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Diplomacy
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Tan Poh Hwee
Opinion
Tan Poh Hwee

For states, being part of everything doesn’t mean being part of nothing

The opposite of commitment is breach, not multiplicity. A nation’s reliability isn’t measured by how many treaties it signs

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The United Nations General Assembly Hall in New York on March 25. Governments increasingly face the same demand: prove the depth of your commitment by closing the door on everyone else. Photo: Zuma press wire / dpa
Tan Poh Hwee
Tan Poh Hwee is president of the Asia Academy of Digital Economics, a Singapore-based non-profit, and a corresponding fellow of the National Academy of Artificial Intelligence.

A coalition may call itself a commitment. It still has to say what that commitment is.

The Trump administration is reportedly preparing to send a letter to dozens of countries, pressing them to choose sides in the US-China artificial intelligence race. Those that join Beijing’s proposed AI cooperation framework would be excluded from the US-led AI coalition. “To be part of everything is to be part of nothing,” the draft says. An American official summarised the message more bluntly: countries cannot have it both ways.

The letter’s underlying logic reaches far beyond AI. As international institutions become more fragmented and competitive, governments increasingly face the same demand: prove the depth of your commitment by closing the door on everyone else. That is a seductive argument. It is also a dangerous way to organise international cooperation.

There are circumstances in which multiple memberships become meaningless. A government may sign declarations for diplomatic display, collect benefits without contributing, make contradictory promises or pass confidential information from one platform to another.

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