Remarks by Minister for Defence Dr Ng Eng Hen at the Opening Night of Aspen Security Forum, Moderated by Ravi Agrawal

Ravi Agrawal: I thought I would begin with a topic that many of us in the West like to ask Singaporeans about – China. Listening to the previous discussion, it is little question now that over the last decade or so, China has just become a lot more belligerent. You can speak to the Indians about that on their borders, speak to the Filipinos, speak to the Australians. China is of course, threatening Taiwan. It is providing components to Russia that are aiding it in its war in Ukraine and the question that I want to ask you and I have been trying to understand for some time, is while you understand the Chinese well, why do you think they have shifted in the last decade or so to become more assertive and belligerent?

Dr Ng: Thank you, Ravi. First of all, thank you very much to the Aspen Security Forum for inviting me here.

I do not pretend to understand China or want to be an apologist for China, so let me frame our perspective. We have two theatres of conflict. One in Ukraine from 24 February 2022. It is the third year of conflict; military objectives cannot be achieved on either side. Zelenskyy does not want to deal with a diplomatic solution, which he says publicly. He said at the Shangri-La Dialogue. You have one which started on 7 October 2023, with the Hamas attack on Israel, and the retaliation or retribution by the IDF, which is painful for all of us. But the greater problem there is that it can expand beyond Gaza and Israel.

And I would say that we can ill afford a third theatre of conflict in Asia. First, I do not think the system can take it. More importantly, the reasons for casus belli are simply not there. Or at least, not yet. I know you asked a lot of questions, but let me stop there because I am sure having framed it the way Singapore sees it, you would have more specific questions.

Ravi Agrawal: So once again, you are such an astute observer of China. Can you try and explain from speaking to them, from your interlocutors there, how are they seeing the world and why do you think they are acting as they are?

Dr Ng: If you situate yourself in China, a lot of things that they are doing seem to make sense to them. I am not saying they did not make any mistakes. To build, for example, features within the South China Sea, to move their forward defence line a couple of hundreds of kilometres forward, makes perfect military strategic sense. The island chain concept was an American concept, and it was meant to contain China. From their point of view, if I could do it, I would, and they did. The US’ attention was elsewhere after 9/11, and they (China) have fortified some of the features. The 2016 tribunal ruling said that they could not claim anything beyond the features. The tribunal ruling talked about what effectivities these features, land masses or low tide elevations had. I think their assertiveness in the South China Sea was probably a bad foreign policy.

If you speak to them quietly and candidly, they say that they do not claim every inch of water. They have said so, but in private, they say they did not. How to roll it back, is something that they need to deal with. That would be the position in South China Sea. We can talk about Taiwan, and we can talk about trade.

They articulated a number of aspects on the US, such as their position vis-a-vis the US. Some of it was borne out of hubris. It helps for economies to go through cycles, and I think it would be a salutary effect for China to be going through a difficult period. I hope it tempers and it gives some sense of reality – not all that they did over the last 30 years would be, from their position, against their interest. You talked about India, and I agree with you – people did not realise at one point of time we had 400,000 troops, 200,000 on each side and it could have gone very wrong.

Ravi Agrawal: Indeed, so let me flip that question now. When you look at how America’s approach towards China has changed dramatically in the last 7 or 8 years, does that worry you? Do you think it is justified?

Dr Ng: It does but let me try to reframe it. The China today, is a wonderful testament of great American foreign policy, from the 1960s to 2000. In fact, the whole of Asia. You talk across administrations starting from President Kennedy that “one form of colonial control” should not be “replaced by a more iron tyranny”. That was in 1961 where America spearheaded the fight against Communism. You talk about Ronald Reagan for coming down on the Berlin Wall, and for winning the Cold War as well. You talk about President Clinton sponsoring China’s accession into WTO and the reason he gave and that he could convince both sides of the aisle, was that it was important for the security of Asia. If you ask yourself from that perspective, American foreign policy from the 1960s to somewhere in 2010 – consistent, building a global system that benefited small and large countries, and the results have been spectacular. Economically, China is now 17% of world trade with an economy of 17 trillion, and the US is still leading at 28 trillion. 800 million people have been lifted out of poverty and nowhere historically has any country ever done that. Asian countries, in the 1960s, accounted for 4% of global GDP. It is now 30%. All of these have been American successes. What has changed since then?

