Remarks by Minister for Defence, Dr Ng Eng Hen, for the "Our Strategic Advantage: Cooperation with Allies and Partners" at the Ninth Reagan National Defense Forum Panel on 4 December 2022

ON SINGAPORE’S CONTINUED SUPPORT FOR US PRESENCE IN THE INDO-PACIFIC.

In order to understand reactions towards US-China rivalry, there is a historical context. It is useful to compare US acceptance in our region. Historically, and if you take a reference point from President J.F. Kennedy's inauguration speech, that one form of tyranny should not be replaced by another, he was of course referring to communism, and even for that acceptance of US presence in ASEAN, Indo-Pacific, or in Asia. It was not a given acceptance. You had problems in Vietnam, Indo-China. And remember in the 1960s, there was quite an odium and opprobrium because of the Vietnam War.

Singapore, we have to give credit to Mr Lee Kuan Yew for, decided very early on that we would support US presence in ASEAN and even during difficult periods of Vietnam War, we openly stated that we believe that the US presence was a stabilising force. One of the first acts was to allow US soldiers that were posted to Vietnam to do their Rest and Recreation (R&R) in Singapore. And in 1967, when there were questions about US presence in our region, Mr Lee made it clear that the US presence was important. This was before US, as post world war two victors, and its Western allies were creating a global system, whether it was Bretton Woods, International Monetary Fund, World Trade Organisation, finance and trade.

And in 1990, when US had issues with Subic and Clark, Singapore stepped in and offered the presence of our air bases and naval bases. In 1990 an MOU was signed, it was recently renewed in 2019 between President Trump and my Prime Minister. So today, your ships and planes go through Singapore. So you (Moderator Olivier Knox) asked the question, what you could be doing better and I am replying that the legitimacy of the US presence in our region was never a given. It was predicated on security, but never solely on security. It was the US building this global system, which ASEAN countries, China itself, emerging economies benefited from a globalised system.

In counterterrorism, similarly, we supported the US in Iraq and Afghanistan and it was not as if ASEAN countries fully supported your missions in Iraq. Malaysia and Indonesia are Islamic countries, and they had public protests against that war.

We come to the present situation and we ask ourselves what is different now. We support the American security and military presence in the Indo-Pacific region, we support your rebalancing and we support the greater presence of US ships and planes through Singapore. The question is, is that enough? Because on the other hand, on the economic side, there is a perception that US is against multilateralism, that the US has withdrawn from Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and then the other partners went on to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for TPP.

At the same time, a very much China dominated Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement for Asian countries, with a trade volume of $26 trillion, was signed. And I think that is the issue. To situate American presence in Asia solely on Taiwan, it is a slightly more difficult proposition. It is not communism. You have a One China policy, and many of us have a one China policy. Globally, there is only one China recognised in the UN. So I would exercise some caution with that. And let me answer your question, I think the US increasing their military presence in Asia as a stabilising force is virtuous, it is good and we will support that. We think that the US should do more to engage as it did previously, to build an economic framework, which as a tide can lift all boats and be careful on Taiwan.

I think you are doing quite a lot in the military front, the Quad and the AUKUS. Despite the assurance that is not focused on any one country, I think the more initiated will conclude otherwise that it is. It is a response to certain aspects, and China will respond. China will respond as it did. After the 20th National Party Congress it will respond as in the new composition of the Central Military Commission. Some likened it to war cabinet, I suppose there is some basis in that. The question I am posing, is American’s presence in the Indo-Pacific primarily premise on security grounds adequate, and will it give you the kind of moral legitimacy that you had from the 1960s to the year 2000.

ON US-CHINA RELATIONS

To jump in and support what Senator Graham was saying, both militarily and economically. Militarily, we talked about it, we would support more US presence. Economically, just the one metric that we ought to understand that will shape the response to this US-China rivalry in Asia is that China, for almost all Asian countries, is a top trading partner. That is going to weigh very heavily on you and it is not only Asia, and that is why you have the Chancellor of Germany saying decoupling is a bad idea; you have Netherlands saying it cannot be done. Remember that for a lot of our transnational problems, we can talk about friendly shoring, on-shoring. Take the issue of climate change or even the simple components of batteries, you have the precious metals that are needed only located in a number of countries. You will need cooperation of countries including China to deal with many of them. So I think, in that economic aspect you have to do more, and I completely understand when Senator Graham was saying that the domestic politics do not support (the TPP). I do not think we should prescribe, but America needs to, in your parlance, up its game in the economic sphere, whether it is in Asia or globally.

I think businesses will know how to respond to America, placing front and centre China as its strategic competitor for the next one, two decades. Businesses in Asia have already responded, they have now adopted the China-plus strategy. So anything they build, they build in China because it is too big a market to ignore. They want to be close to the market but they will have a plus, whether it is plus one or plus two, and other countries will benefit whether it is Vietnam, Malaysia or Thailand. It will mean the prices will go up because there is redundancy. It will add to inflationary pressures but we can handle it if it is over a longer period. I think President Macron’s issue does not only apply to France. So if the US decides, for example, for Singapore, that is going to evaluate our worth or our value to US, depending on how much investments we place in China, then it becomes a very difficult world for all businesses.

I wanted to respond to Alexander Karp’s point that “Businesses in US have already uncoupled from China.” I am not sure if that is completely true. Even if it is true, I think the question that we ask, “is that the optimum position for US?” China is a huge market. It is now $17 trillion of global economy trade, number two to US. The question for the US is access to Chinese markets, their experience in the last decade or two has not been all positive. There were issues about Intellectual Property (IP) issues and restrictions. But I think to the business sector, the question is, can you ignore China? Can you meet America's domestic goals, which ultimately, is to lift your middle class? I think part of the reaction against the TPP was the fact that median incomes in the US have not risen for a good part of 10-15 years. Where is that sweet spot and can you afford to ignore China? Would India provide that market access with ASEAN and with other countries? And I would think that China is just too big to ignore as a market.

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US should engage more in the economic aspect with Asia: Ng Eng Hen