TOKYO -- Post-pandemic Southeast Asia will be rife with opportunities for the U.S. to cooperate not only with countries in the region, but also with China, suggested leaders from Malaysia and Singapore who opened Nikkei's Future of Asia conference on Thursday.

"I speak on behalf of many, if not most countries in the region that we welcome and want to strengthen relations with both the U.S. and China," Heng Swee Keat, Singapore's deputy prime minister, said in a video address to the event, which is being held in Tokyo and online through Friday. "We hope to engage both constructively."

He conceded, however, that the region "will need to navigate greater uncertainty and possibly turbulence."

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, to which Singapore belongs, has found itself caught between the U.S. and China, with both powers pressuring the region to choose a side. Many supply chains on which Southeast Asian economies depend traverse the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, two areas where economic and geopolitical tensions could escalate into armed conflict.

Heng said the U.S. and China "will continue to jostle for strategic influence particularly in Asia," but that it need not be a zero-sum game. "What is important is that competition be conducted within a stable framework so as to defuse tension and to avoid a situation where differing interests prevent them from cooperating even on common interests."

In prepared remarks to the annual Nikkei forum, which was canceled last year because of COVID-19, Heng highlighted areas on which the U.S. and China could cooperate with each other and ASEAN members. Heng said he was "heartened" to see early signs of engagement between Washington and Beijing on climate change, as Southeast Asia is disproportionately prone to extreme weather changes caused by rising temperatures.

Earlier, Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin also urged international cooperation while criticizing "dysfunctional competition and short-term thinking."

"Long-term victory doesn't mean pushing your country ahead of the line every time," Muhyiddin said, a veiled barb at U.S. vaccine hoarding. "It will be the countries who are most generous who will build bridges instead of walls."

Heng issued a challenge to the U.S. to match China's investments in Southeast Asian infrastructure. Through the Belt and Road Initiative, China invested around $25 billion in Asia last year. Heng also suggested the U.S. should keep the door open to rejoining the revised Trans-Pacific Partnership, which the Barack Obama administration initiated and the Donald Trump administration abandoned.

"I know that the current political conditions make it difficult for the U.S. to rejoin, but things are never static, and the U.S. should not rule it out," Heng said.

Wider economic cooperation could help countries emerge stronger from the COVID-19 crisis, he argued.

As a trade-reliant economy, Singapore has been a vocal proponent of free trade in recent years, especially since U.S.-China friction intensified. It is one of the 11 members of what is now known as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, alongside Asian neighbors Japan, Vietnam and Malaysia. It also belongs to the 15-country Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership that includes China and South Korea.

So far, the Joe Biden administration has prioritized the domestic economy and has shown little enthusiasm for returning to the CPTPP. But Heng pointed out that the deal and RCEP could "serve as pathfinders for a possible FTA of the Asia Pacific, one which should include the U.S., China and India."

Such a huge free trade agreement, he said, "will shape economic relationships and the region's geostrategic landscape for years to come."

With respect to the crisis in Myanmar following the military coup in February, Heng said "the path back to normalcy in Myanmar will be long and difficult" despite last month's special Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit. There, the bloc's leaders agreed on a five-point consensus to de-escalate tensions.

"ASEAN member states have consistently stressed that engagement, rather than isolation, will go further in resolving the current crisis," he said, apparently brushing off the idea of tough sanctions. "I urge the international community to continue supporting ASEAN's and the United Nations' engagement of Myanmar."

Heng, who also holds the No. 2 position in Singapore's ruling People's Action Party, was seen as the successor to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong until he withdrew from the succession race last month, saying younger ministers should contend for the top job.

Heng did not touch on this during his speech.

Drawing on his experience as Singapore's finance minister, Heng warned of "economic scarring" if the coronavirus pandemic is allowed to drag on. "If companies were to close and workers are retrenched, it will be very hard to rebuild when the situation gets better," he said, pointing to Singapore's COVID stimulus that was worth nearly 20% of the city-state's gross domestic product.

Malaysia's Muhyiddin says COVID should spur total pharma overhaul

Wealthy countries should not hoard COVID-19 vaccines and their patents, Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin urged on Thursday, calling for equitable access to end the pandemic and total reform of the pharmaceutical system for the future.

In a video address to Nikkei's Future of Asia conference, Muhyiddin said artificial hurdles are hindering efforts to suppress COVID-19 infections quickly and win the race against mutating variants that could render current shots "obsolete."

"The wealthiest 27 countries have 35.5% of the vaccines, although they only cover 10.5% of the world's population," Muhyiddin said. "These countries have more than enough vaccine doses to immunize people beyond their own populations."

Meanwhile, he continued, "there have been 1.23 billion doses administered across 174 countries so far, with 252 million doses or 20% of the global supply taken up by the U.S. alone."

Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin addresses Nikkei's Future of Asia conference on May 20.

Muhyiddin's participation in the annual Nikkei conference marks his first engagement with a foreign media organization since he took office in March 2020. He joins a who's who list of top leaders due to deliver their perspectives on the region's challenges and post-COVID era, including Singapore's Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat, Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen.

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga will speak at the conclusion of Thursday's session.

Muhyiddin noted that Asian countries have been more generous in sharing their vaccines. China and India, he said, have exported around 200 million and 66 million vaccine doses, respectively -- approximately 48% and 34% of their total production. He said the ratios for the U.S. and U.K. are far lower, at 1.1% and 4%.

Muhyiddin said Asia should take lead in lifting patent protections to produce cheaper generic versions of life-saving medicines for critical diseases, from COVID-19 to HIV/AIDS.

The prime minister did welcome U.S. President Joe Biden's support for a temporary waiver of intellectual property protections on COVID-19 vaccines. Muhyiddin said this should be a precursor for a total transformation of the global pharmaceutical patent system.

"Pausing the gears is not enough. Our obligation is to dismantle it entirely," he said. For Asia to effectively prevent and fight pandemics, he added, it needs to shift from a "purely nationalistic approach" to health services to investing in health as a global public good.

Muhyiddin also warned of a "global leadership vacuum" and a "trust deficit between the world's so-called superpowers" over trade, technology and other geopolitical concerns. Despite globalization changing the way infectious diseases spread, he stressed the world lacks an effective system of global governance to respond to these threats swiftly and on a large scale, transcending the forces of nationalism and isolationism.

"Hence the United Nations, not for lack of effort, has struggled" to reach a consensus on international cooperation against the pandemic and to "call for a truce in conflicts around the world."

"We have yet to see the kind of urgency of meetings at the U.N. Security Council nor the global heads of state coming together to organize, for example, global supply chains in managing the pandemic."

Asia, according to Muhyiddin, should seize this ongoing crisis as an opportunity to help forge a more equal world with better global governance. "There can be no return to the status quo, there can be no recovery without an Asia recovery," he said.

Malaysia is confronting a wave of COVID-19 infections, with more than 485,000 cases reported as of Wednesday, including 47,340 active cases that are straining the country's health system. The death toll has reached 2,040.

While the economy contracted 5.6% in 2020 and declined 0.5% in the first quarter of this year, Muhyiddin's government is juggling a fiscal deficit estimated to hit 6% of gross domestic product this year. Since March 2020, his government has committed over 340 billion ringgit ($82 billion) worth of stimulus packages to mitigate the pandemic's impact.

In his address, Muhyiddin also highlighted growing concerns about inequality, noting that in many cases "poverty and exclusion comes from working in an unfair system." New Asian institutions, he said, should be created to help level the playing field.

Striking an optimistic note, he said, "Our greatest centuries can be ahead of us, not behind."

Reporting by P Prem Kumar.