Ravi Agrawal: Well, I noted you kind of stopped at 2010 there, what about 2010 to 2024?

Dr Ng: The moving spirit did a volte-face and decided that the institutions which it created for globalisation did not work in its process. And I think former Director-General of the WTO Pascal Lamy lamented this – the Congressional bills did not pass in 2020, but this was America trying out get out of the WTO. Two, tariffs, pulling out of the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership). America, which would have been the moving spirit for the globalised world for trade and finance, that would benefit small and large countries, is now changed. We do not know where we will go, and I do not think China is the only reason. And we will have to ask ourselves – and that panel preceding was fascinating – we have to ask ourselves in the future where will the US be, where will China be? Because the reality now, from the Asian perspective, China is the largest trading partner for almost all countries in Asia. Nye talks about soft power, Kissinger talks about legitimacy, and here is the question for you: Can US sustain its global presence and its military presence in Asia solely predicated on military power?

Ravi Agrawal: I am guessing the answer is no, I mean that was a rhetorical question.

Dr Ng: I am sorry to have to say this but in the 1960s, in case you have not noted, Americans were not always popular in Asia. In the 1960s, as I said, there was real anti-American backlash even though they (the Asians) understood the fight against communism. Sukarno spoke against the US. The situation in Laos and in Cambodia – the bombing did not help. My founding Prime Minister was a man with great wisdom, and he stuck to the courage of his convictions. In 1966, he announced that American soldiers who were based in Vietnam could come to Singapore for their R&R (Rest and Recreation). Now, in 1990, when America had been more popular because basically foreign policy worked, the Asian economies that had decolonised had a rising tide (that) lifted all boats, and the Asian economies grew. When American forces had to pull out of Clark and Subic, we offered Singapore, but not as a base because it was just too small. Today, American ships and planes are the largest user – they rotate through our air bases and Changi Naval Base.

From Singapore’s perspective, we have held that the US presence in Asia is a force for stability, we say it is indispensable, but that was of a US that was leading the global charge. Mr Lee Kuan Yew when he addressed the US Congress in 1985, said America as a hyper power or superpower, will have to decide on the rules and enforce it, which America did marvellously, I would say, for 20 years. Hence, today I would argue that it is a different America – one that has to be careful to maintain its moral legitimacy, even in Asia.

Ravi Agrawal: Are you saying that America has lost its moral legitimacy in Asia?

Dr Ng: It has to maintain its moral legitimacy.

Ravi Agrawal: Let me find another way of asking you this question.

Dr Ng: Let me answer that. The Chinese say to us that ASEAN countries or Asian countries, are very difficult. We choose China when it comes to trade, and we choose America when it comes to military power. We look at them and say, why not?

Ravi Agrawal: Fair. And you know in a sense, there are many countries now in the Global South that you know, sense a shifting world order, that sense not absolute American decline but relative, in relative terms, relative American decline and a relative rise for China. That changes things, and I am curious as we are here at Aspen Security Conference. You hosted Shangri-La Dialogue and you get to see all these defence ministers from around the world who come there just last month – your counterparts from America and China were there. I am curious, if there were to be a skirmish in the Indo-Pacific, what would that look like, what happens?

Dr Ng: That would be cataclysmic, whatever the outcome. It would test Pax Americana and discovery, it is what we want to avoid. And let me clarify that, in the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis in 1995 to 1996, President Clinton mobilised two aircraft carriers. China had missiles pointing towards Taiwan and thankfully both stood down, or at least both claimed that they stopped their exercises. If you had another situation today, I am not sure what the outcome is, and I am not sure we want to discover it. Because it will not be a simple or short outcome. I have said that Taiwan is not Ukraine, and China is not Russia. Taiwan is an island. To resupply Taiwan, you would need Japan and Korea and would draw them in. China has got military capabilities and 17% of global trade, so the effect on us would be devastating. This is a very complex situation. We have talked about what Americans’ policy is when it comes to commerce and trade. The truth is we really are not quite sure how that goes but from the security perspective, I think all of us should be very careful to avoid a physical conflict for at least this decade, if not longer, because discovery will be very painful and will probably be life-changing.

