SINGAPORE — With rising nationalism in Asia and as tensions run high over the recent shooting of a Taiwanese fisherman by the Philippine Coast Guard in the South China Sea, where there are various competing territorial claims, Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen said yesterday that mechanisms to prevent or mitigate the escalation of tensions need to be established quickly.

And one “practical way” to the peaceful settlement of disputes is Vietnam’s suggestion at the 7th ASEAN Defence Ministers Meeting (ADMM) last month for claimant states to enter into a “no first use of force” agreement, said Dr Ng as he laid out Singapore’s support for the idea.

He also noted Brunei’s proposal, raised at the same meeting, for the setting up of “hotlines to quickly defuse tensions at sea”.

“We welcome these ideas, and encourage regional militaries to see what more can be done on this front — for instance, increased information sharing, especially between regional navies, on their Standard Operating Procedures in the event of incidents at sea,” Dr Ng said.

He was speaking at the 12th Shangri-La Dialogue’s final plenary session titled Advancing Defence Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific.

Dr Ng also noted the importance of economic and social cooperation to regional security. Increasing security cooperation, while needed, cannot be the predominant focus of cooperative efforts, he said.

Existing regional and global networks play a “crucial role to help balance rising nationalism and keep, if not expand, our global common space”, he noted.

“While we must have security cooperation, we need to premise our terms of engagement on areas of common interests in vital economic and social domains,” Dr Ng said, as he cited Singapore’s push for the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership — comprising ASEAN’s 10 member states and its six Free Trade Agreement partners — and the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

“Socio-cultural exchanges such as those that take place under the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community, must be enhanced to provide opportunities for stronger ties to be forged between countries,” he said.

He also called for practical cooperation, especially between militaries, to be stepped up and for defence communities to effectively tackle common security threats, “which are increasingly non-traditional in scope and transnational in reach”.

Dr Ng sketched out these frameworks for cooperation against a backdrop of rising nationalism within individual countries that could create “win-lose constructs”.

He noted that the sustained economic progress of many Asian nations have bolstered their confidence and provided the means to modernise their economies and militaries.

“The growing confidence and resulting assertiveness of Asian countries to project both soft and hard power is an inevitable consequence of their growth and is of itself not a win-lose formulation,” he added.

Speaking at the same plenary session, Vietnamese Deputy Minister of National Defence Nguyen Chi Vinh said he shared “concerns about the regional situation”.

He said: “Our region has not enjoyed absolute stability, not to mention the durable architecture stability.

“The increase of military engagement and the competition for influence of nations are driving the region to new challenges, of which the arms race is one example.”

He called on all parties in the South China Sea “to respect and protect the fishermen; absolutely avoid the use of force against the fishermen by all means, including military and non-military means”.