Describing the ongoing trade friction between the United States and China as "a very public game of chicken", DPM Tharman Shanmugaratnam said that it should not be a sign for Asia to turn inwards.
Asia has to keep opening up economically.
"We've got to keep opening up and recognise that the benefit of opening up comes in the learning and the developing of competitive strengths," said Mr Tharman.
"The sources of economic dynamism have always been competition and learning. And it is through trade, through investment across borders, that we learn the fastest," he said.
The real merit of opening up lies in interacting with buyers who have more sophisticated specifications, for instance, or with foreign investors with different technology, said Mr Tharman.
But free trade must be accompanied by the right social investments, warned Mr Tharman.
These include the regeneration of towns and skills training for people throughout their working lives.
He said: "It is the failure to have invested in people that is at the heart of many of the problems we see today."
Mr Tharman was speaking at the HT-Mint Asia Leadership Summit on 13 April 2018.
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