Singapore’s welcome of future Aukus submarines underscores ‘friends-to-all’ policy

Analysts told This Week in Asia that Singapore was simply recapitulating its long-standing role as “a military access point” for Australia and the US in Southeast Asia, and Lee’s latest comments marked its more open stance to Aukus compared with its neighbours.

“This will fit into a long-standing pattern of cooperation between Australia and Singapore, let alone Singapore and any range of other regional partners, including China,” according to analyst Tom Corben.

“Singapore also provides access to Chinese assets regularly,” said Corben, a foreign policy and defence research fellow at the University of Sydney’s United States Studies Centre.

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Why is the Philippines aligning itself with the US after years of close China ties under Duterte

At a press conference on Tuesday, Singapore’s Lee said Asean states had a common stance in producing a South China Sea code of conduct with Beijing. While negotiations had gone on for two decades, Lee said more time was needed still.

Asked about the differing positions within Asean on Beijing, he said the bloc had a “common position on the South China Sea, [but also has] different national perspectives”.

“Some Asean countries like Singapore do not have claims in the South China Sea, but we have an interest in freedom of navigation and the application of international law,” Lee said.

“There are four Asean members … who are claimant states in the South China Sea. And these claims overlap with each other, and overlap with claims by China. And so the positions we take on those claims are different depending on where we stand.”

Analysts said Singapore’s reiteration it would host Australian submarines was likely to provoke China.

“Beijing has very vociferously voiced its opposition to Aukus from the