Singapore Urges China to Engage With Neighbors in Easing Tensions

Leader also to complete $1.7 billion deal to expand military training in Australia.
By ROB TAYLOR

Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, left, and Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull after addressing Australian lawmakers at Parliament House in Canberra on Wednesday. 
CANBERRA, Australia—Singapore urged Beijing to engage “constructively” with other regional players—including the U.S.—to ease tension in the disputed South China Sea, even as the city-state wraps up a deal here to sharpen its military skills.
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong told Australia’s Parliament at the start of a two-day visit on Wednesday that both allies wanted a “stable and orderly world in which countries big and small can prosper in peace.”
“This requires an open and inclusive social regional order where all the major powers can participate,” he said.
Mr. Lee described the U.S. as “playing a major role in fostering peace and stability in Asia,” and added: “We wish to strengthen our cooperation with China. We welcome China in engaging constructively with the region.”
China’s Foreign Ministry didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mr. Lee’s Australian counterpart, Malcolm Turnbull, said Canberra and Singapore wanted regional stability and were “at one in defending the rule of law and rejecting the proposition that might is right.”
On Thursday, the two men were to complete a deal announced in May under which Singapore will spend US$1.7 billion to upgrade two Australian military bases at Townsville and Shoalwater Bay, north of Brisbane. 

Singapore plans to send 14,000 troops there each year for four-month training rotations, up from around 6,000 currently.
Singapore’s Defense Minister Ng Eng Hen said in April that rising nationalism and “this troubled peace around us” was driving the country’s military spending.
Singapore has faced growing diplomatic pressure from China as regional tensions flare over competing territorial claims in the South China Sea.
While Singapore has professed its neutrality, some in China see it as siding with U.S.-led efforts to pressure Beijing into accepting an international tribunal’s decision in July that rejected China’s claims. 

Beijing has denounced the ruling as illegitimate.
Singapore also regularly hosts U.S. Navy warships, including aircraft carriers and submarines, transiting through the region, while its military frequently trains with American counterparts.
The U.S. also has been using Australia’s vast training areas to carry out military exercises, as part of Washington’s rebalancing of forces to the Asia-Pacific region. 

The Marines and Air Force have been expanding their footprints in the northern Australian port of Darwin, while U.S. combat ships have also begun 10-month patrol rotations through Singapore.
Mr. Lee, in the first address to Australia’s Parliament by a Singaporean leader, said both nations were reliant on unfettered sea trade and wanted to “keep the region open.”
Both countries already hold regular joint military exercises, while a squadron of Republic of Singapore Air Force aircraft is based at an Australian Air Force base in Western Australia state.
“We feel quite at home in each other’s countries,” Mr. Lee said.
For its part, Australia in February outlined a 195 billion Australian dollar ($148 billion) military modernization centered on the navy.
The Asia-Pacific region will hold half the world’s submarines and advanced combat aircraft within the next two decades, strategic planners say, as Asian nations modernize their militaries and hedge against the possibility of a superpower conflict.
Singapore was Australia’s fifth-largest trade partner last year with two-way export and investment flows worth A$19 billion. 

The U.S. ranked third, while China was Australia’s most important trade relationship.