If America is able to maintain its military supremacy in Asia, that will not stop China. China will hunker down and global trade will end with China. China will spend more on military spending and the contest will go on for another couple of decades, maybe even more than one generation. If America, we discover, is unable to maintain its military supremacy, I think that is the beginning of the end of Pax Americana.

Ravi Agrawal: I am only going to ask you one question about Donald Trump.

Dr Ng: I will not answer it.

Ravi Agrawal: I will put it to you hypothetically.

Dr Ng: He is a nice man. I hope his ear recovers.

Ravi Agrawal: We all do. In all seriousness, we all do. Hypothetically, we have all heard now, several potential ranges of what a Trump 2.0 China policy could look like, ranging from, “we will dismiss managed competition” and “we are in it to win it”. You have heard about the trade tariffs. A lot of that would rock the boat significantly. Is anything going on behind the scenes?

Dr Ng: Well, it is what it is, but I would remind you that we have worked with the Trump Administration and he was very happy with Singapore because he has a trade surplus. Security-wise, it was in 2019 that my then-Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong renewed the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), to continue to allow American planes and ships going through Singapore. We have worked with the Trump administration. I am not so much concerned because it makes a big difference. But on trade, when it comes to lists, I think it is possible to try to have small yard and high fences; and strategic and non-strategic. If you talk about tech, it is not quite tech, it is information and if you ask about trying to protect information, then it becomes a security risk and then the yard goes bigger. If you talk about food security and interdependency, the yard goes bigger. If you talk about capital, which is the most fungible of all, it is already begun. If you invest in a Chinese company, which has security aspects, you cannot do business with America or America’s companies. Then it becomes very difficult. While I think it is not undoable, I would humbly submit that we are not sure, and it is very hard to decipher what the real outcome of this new industrial policy is.

Ravi Agrawal: Fair. I wanted to ask you about the war in Gaza. In Southeast Asia, you are surrounded by a lot of countries that have significant Muslim populations – Indonesia, Malaysia and your own country as well. What is the mood like, and how are you gauging the West’s role in the Middle East.

Dr Ng: Anger. Singapore has a Muslim population of 15 percent. We had just announced that two people were picked up because they were radicalised and among them was a 14-year-old boy who pledged that he would commit Jihad. There are obvious effects, and it has been difficult for countries, whether they have Muslim populations or not. I think the problem is that you have radicalised another generation of would-be terrorists in Gaza and elsewhere. We hope that the violence in Gaza would end soon, and what we have done is try to help by giving humanitarian aid – we gave air drops to Gaza by way of Jordan. But really this has a longer tail and it is unfortunate that it happened. But the larger problem of course is Iran, and the Israelis and the progressive Arab states know it. Has this up-ended the Abraham Accords? I think it has. I think some of the states want to resume relations with Israel but domestically, with their politics, this has made it very difficult for them to sell their messages.

Ravi Agrawal: Do you think America, given what you are saying, I mean first of what you said was anger. Is America losing soft power?

Dr Ng: Not so much soft power but I think across many countries, we have lost the young on this. The young are, even in Singapore, particularly incensed about the violence and the fact that nothing is done to stop it. You would lose political support, not so much soft power, but some of it. But there are other issues that I talked about in terms of what America wants to do about trade. What Asian people, I suppose, cannot wrap their minds around, is how the US can say that the trade practices are unfair, when to them, the US is the richest country in the world. With America’s $28 trillion economy, and when Asian countries see America, they see a rich country, even if there may be inequality in America. When you talk about unfair trade practices, and they are not talking about US alone, they are talking about US and them, they find that difficult to understand.

So, if there was a plea to whichever person occupies the White House, is that we believe that America’s military presence should continue, and we will facilitate that. We believe America should be a global leader in setting the rules of trade. We believe America should continue to trade and I am fully in agreement with the previous panel when talking about the need for engagement. The last time the Defence Ministers from US and China visited each other, was in 2018. This was Jim Mattis and Wei Fenghe. I think that has to resume very quickly and the lines of communications should be set up between military to military. I agree that it is very dangerous not to have communications. It is a good thing that Dong Jun, the new Defence Minister, agreed that he wanted more communications with Secretary Austin, so I hope that whoever occupies the new White House, and the new Defence Minister there, will follow up on that.

