US agrees spy plane deployment in Singapore amid China tensions

Carter and Ng also noted that, in light of the 25th anniversary of the 1990 memorandum and the 10th anniversary of the agreement between the United States and Singapore, it was timely for both countries to elevate defense relations through an enhanced DCA, the readout said.

Meanwhile, a news release issued by the U.S. Navy’s 7th Fleet Public Affairs announced that a USN Poseidon has already been deployed to Singapore to “to support cooperative efforts in the Indo-Asia-Pacific”.

In addition to the P-8 deployment, the U.S. says it will operate a military plane, either a P-8 Poseidon or a P-3 Orion, from Singapore for the foreseeable future, rotating planes on a quarterly basis.

This is part of the countries’ response to China over its continuous efforts in the South China Sea.

Singapore’s defense minister, Ng Eng Hen, is set to sign the cooperation agreement during a visit to Washington. The move comes at a time of heightened tensions in the South China Sea over China’s pursuit of territorial claims there.

Singapore has been a staunch supporter of the US military presence in the region.

Last month, US B-52 bombers flew near some of China’s artificial islands and, at the end of October, a U.S. guided-missile destroyer sailed within 12 nautical miles of one of them. US surveillance flights in the area have also irked Beijing.

Singapore has long provided logistical support for US military ships and aircraft, and the new agreement will take cooperation to a higher level, including in battling nonconventional threats such as piracy, transnational terrorism and cyber defense, according to a Defense Department statement.

Brunei, Malaysia and Taiwan are the other claimants, but the Philippines and Vietnam are the most vocal against China’s blanket claims.

Even as it maintains strong trade ties with China, Singapore over the past decade has built a robust relationship with the American military, hosting a logistics command unit as well as U.S. Navy vessels for temporary stints – including new Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) created to operate close to shore in shallow waters.

Despite rising tension with China over its South China Sea territorial claims, a United States navy spokesman based in Singapore insisted that the deployments were “not exclusively focussed on the South China Sea”.

Singapore is granting the United States permission to fly sophisticated surveillance aircraft out of its territory to better monitor China’s island-building in the South China Sea, Foreign Policy has learned.

Other countries in the area are following in Singapore’s footsteps, taking part in exercises with US and Japanese forces, and seeking security assistance and diplomatic backing from Washington in the heated disputes over the South China Sea.

HADR is an acronym for Humanitarian and Disaster Relief operations.