Singapore must engage U.S. and China while keeping neighbors onside
Originally published in Nikkei Asia
Lawrence Wong has inherited a nation at a crossroads. As Singapore's new prime minister, his government must be careful and deliberate in navigating a complex series of strategic issues. One key challenge will be balancing Singapore's relationship with superpowers China and the U.S., while keeping Malay-Muslim majority neighbors Malaysia and Indonesia onside -- not an easy task given the demographic differences between the countries.
Wong faces a rapidly shifting Southeast Asia, where escalating tensions in the South China Sea and the deepening U.S.-China rivalry over trade, technology, and security are putting the city-state's foreign policy to the test. Nowhere is this balancing act more critical than in defense. While Singapore maintains a robust and long-standing security partnership with Washington, its military and strategic ties with Beijing are becoming increasingly important.
Singapore has spent years carefully cultivating ties with China, from high-level military exchanges to joint exercises -- all while maintaining robust security arrangements with the U.S. In 2019, Singapore renewed the MOU allowing American forces access to its military facilities, while the Singapore Armed Forces conducted a counter-terrorist exercise with their Chinese counterparts.
However, as China's military power continues to grow and its presence in the region becomes more assertive, any shift in Singapore's defense posture with China could have far-reaching consequences for its relationships with its immediate neighbors.
To appreciate the sensitivity, one must understand that ethnic consideration is never absent from Singapore's relations with its larger Malay-Muslim neighbors. Indonesia and Malaysia are sensitive to any shift in Singapore's relations with China, given that ethnic Chinese form about 75% of Singapore's population. Furthermore, Indonesia and Malaysia have maritime territorial disputes with China in the South China Sea.
Singapore's first-generation leadership under Lee Kuan Yew understood this strategic conundrum and demonstrated sensitivity to the city-state's neighbors in its relations and engagements with Beijing. As a policy choice, Singapore was the last of the original five ASEAN members to establish diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China.
Singapore's tighter security relations with China in recent years have not gone unnoticed among defense planners and officials in Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta.
My interviews and conversations with defense officials and policymakers from Malaysia and Indonesia over the past few months suggest a quiet but growing concern regarding Singapore-China defense relations.
These officials took a closer Singapore-China defense relationship as a sign that Singapore is drifting away from its traditional security partnerships and could upset the fragile balance of power in the region. Such a defense posture could be perceived as indicating a closer alignment between Singapore and Beijing.
Malaysian defense officials, while acknowledging Malaysia's defense engagements with China, noted that Singapore sent its advanced warship to China in 2024 to participate in a bilateral combined exercise -- something they would not have considered.
While Indonesia is also concerned about growing Singapore-China defense relations, Jakarta's main issue is that Singapore's political, bureaucratic and military leadership teams, dominated by ethnic Chinese, may find affinity with their counterparts from China and therefore could be easily swayed and come under Beijing's influence. They fear that Singapore could become a Beijing "satellite."
Such perceptions underestimate the distinctiveness of Singaporean identity and its commitment to independent policymaking. They also overlook Singapore's firm commitment to multiculturalism. But their existence should prompt Singapore to be more sensitive when formulating defense engagements with China.
The U.S.-China rivalry is not going away, and the strategic pressures on Singapore will only intensify in the coming years. In this challenging environment, Singapore's ability to engage Washington and Beijing without alienating its neighbors will be put to the test.
