SOUTH-EAST Asian (Asean) leaders’ annual gathering opened in Singapore today, with host Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong warning that international rules underpinning world stability and economic growth are under threat.

“The international order is at a turning point. The existing free, open and rules-based multilateral system, which has underpinned Asean growth and stability, has come under stress,” Mr Lee told the 10-member bloc.

US President Donald Trump’s “America First” foreign policy and resistance to multilateral agreements and institutions are viewed as a challenge to a region dependent on global trade.

The Asean conference will discuss a new regional trade pact to commit member countries and others in the Asian-Pacific region to opening markets further.

Mr Lee said that Asean and other participating countries — including India and China but not the United States — have made “substantive progress” on the market-opening initiative, called the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership.

Three days after taking office, Mr Trump pulled the US out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

He ordered tariffs on billions of dollars of Chinese products, complaining over the US trade deficit, China’s technology policies and other market access issues.

“All countries are linked in the same industrial chain in the world today and China and the US are an important part of it. No-one wants or expects to see an interruption of it,” Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said on the summit sidelines.

He sought to reassure neighbours that Beijing will persist with reforms to support regional growth and keep the peace in the South China Sea.