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Orange Wang

Singapore is committed to keeping the Strait of Malacca open, the city state’s top diplomat Vivian Balakrishnan has told his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi during talks in Beijing.
According to the Chinese government, the Singaporean foreign minister said on Monday that keeping the critical global shipping lane open was in the interest of all parties.
Balakrishnan also voiced Singapore’s support for free passage through the strait and other international waterways, the Chinese read-out showed.
Wang was quoted as saying that “safeguarding the security of global industrial and supply chains and the smooth flow of maritime traffic is a shared aspiration of all countries and is in the common interest of the international community”.
“China is willing to continue making efforts to this end,” Wang added.
The foreign ministers’ talks came as the US-Iran conflict and the ensuing crisis in the Strait of Hormuz have thrust China’s so-called Malacca dilemma back into the spotlight.


The matter arose last year amid speculation that US President Donald Trump’s administration could be eyeing shipping chokepoints around the world as a strategic priority, after top officials repeatedly spoke of wanting to “take back” the Panama Canal from alleged “Chinese influence”.
Connecting the Indian and Pacific oceans, the Malacca and Singapore straits together form a continuous corridor that is the world’s busiest route for crude oil and petroleum liquids in terms of barrels per day.
The roughly 800km (497-mile) funnel-shaped waterway, measuring under two nautical miles (3.7km) at its narrowest point, carries nearly 40 per cent of global trade and about one-third of the world’s seaborne oil and other liquid cargo.
China relies on the Strait of Malacca for more than half of the oil and roughly 4 per cent of the natural gas it consumes each year.
Such dependence has long been seen as a strategic vulnerability. Any disruption to the maritime artery, whether because of natural causes or human factors, could deal a serious blow to the world’s second-largest economy.
In a social media post on Monday, Balakrishnan said he and Wang reaffirmed their countries’ shared commitment to free trade and multilateralism, as echoed in the Chinese government statement.
“We reaffirmed the importance of international law, as well as the unimpeded right of transit passage for ships and aircraft through straits used for international navigation, as set forth by the 1982 Unclos,” the post read, referring to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
In citing “straits used for international navigation”, Balakrishnan used a term referring to narrow, natural channels connecting one part of the high seas or an exclusive economic zone to another.
Unclos stipulates that vessels enjoy the right of transit passage through those straits, which shall not be impeded.




During a discussion at the Singaporean parliament in April, Balakrishnan described the Malacca and Singapore straits as examples of such waterways.
“What is the international law position on these types of straits? The position is quite clear,” he said.
“There is a right of transit passage. It is not a privilege to be granted by the bordering state, it is not a licence to be supplicated for, it is not a toll to be paid. It is a right of ships to traverse.”
Later in April, Indonesian Finance Minister Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa, speaking at a symposium in Jakarta, floated the possibility of imposing a toll on vessels transiting the Strait of Malacca.
Indonesia later retracted the remark after it sparked controversy.
The Malacca and Singapore straits are cooperatively managed by their littoral states Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia, with northern support from Thailand on regional security initiatives.
In the same post this week, Balakrishnan said he and Wang also emphasised the importance of restoring maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and agreed on the need for an immediate ceasefire in the Middle East.
On Monday, the US military announced it had conducted “self-defence” strikes in southern Iran, even as diplomatic efforts to end the conflict continue.
During his meeting with Balakrishnan, Wang called on Singapore to continue to enhance strategic communication and increase mutual trust with China to “jointly address the ever-emerging global challenges at present and safeguard the overall situation of regional peace and stability”, according to the Chinese foreign ministry.
Both ministers struck an upbeat tone on China-Singapore relations, with Wang saying bilateral ties had maintained “good momentum”.
The two will look ahead to closer cooperation between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, with Singapore set to assume the rotating chairmanship of the 11-member Asean bloc next year.


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Singaporean Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan meets Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing on Monday. Photo: Xinhua

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Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi tells counterpart that keeping the critical shipping lane open is ‘a shared aspiration of all countries’


Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi tells counterpart that keeping the critical shipping lane open is ‘a shared aspiration of all countries’.


China, Singapore top diplomats reaffirm commitment to Malacca Strait transit rights

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi tells counterpart that keeping the critical shipping lane open is ‘a shared aspiration of all countries’

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi tells counterpart that keeping the critical shipping lane open is ‘a shared aspiration of all countries’