How tiny Singapore ties China and Taiwan in training for war

HONG KONG – Military rivals China and Taiwan are both seen as benefiting from military training activities conducted with Singapore, which, in turn, also gains from the cooperation.

China’s People’s Liberation Army and Taiwan’s armed forces are getting tips from Singapore’s relatively advanced armed forces but, more so, long-standing political ties with a mutually trusted third country – which is especially critical for Taiwan – experts say.

“Both Taiwan and China work with Singapore because if you want influence, you need to engage,” said Yun Sun, East Asia Program senior associate at the Stimson Center think tank in Washington.

Taiwan has provided Singapore at least three tracts of its much larger territory for training, including exercises, since 1975. The annual Project Starlight exercises bring Taiwan, diplomatically isolated by China, unusually close to an influential Asian country outside consular and trade affairs, to which most of its dealings overseas are limited by Chinese pressure.

Washington-based Asia analyst and author I-wei Jennifer Chang argued in a study for the Global Taiwan Institute in Washington that troops on the self-ruled island have gained from training alongside Singapore’s experienced armed forces.

However, analysts see Taiwan’s biggest gains coming from the elusive international recognition it gets from working closely with a major country in Asia despite growing diplomatic isolation.

Singapore’s founding prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, and his friend Chiang Ching-kuo, Taiwan’s former premier, began the program because Singapore’s armed forces needed the space.

The project’s continuation, though low-key and under pressure before 2020 from China to end it or move it to a Chinese location, strengthens Taiwan’s image, Brian Hioe, nonresident fellow at the Taiwan Research Hub of the University of Nottingham, said by email.

“China, of course, hopes to draw Singapore into its fold, while Singapore is incentivized to maintain training relations with Taiwan – and by extension, the US – so as to avoid geopolitical risk from China,” Hioe said.

If Singapore called off the training, “it would deal a significant blow to Taipei and terminate a historical bond between the two governments,” Chang wrote in her study.

“Singapore has over the decades signaled that it intends to maintain its training program with Taiwan despite compulsion from Beijing,” Chang wrote.

While Beijing normally stews when other countries pursue political or military relations with Taiwan, it now tolerates Singapore’s cooperation with Taiwan because of Singapore’s own close relations with China, said Denny Roy, senior fellow at the East-West Center in Hawaii.

China takes further solace in Singapore’s nod to Beijing’s one-China policy and an “understanding that Singapore needs training space outside of its own territory,” Roy said.

Meanwhile, China and Singapore have also engaged in military cooperation through exercises.

In 2019, their defense ministers updated a military exchange agreement to allow for more frequent high-level defense talks and larger-scale air, sea and land exercises. In December the two sides held Exercise Cooperation 2025.

The seventh in a series of training exercises, it focused this time on urban counterterrorism.

China benefits by improving the ability of “mixed units” to handle rapidly changing situations and integrate crewed and uncrewed units in case of future counterterrorism missions, Beijing’s official Xinhua News Agency said.

China, alongside Singapore, has trained its ground forces and naval units with the sea exercises focused on a “range of low-level naval missions and tasks” including mine countermeasures, Malcom Davis, senior analyst for defense strategy and national security with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said by email.

Analysts see little indication that Singapore, whose Defence Ministry did not answer requests for comment for this report, is giving either China or Taiwan a leg up in any conflict or that it is disclosing sensitive information about one side to the other.

“There is little reason for this to change in the future because the arrangement doesn’t significantly make Taiwan more militarily defensible,” Roy said.

Meanwhile, analysts say Singapore is scoring its own victories from military exposure to China and Taiwan.

Singapore has historically trained in Taiwan because of “concerns about the security risks if it were to train directly in China” but practices with China as well to “manage relations,” Hioe said.

Davis said the cooperation with Taiwan gives Singaporean military units physical space for “complex” training.

“Taiwan also allows greater employment of more complex operations, especially for ground force operations,” he said.

“The complex nature of Taiwan’s terrain is in some respects similar to that of the Malayan peninsula, whilst its urban regions match that of Singapore. So there is value to be gained from joint training.”

Singapore’s war game is also a diplomatic exercise, Sun said.

“Singapore takes pride in its ability to balance different relationships to maximize its own interest,” she said.

“The primary gains from working with both Taiwan and the PLA is an image of Singapore being neutral, independent and free to pursue its own agenda,” she added.

