Info Magzine: Singapore Holds Naval Drill With China, but U.S. Remains Top Security Partner

Singapore has held its first naval drill with China in practically 5 years amid a broadly perceived tug-of-war over the important thing city-state between Beijing and Washington.

Following Joe Biden‘s election victory final November, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong rejected the thought of Singapore ever becoming a member of the president’s so-called “coalition of democracies” to counter Beijing’s rising affect in Asia—an idea Lee described as a “Cold War–style” line-up.

Given Singapore’s business-led method to overseas coverage, it was by no means more likely to be a part of an advert hoc group to comprise China. Despite the potential for warming navy ties with Beijing, the United States stays Singapore’s “primary security partner,” protection analyst Collin Koh instructed Newsweek.

Wednesday’s navy trade between the Republic of Singapore Navy (RSN) and the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN)—the primary since September 2016—was introduced by each nations with accompanying photographs of vessels crusing in proximity.

Their warships rendezvoused within the northeast of the Singapore Strait, the PLA stated in a press launch. The trade “built mutual confidence, deepened friendship and promoted cooperation,” fleet officer Lu Dongfang was quoted as saying.

In its assertion, the Singapore Ministry of Defence stated RSN vessels RSS Intrepid and RSS Sovereignty took half in a passage train—or PASSEX—with PLAN destroyer Guiyang and frigate Zaozhuang.

The navies drilled maneuvering and communications workout routines earlier than holding a simulated joint search and rescue mission, the protection ministry stated. The trade passed off within the “southern reaches of the South China Sea within international waters,” Singapore’s assertion famous.

Guiyang and Zaozhuang, each a part of the PLAN’s thirty sixth escort fleet, additionally took half in joint naval workout routines with Pakistan this month, the Chinese navy stated on Thursday.

Singapore and China Hold Joint Naval Drills

Despite important disruptions amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Beijing managed a variety of navy workout routines with regional neighbors final yr.

Its joint navy train in Cambodia, code-named Golden Dragon, was held in March, but it won’t happen this yr following a cancelation on account of heavy flooding and Phnom Penh’s ongoing efforts to comprise the outbreak.

Notable air power drills—each final December—embody a desert train in Pakistan and a joint flight with Russian warplanes over the East China Sea.

Observers have taken Wednesday’s naval drill as an indication that Beijing was additional bolstering its ties with Southeast Asian nations.

Singapore is unquestionably not to be seen as a part of any containment scheme in opposition to China.

Collin Koh, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Singapore

The train passed off two weeks after Secretary of State Antony Blinken reaffirmed the U.S.’s safety and financial relationship with Singapore in a name with its overseas minister, Vivian Balakrishnan.

Singapore and China’s signing of the Agreement on Defence Exchanges and Security Cooperation (ADESC) in 2019 means there’s room for additional navy exchanges sooner or later, but the newest drill “isn’t anything new,” stated Koh, who’s a maritime safety analyst on the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.

Koh stated the PASSEX, which touches on “basic itineraries,” was according to “a longstanding position Singapore holds to maintain cordial partnership with China.”

The protection knowledgeable stated Beijing hopes to scale up its coaching workout routines with Singapore, but interactions between the 2 navies are nonetheless “nascent.” They additionally fall in need of extra complicated workout routines, with “warfighting elements,” Singapore conducts with different regional companions and the U.S., who final held their Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training—CARAT—train final December.

Balancing Act

Having inherited a bipartisan consensus on Capitol Hill about China’s position as the best risk to U.S. pursuits within the coming a long time, Biden ran on a promise to rally allies in opposition to Beijing’s contentious financial practices and geopolitical adventurism.

Prime Minister Lee, nonetheless, was fast to distance Singapore from any potential conflict between Biden and his reverse quantity in Beijing.

“I think not many countries would like to join a coalition against those who have been excluded, chief of whom will be China,” Lee instructed the Bloomberg New Economy Forum final November.

“There will be countries who want to do business with China,” he defined, including: “To try and make a line-up, Cold War–style, I don’t think that’s on the cards.”

“Politically, we can be sure that Singapore will maintain this position of close partnerships with both China and the U.S.—economics-dominant in the case of Beijing, and seeing the U.S. as a primary security partner,” stated Koh.

“It’s clear that Singapore seeks to ensure its security partnership with the U.S. continues to expand and enhance where necessary,” he added. In the months after signing the ADSEC with China, Koh notes, Singapore prolonged its 1990 Memorandum of Understanding with Washington, permitting the U.S. to make use of its navy amenities for one more 15 years.

Koh concluded: “While Singapore won’t join the coalition of democracies envisaged by the Biden administration—a stance that of course pre-dates the Biden administration—it remains keenly invested in maintaining U.S. military primacy in the region, since the U.S. has always been seen as a benign, stabilizing presence in the Western Pacific, even more so now and in the foreseeable future as geopolitical uncertainties loom in the region, not least also attributed to China’s rise and uncertainties about Beijing’s strategic intentions.

“But Singapore is unquestionably not to be seen as a part of any containment scheme in opposition to China, because it’ll critically harm the basic premise of its overseas coverage.”

Singapore has been “fairly profitable in enjoying a task between Washington and Beijing,” said Liang-chih Evans Chen, a PLA policy analyst with Taiwan’s government-funded think tank, the Institute for National Defense and Security Research. He said it was to Singapore’s advantage to not pick sides.

Chen suggested Wednesday’s exercise could help China demonstrate that it also has a strategic partner in the South China Sea, and that it could therefore counter U.S. military operations and deployments in the region.