Singapore and Australia enjoy long-standing and multi-faceted ties, with defence cooperation a key plank of the bilateral relationship. Defence ties will be further strengthened as Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong visits Canberra this week to deliver a historic address to the Australian Parliament and to attend the inaugural annual leaders’ summit held under the ambit of a landmark strategic partnership agreement between the two countries. TODAY’s Albert Wai (albertwai [at] mediacorp.com.sg) interviews Dr Euan Graham, Director of International Security at the Lowy Institute for International Policy in Sydney and a keen observer of East Asian affairs for more than 20 years, on how Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull perceives the bilateral relationship, implications for enhanced access to training areas for Singapore Armed Forces in Australia, as well as the South China Sea dispute.

How does Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull see Singapore?

His priority relationship in South-east Asia is clearly Indonesia, which he has singled out for a personal commitment to improve relations.

We should not forget that that was also the case for (former Prime Minister) Tony Abbott when he came into office. Mr Abbott’s ultimate legacy in South-east Asia, if he can take a measure of the credit, was concluding the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership (CSP) with Singapore (last year to deepen economic integration, expand defence cooperation, promote innovation and entrepreneurship, and strengthen people-to-people ties).

I think Mr Turnbull views Singapore as easy to work with, aligned on most major issues — and the focus of the CSP on improved market access for Australia tallies with his economic policy goals. The creation of an innovation hub in Singapore has probably helped to put his own spin on the CSP.

Mr Turnbull has a son in Singapore, it is true, but he’s not a politician obviously led by his emotions. I understand he has a good relationship with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, and they last met not all that long ago at the G20 summit in China.

Singapore and Australia share so many interests and outlooks in common that we often talk about “strategic convergence”. At the same time, Australian leaders must be mindful not to treat Singapore as a proxy for South-east Asia, just because the relationship is relatively trouble free.

There are substantive defence ties between Singapore and Australia, especially in the Five Power Defence Arrangement (FPDA) and the Association of South-east Asian Nations Defence Ministers’ Meeting Plus (ADMM-Plus). How do other stakeholders in the region perceive the military relationship?

The enhanced bilateral Australia-Singapore defence relationship has not attracted any notable negative reaction in the region. Indonesia does not seem unduly bothered. Nor has the CSP stood in the way of Australia’s renewed efforts to reinvigorate defence diplomacy with Indonesia, which participated fulsomely in the Kakadu and Pitch Black exercises here (in Australia) in recent weeks.

The FPDA (which includes the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Malaysia) requires some political effort at balancing so that Malaysia doesn’t feel left behind by the growing pace of Australia-Singapore collaboration. But that balance appears to have been found, with the FPDA now restored to its normal pace of exercises. Australia also values the access that comes with the FPDA to military bases and to the higher command of both Malaysia’s and Singapore’s armed forces.

That said, the momentum of Australia-Singapore defence ties is increasingly in a different league when it comes to advanced capabilities and training opportunities that come with the SAF’s (Singapore Armed Forces)more regular and large-scale presence in northern Australia. It may even emerge in future as the core bilateral defence link within the FPDA structure.

It has just been announced that both sides will sign an agreement on military training and training area development in Australia. With this, the SAF will be able to train in Australia for 18 weeks with 14,000 troops per year. This arrangement will last for 25 years. (The current arrangement allows 6,600 troops to train in Australia for six weeks a year.) Singapore and Australia will also jointly develop military training areas and facilities in Queensland. What were Canberra’s considerations behind granting this enhanced access to the SAF?

Canberra sees Singapore as a trusted defence partner, going back to Australia’s assistance to the SAF in its formative years. Decades before that, Australia was militarily present in Singapore. Both sides have developed a comfort level with each other that allows planning for the long term, as represented by the quarter-century lifespan of this agreement.

As a result of Singapore’s investment in enhanced training access to northern Australia, the Australian Defence Force will gain access to that defence infrastructure when not in use by the SAF.

More broadly, the CSP foresees enhanced economic and commercial benefits accruing to Australian businesses, investors and skilled professionals. But we should not overlook the importance of Singapore as a forward operating location for the Australian Defence Force (ADF) and Australia’s most advanced defence engagement partner in South-east Asia.

The new arrangements stand to strengthen this bilateral link within the FPDA framework. Both sides gain “strategic depth”.

How will this enhance interoperability? How does Australia’s defence relationship with Singapore compare with its ties with other major partners such as the United States?

Interoperability should improve ‘‘organically’’ as a consequence of the larger SAF presence in Australia, providing more spin-off exercise opportunities with the ADF, as well as the US Marines rotating through the Northern Territory.

Singapore emerges from this as potentially Australia’s closest defence partner after the US. At the same time, we should not “oversell” defence cooperation between Singapore and Canberra, which remains in a different league compared to the close integration of US and Australian forces within the Anzus (Australia-New Zealand-United States) alliance.

What are Australia’s core interests in the South China Sea?

It is important to realise that Australia and Singapore have their own independent national interests at stake in the South China Sea. Singapore’s is more direct by virtue of geography. Any instability that impedes maritime access to the South China Sea will affect Singapore severely, as Prime Minister Lee has repeatedly outlined in his speeches.

For Australia, the South China Sea is less of an “existential” concern, but still very important to its trade and the ability of its armed forces to operate, legally, in a region of direct concern to Australia’s security. That’s what lies at the heart of Australia’s continuing FPDA commitment, it should not be forgotten.

It’s also partly why Australia has spoken out in support of the Arbitral Tribunal award (in July, invalidating China’s expansive claims in the disputed waterway) as binding in nature but also providing a platform from which China and other territorial claimants can pursue negotiations on the basis of enhanced legal clarity about what can legitimately form the basis for maritime claims in the South China Sea.

The two leaders will have plenty to talk about when they meet this week in Canberra.

One of the enduring features of the Singapore-Australia partnership is the ability to discuss knotty issues like the South China Sea frankly, from perspectives that are similar but also rooted in our own distinctive national traditions and interests.

*Dr Euan Graham is the director of international security at the Lowy Institute for International Policy. He was formerly with the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) in Singapore where he was a senior fellow specialising in maritime issues. Prior to his stint at RSIS, he was a research analyst in the United Kingdom Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and served as Chargé d’Affaires at the British Embassy in Pyongyang.