Collin Koh, a maritime security analyst with Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, said China was making up ground with the latest joint exercise after its defence diplomacy in the region was affected by the pandemic. He pointed out that forces in most Southeast Asian countries had been heavily involved in pandemic control, reducing the potential for joint military exercises with China.
“Even if China is keen to engage in more intense defence diplomacy, the Southeast Asian partners have to be similarly willing and enthused about it,” Koh said.“Much of the governments’ attention has been on pandemic control – for w hich their militaries are also quite heavily involved in routine day-to-day operations, especially border security – which has consequently reduced their bandwidth to engage in as much defence diplomacy as they would have desired,” he said.
Koh said the latest exercise between China and Singapore covered only the basic elements common in drills with the US and other partners such as Thailand, but was a sign that Beijing was consolidating its ties with Southeast Asia.
The Biden administration has vowed to strengthen US alliances in the region, pledging to support
in case of an attack in the South China Sea, where Manila and Beijing have competing territorial claims.
In a call with Singapore’s Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan in early February, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US-Singapore security and economic relationship was important, and affirmed the desire to strengthen cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region.
“Definitely, given there’s little change expected in the Biden administration’s policy towards China, except in the approach to be undertaken, we can expect Beijing to continue to seek to improve defence diplomacy in Southeast Asia,” Koh said. “But again, the pandemic does hamper how much of an inroad can be made for now,” he added.
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