Opinion | Can Singapore maintain its sweet spot between China and the US?

Singapore’s long-standing relationship with the United States is a classic exposition of the island nation’s foreign policy – taking the world as it is, and seeking to entrench American power and presence in the region for the collective good.

Singapore has also sought to involve as many major powers (including the US) in the regional balance, so that no power can dominate, with the Singaporean – and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) – position of not “choosing sides” between Beijing and Washington coming as a natural evolution of this balance-of-power approach.

Singapore has not pursued its enhanced relations with Washington in isolation; it has also pursued relations with Beijing with the same energy. Like many other Asia-Pacific countries, Singapore leverages on China’s economic engine, while benefiting from the security guarantees that the US has provided in the region.

Asked in 2013 whether he worried about the rise of China, Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said the city state would like to “have our cake and eat it and be friends with everybody”. As long as Singapore’s friends remain “friends with one another” (including the US, India and the European Union), Singapore was “OK”, he added. This is somewhat analogous to the concept of “virtuous promiscuity” coined by Singapore diplomat Tommy Koh, which refers to its aggressiveness in pursuing trade deals with many countries.

In 1990, Singapore became the last of the original five Asean nations to normalise relations with China. The Republic, with its Chinese-majority population, had been sensitive to the perception of its neighbours and sought to avoid being labelled a “third China”.