Dividend’ After WWII Is Over
- Balakrishnan expects greater defense spending ‘all around’
- Southeast Asia grows more vocal over US-China tensions
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Singapore’s Foreign Affairs Minister Vivian Balakrishnan said growing defense spending, including by China and across Asia, is evidence a peace dividend after World War II that fueled global economic growth is largely over.
“The last seven, eight decades of the peace dividend after the Second World War is over, and you’re going to see increased defense expenditure literally all over the world,” he said on Monday in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s Haslinda Amin. “Certainly in the case of Europe, America still spends more than anyone else, several times more than even China.”