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Tag: China

  • China Lodges Official Protest Over Singapore’s Military Ties With Taiwan

    China Lodges Official Protest Over Singapore’s Military Ties With Taiwan

    China has made an official protest to Singapore over its military ties with Taiwan after nine Singaporean military vehicles were seized in Hong Kong, in a sign of escalating tensions as the city-state draws closer to Washington.

    The Terrex armoured personnel carriers were en route from Taiwan to Singapore when they were impounded by Hong Kong customs as “suspected controlled items” last week.

    “China has already made representations over this to the Singapore side,” foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said at a press briefing on Monday. China also “demanded” that Singapore abide by Hong Kong’s relevant laws and co-operate with the local government on follow-up work, he added.

    The spat over the military vehicles comes as Beijing is showing a new assertiveness towards its Asian neighbours. After decades of following a foreign policy of “keeping a low profile”, China has begun to actively court US allies such as the Philippines and Thailand, while putting pressure on countries such as Singapore and South Korea that are deepening ties with Washington.

    Singapore has strengthened its military ties with the US over the past year, agreeing to boost co-operation on humanitarian assistance and disaster relief missions as well as cyber-security. Singapore allowed US Poseidon surveillance aircraft to operate from the city-state last December.

    For decades Singapore sought to remain neutral in the confrontation between China and self-governing Taiwan, and hosted a landmark summit between their leaders last year. But it continues to have defence ties with Taipei despite strong Chinese objections.

    The armoured carriers appeared to be part of training exercises held in Taiwan by Singaporean troops, which have taken place regularly under a previously secret defence agreement signed by the two countries in 1975 and reported in the Chinese and Taiwanese press.

    However, Beijing has said it is losing patience with this practice, particularly since Singapore and China established diplomatic relations in 1990.

    Singapore did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the seized vehicles. Hong Kong’s customs agency said the case was “under investigation”.

    Meanwhile on Monday, China’s Global Times, a hawkish state-owned newspaper, said in an editorial that Singapore was supposed to have suspended its military co-operation with Taiwan in 2012. “However, the recently detained vessel with its cargo of armoured vehicles reveals Singapore’s hypocrisy,” it said.

    “For quite some time, Singapore has been pretending to seek a balance between China and the US, yet has been taking Washington’s side in reality,” the newspaper said. “It is no longer reasonable for Singapore to continue … any kind of military exchange with Taiwan.”

    Earlier this year the Global Times and Singapore became embroiled in a public spatafter the newspaper accused Singapore of unnecessarily pressing the issue of the disputed South China Sea at a summit of the Non-Aligned Movement in Venezuela — a charge Singapore denied.

    A Singapore military team arrived in Hong Kong on Saturday to ensure that the army personnel carriers are being held securely amid fears military secrets were at risk. The nine vehicles are being held in a Hong Kong customs depot.

     

    Source: www.ft.com

  • Ambassador-At-Large Bilahari Kausikan: Singapore Cannot Be Intimidated By China’s Posturing

    Ambassador-At-Large Bilahari Kausikan: Singapore Cannot Be Intimidated By China’s Posturing

    Nine of Singapore’s armored personnel carriers (APCs) were quietly making its way from Taiwan to Singapore. For some strange reasons, the ship they were on stopped at Hong Kong. That’s when things got really interesting really fast.

    Our nine APCs were impounded by Hong Kong.

    That sparked off much discussion online about China-Singapore relationship. Is this move because China is super buay song with Singapore?

    And what better way to understand what’s happening here than from picking the brains of resident grass-cutter  ambassador-at-large and former permanent secretary of Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), Bilahari Kausikan?

    Just in case you’re not following him on Facebook, or if you’ve missed reading his comments here, we’ve lifted some of the more ‘colourful’ ones here.

    Someone said that this move is because China is showing its displeasure at Singapore for holding military exercises in Taiwan. To that, Ambassador Bilahari said:

    “Open displeasure is meant to intimidate Singaporeans because they have realised that with or without LKY the government cannot be intimidated. They are trying to intimidate Singaporeans in order to get Singaporeans to pressure the government.”

