WEF Davos 2026: ‘Nobody wants to be a client state of US or China,’ say experts

If nations are wary about siding with either the US or China as the two superpowers take on each other then they only have to look at Singapore that has nimbly navigated the fine line, said experts at the World Economic Forum 2026 in Davos. 

Speaking to Business Today, Jamil Anderlini, Editor-in-Chief (Europe), POLITICO, and Jaime Ho, Editor, The Straits Times, talked about how important it is for middle and smaller powers to stick to an alliance of like-minded nations. 

“It's clear that all middle powers – all powers that are not the two great superpowers – are trying to find a way, trying to look for alternatives, ways to hedge against the great superpowers. Nobody really wants to be a client state either of the United States or of China,” said Anderlini. He said Singapore has “possibly been the best at this”, and that it has always been able to play this balance. 

“They were friends with China, big investors in China, there’s obviously a very large Chinese diaspora in Singapore, but have always been one of the closest allies militarily, closest friends to America,” he said, also acknowledging that such kind of balancing is “becoming more and more uncomfortable” even if not impossible. “I think that certainly on both sides, from the Chinese side and from the United States side, they are pressuring other countries to choose,” said Anderlini.

He said that Beijing and Washington are already pressuring countries to be either on their side or to be on the other side. “We're seeing increasing hardening on both sides of ‘you're in our camp or you're in their camp’, and it is falling roughly into authoritarian states versus democratic states.”

Anderlini cited India’s history of always finding a middle, non-aligned position. “Maybe that’s still a feasible thing for India in the new cold war, but it will become increasingly uncomfortable, especially for countries that are smaller than India,” he said.  

Ho said Singapore often gets asked if it is going to hedge its bets or realign itself. “Their answers are quite predictable and it's the same. It's not as if we seek to be overtly balancing all the time. I think the Singapore government truly does believe that it is still possible to have good relations with both sides,” said Ho. 

“Now obviously as Jamil said it is not necessarily going to get any easier. In fact, it will get harder. I think the answer to that, as most other middle powers will find, is to actually know the benefit of alliances and sort of smaller groupings or like-minded countries,” he said, giving the example of ASEAN. 

Watch the conversation here: