Ex-Singapore Ambassador to the US: ‘China-US relationship structural competition between the two great powers’

As President Xi Jinping visits the US to meet President Donald Trump, the former Singaporean Ambassador to the US Chan Heng Chee has told CGTN that the main focus will be on "managing the competition" between the two countries.

"This relationship is really a structural competition between the two great powers," Chan said, "and each is seeking dominance, actually, across all sectors." This dynamic "is very hard to resolve, and it will carry on for a very long time," she said.

Chan, who has also served as Ambassador-at-Large at Singapore's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, says that rather than trying to end the competition between their two countries, Xi and Trump will be seeking to manage this relationship to avoid too many risks. 

"Both powers have come to the realization that you've really got to manage this competition. Otherwise, it really creates so much disruption to themselves and the rest of the world," Chan told CGTN Europe anchor Jamie Owen, "I think there's an attempt to try to put up some guardrails"

AI: 'The critical issue of the times'

One of the major areas of competition between the two countries is in the development of artificial intelligence. "I think everybody's looking to see whether there will be a dialog started on AI" Chan said, "because this is the critical issue of the times."

"What do we do with AI? Both sides have indicated they will want to talk about AI, but what do you talk about?"

Chan told CGTN she feels "if there's an agreement to start a dialog, that would be good."