Ravi Agrawal: Your country has been investing a lot more in defence itself. I think if you look the last four years, the percentage increase has been ranging between 5% and 12% increases year on year, which is quite a lot. You are a small country, but a mighty country. Talk to us a little bit about how you are thinking about defence regionally and is this coming from a place of fear about potential adversaries?

Dr Ng: Well, it comes from paranoia.

Ravi Agrawal: Paranoia about what?

Dr Ng: If you know our history, we separated from Malaysia. It was a difficult time for Southeast Asia, there was a threat of communism.

Actually, our defence spending has come down. We used to spend as much as 5% of our GDP on defence, and we are now spending about 3% and I think it will stabilise on that. You are right in nominal terms our defence spending has increased. We believe that defence is the best deterrence. We have no plans or no capability of projecting ourselves and we do not want to project ourselves anywhere.

Mr Lee had this term “poison shrimp” for our defence forces. We think we are bigger than a shrimp now, but we are still poison so we will keep it as that, and we think that we will continue to spend.

By the way, we have conscription, so every 18-year-old spends two years full-time in the military and then we call them back for a few weeks in the 10 years after that. It is a people’s army but fairly well equipped so we think we project a good image of deterrence, and if the government continues to fund it, my department will continue to raise the armed forces that we think we need.

Ravi Agrawal: I want to talk about your country’s fairly studied neutrality when it comes to world events. That is of immense value clearly, just listening to you talk. Your perspective is so useful. I am curious how you think about neutrality in a world that is in flux, in a world that is at war.

Dr Ng: I am not sure that we believe in neutrality. Again, I quote a lot of Mr Lee because he is a profound influence, but he and Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and all of us are quite taken with the Melian Dialogue, “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must”. That is our ethos.

And if you are weak, then what do you do? Well, we believe not so much in neutrality, but in information, in observing, in trying to be ultimate realists and saying what works, what does not. We do not believe that we can balance superpowers, but we would speak to them and we would try to find some space where all sides need us. Whether we can succeed, history will tell.

The US-China conundrum will decide the fates of all our nations for this decade and the next. America has to decide – the policies of “small yard, high fences”, security alliances – ultimately, it's foreign policy towards China.

I am not sure that I have a clear idea. Is China an enemy? Is China an enemy for how long? Can China be a friend, and how would you go about it? Those are difficult questions.

Ravi Agrawal: Have you asked those questions?

Dr Ng: Constantly. Every day we are looking at you and saying, “What is up? What gives?”

Ravi Agrawal: Very quickly, just a last thought. I talked about a world in flux. This is also a world in which you know there are all these grand ideas and terms being thrown around – a new Cold War, a new battle between democracies and autocracies. Again, I mean your point of speaking to all sides is well taken, but how do you fit in values when you see countries profess competing agendas and values essentially?

Dr Ng: It is not a contest of ideas, or ideology at least. Well, not overtly like capitalism and communism. It is a contest but if you look at US, no one should bet against the US.

We talked about advanced technology. I was Minister of Education and I visited the universities in China, whether it was Zhejiang, Shanghai Jiao Tong or Fudan universities. Man for man, the Chinese students can match any of American students and you know it, you have them. But systems wise, America’s system is still ahead and that is the reason why you have more Chinese or Japanese who win Nobel Prizes when they come out of their countries to come here. That is what you still have and that is what you continue to have.

What value system produces that? Well, that is psychoanalysing the US which is too difficult. Whatever you have, you have it and you should keep at it. But is China, led by the Chinese Communist Party, one that has wrong values?

Kissinger called China a historical singularity. It is a palimpsest. In other words, if you strip away different forms of government, there is still China and it goes way down deep – values-deep. And I think that if you want to make a China an enemy, it will be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I feel very strongly that engagement is important, that, as you did previously, China is worth becoming a friend. Graham Allison’s book says that the outcome may be war, but there are good reasons to believe that if the US can have a positive trajectory with China, it will make for certain greater stability, and certain greater growth. And I believe it is within the powers of American leadership, if not now, maybe later. But I well believe that when you need something innovative, when you need to fix a difficult problem, Americans have always shown that you can do it, so we look to you for leadership.

Ravi Agrawal: It is a really useful perspective. Minister Ng, thank you very much.

Minister for Defence Speaks at Opening Night of Aspen Security Forum