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European leaders headed to Asia this week with a key message: We need to work closer together to preserve the rules-based order against threats from China and Russia.

Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s top diplomat, and French President Emmanuel Macron emphasized the links between Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine and Russia’s deepening relationship with China during a range of appearances in Southeast Asia in recent days.

“It is the greatest challenge of our time,” Kallas told an audience at the Shangri-La security conference in Singapore.

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Kallas accused China of enabling Russia’s war machine, saying 80% of dual-use goods used to fight Ukraine come from the world’s second-biggest economy.

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"If you are worried about China, you should be worried about Russia,” Kallas said.

Western officials accuse China of supplying Russia with critical technologies, including drones, while saying that both nations have engaged in cyberattacks, acts of sabotage and dangerous activities related to infrastructure such as deep-sea cables.

Kallas called on European and Asian partners to work together on tackling covert shadow fleets of tankers and to review maritime security laws. North Korea’s direct support of Russia’s war efforts – including missiles, ammunition and troops – has further brought the conflict closer to home on both sides of the world.

"If China doesn’t want NATO being involved in Southeast Asia or in Asia, they should prevent North Korea from engaging on European soil,” Macron said in a keynote address in Singapore on Friday.

Speaking to reporters after a meeting on Thursday of a little-known defense grouping known as the Five Power Defence Arrangements, which brings together the Commonwealth nations of Singapore, Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand and the UK, officials from several member countries acknowledged some common challenges. That included risks against underwater information infrastructure in Europe and Asia.

“It is a complex and new area,” said General Mohd Nizam Jaffar, Malaysia’s chief of defense forces. “But we are looking into it.”

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Nations in the Indo-Pacific and Southeast Asia are caught between the threat of dramatically higher US levies and a surge of cheaper Chinese goods that could cost them manufacturing jobs. Many rely on China economically and the US for defense.

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In an apparent jab at the US and China a day earlier, Macron condemned “revisionist countries” that seek to impose “spheres of coercion.” He called for fresh cooperation between Europe and Asia based on free trade, jointly mitigating risks and autonomous decision-making. In Europe’s case, that means being allied to the US as a matter of choice but not being dependent on it, while wanting to cooperate and compete fairly with China.

“Our shared responsibility is to ensure with others that our countries are not collateral victims of the imbalances linked to the choices made by the superpowers,” the French president said.

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