香港——军事对手中国和台湾都被认为从与新加坡进行的军事训练活动中受益，而新加坡也从这种合作中获益。

专家表示，中国人民解放军和台湾军队正在从新加坡相对先进的军队中汲取经验，但更重要的是，他们还从与互信的第三国建立的长期政治关系中获益——这对台湾来说尤其重要。

“台湾和中国都与新加坡合作，因为如果你想要影响力，你就需要参与，”华盛顿智库史汀生中心东亚项目高级研究员孙云说。

自 1975 年以来，台湾已向新加坡提供了至少三块面积远大于其领土的土地用于训练，包括演习。一年一度的“星光计划”演习使在外交上被中国孤立的台湾，在领事和贸易事务之外，与一个具有影响力的亚洲国家异常接近，而台湾与该国的大部分海外往来都受到中国的压力限制。

华盛顿的亚洲分析师兼作家张宜薇在华盛顿全球台湾研究所的一项研究中指出，台湾的军队从与新加坡经验丰富的武装部队一起训练中获益匪浅。

然而，分析人士认为，台湾最大的收获来自于与亚洲一个主要国家密切合作所获得的难以捉摸的国际认可，尽管其外交孤立程度日益加深。

新加坡建国总理李光耀和他的朋友、台湾前行政院长蒋经国启动了这项计划，因为新加坡军队需要这片空间。

诺丁汉大学台湾研究中心非常驻研究员Brian Hioe通过电子邮件表示，尽管该项目进展低调，并且在2020年之前面临来自中国的压力，要求其终止或将其转移到中国境内，但该项目的继续推进加强了台湾的形象。

“中国当然希望将新加坡拉入自己的阵营，而新加坡也有动力与台湾（进而与美国）保持培训关系，以避免来自中国的地缘政治风险，”Hioe说道。

张女士在她的研究中写道，如果新加坡取消这次培训，“这将对台北造成重大打击，并终结两国政府之间的历史纽带”。

张写道：“几十年来，新加坡已经表明，尽管受到北京方面的施压，它仍打算维持与台湾的培训计划。”

夏威夷东西方中心高级研究员丹尼·罗伊表示，虽然北京通常会对其他国家与台湾建立政治或军事关系感到不满，但现在它容忍新加坡与台湾的合作，因为新加坡自身与中国关系密切。

罗伊表示，新加坡对北京的一个中国政策表示认可，并且“理解新加坡需要在其领土之外的训练空间”，这让中国感到更加欣慰。

与此同时，中国和新加坡也通过联合演习开展了军事合作。

2019年，两国国防部长更新了军事交流协议，允许更频繁地举行高层防务会谈，并开展更大规模的海陆空联合演习。同年12月，双方举行了“合作-2025”联合演习。

这是系列训练演习中的第七次，这次的重点是城市反恐。

北京官方新华社称，中国将受益于“混合部队”提高应对快速变化局势的能力，并在未来的反恐任务中整合有人和无人部队。

澳大利亚战略政策研究所国防战略和国家安全高级分析师马尔科姆·戴维斯通过电子邮件表示，中国与新加坡一道，对其陆军和海军部队进行了海上演习，重点是“一系列低级别海军任务”，包括水雷反制措施。

分析人士认为，几乎没有迹象表明新加坡（其国防部未回应本报道的置评请求）在任何冲突中给予中国或台湾任何一方优势，或者向另一方泄露有关一方的敏感信息。

罗伊表示：“未来这种情况几乎没有改变的可能，因为这种安排并没有显著增强台湾的军事防御能力。”

与此同时，分析人士表示，新加坡正通过与中国和台湾的军事接触取得自己的胜利。

Hioe表示，新加坡历来在台湾进行训练，因为“担心如果直接在中国训练会带来安全风险”，但同时也与中国进行训练以“管控关系”。

戴维斯表示，与台湾的合作使新加坡军事单位能够进行“复杂”的训练，并为其提供物理空间。

“台湾也允许更广泛地运用更复杂的作战方式，特别是地面部队作战，”他说。

“台湾地形复杂，在某些方面与马来半岛相似，而其城市地区则与新加坡类似。因此，联合训练具有重要价值。”

孙先生表示，新加坡的军事演习也是一次外交演习。

“新加坡以其平衡各种关系以最大限度维护自身利益的能力而自豪，”她说。

她补充说：“与台湾和解放军合作的主要好处是树立新加坡保持中立、独立和自由追求自身目标的形象。”