    Another person said this incident is because China is unhappy with Singapore speaking up on the South China Sea issue. She wondered if China would leave us alone if we had kept quiet. Ambassador Bilahari disagreed:

    “Of course not. If we had stayed quiet on an issue of such importance they would have asked for more: that we speak out in support of their position and play the role Cambodia plays for them in ASEAN (even Laos is not as bad). They know we are far more credible than Cambodia internationally and thus want us to be their mouthpiece. Of course, we do on occasion support them when it is in our interests, for example on Hong Kong and the Western Regions project at Chongqing that we undertook at Xi Jinping’s request. But we cannot be just their mouthpiece which is fundamentally what they want and what they mean when they refer to us, despite our constant denials, as a ‘Chinese country’. If we do that our credibility with the US, Japan, India, Australia among others would be entirely destroyed and we have important interests with these countries too.”

    Ambassador Bilahari went on to explain that it is important that the way we interact with China is consistent with the way we interact with any other countries:

    “Our government is not rash but the considerations are not just relations with China. If we allow ourselves to be intimidated by Beijing what do you think our immediate neighbours will think?”

    But surely it’s not easy to remain so principled when dealing with such a huge power. Especially since we are such a small country. To do that, we would need a certain “bad-boy” streak. Or as Ambassador Bilahari put it:

    “I am well known among the pandas as very KL or whatever the equivalent is in Mandarin!”

    And:

    “No skill involved just indifference to death.”

    This incident reminds us that we cannot take our relationships with other nations for granted. Thankfully, it seems that there are enough people who have this “indifference to death” working to advance Singapore’s interests abroad.

     

    Source: www.unscrambled.sg

  • Goh Meng Seng: Singapore-China Relations Deteriorating Because Of Lee Hsien Loong

    Goh Meng Seng: Singapore-China Relations Deteriorating Because Of Lee Hsien Loong

    Apparently this is a “successful” ambush carried out by Beijing, politically speaking. An extremely tactful and carefully planned political ambush that most of us had never expected it to come from this transshipment of military equipment from Taiwan to Singapore.

    It is basically one stone multiple targets hit, with minimum adverse impact on China itself. HK is the shield and proxy it used and by using this bloody excuse of Taiwan military ties with Singapore, it forces Singapore to react in unfavorable manner… whichever decision it makes eventually will be totally unfavorable. It is a lose lose situation for us and a total victory to China!

    If Singapore succumbs to China’s pressure and cut military ties with Taiwan, our international standing will be cut down into sizes. We will lose the international reputation which was painstakingly built up over the decades. If Singapore resisted and continued our military exercises in Taiwan, Beijing will have more excuses to escalate the issue and our National interests in China will be totally compromised by Beijing, using that “Rule of Law” discourse, all thanks to our PM Lee.

    Now we are forced to select between a disgraceful suicide or a heroic total self destruction.

    And please, for those PAP apologists, the English CCP mouthpiece has clearly showed that all these happen just because of CCP unhappiness over PM Lee’s actions over the past few months! This doesn’t come from a tabloid anymore, but a full fledged CCP mouthpiece English newspaper!

    Just for one person’s idiocy, the whole Nation will have to suffer. Sigh.

     

    Source: Goh Meng Seng

  • Ariffin Sha: No Reason For Singapore To Apologize To China

    Ariffin Sha: No Reason For Singapore To Apologize To China

    Those who are calling on Singapore to apologize to China can probably constitute Singapore’s very own ‘regressive left.’ These are the people who oppose the Govt at all costs and probably just want to watch the world (or at least our Establishment) burn. This is a stance that is absolutely devoid of principle.

    I don’t see any reason why Singapore should apologize to China for speaking up in line with values we have always stood by – free trade, globalization and a ruled-based world order. Advocating for national values on an international stage is anything but foreign to China too.

     

    Source: Ariffin Sha

  • Damanhuri Abas: Singapore Leaders Must Be Humble In Dealings With China

    Damanhuri Abas: Singapore Leaders Must Be Humble In Dealings With China

    I read this a few years ago. But this is most relevant and current now for us as a nation to pick up wise points on dealing with the new Global powerhouse.

    China will be the economic superpower whether we like it or not. China and her history is vastly different from the crusading self-righteous marauding zealous western invaders that kills, destroys and oppresses millions even in many instances forcing Christianity upon indigenous people at the barrel of the gun or cannon.

    So it would be fatally mistaken for us to swallow the narrative of the declining western powers in demonizing China trying to prop up their failing system that serves only the elite and super-rich.

    China is historically respectful and diplomatic in international relations. But it will retaliate to anyone that behaves arrogantly where it will hurt them the most.

    Lots for Singapore and our leaders to learn about the benefits of humility in dealing with China now, with Uncle Sam no longer around to hide behind as he is now transformed into becoming Uncle Trump.

     

    Source: Damanhuri Bin Abas