US, China open to joint sea drills with Asean: Singapore

Bloomberg

The US and China were both open to joining separate maritime drills with Southeast Asian nations as early as next year, Singapore Defense Minister Ng Eng Hen said.
Speaking on the sidelines of Association of Southeast Asian Nations defense ministers meeting, Ng said China Defense Minister Chang Wanquan and US Defense Secretary James Mattis both welcomed the chance to participate, Ng said after meeting separately with Chang and Mattis. “We’ll work out the details,” Ng said. “We will find a suitable area that Asean and China navies can
exercise together.”
Singapore, which has long tried to balance the interests of the US and China in the South China Sea, expects to be at the forefront of the region’s relations with both countries next year when it takes over from the Philippines as chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong warned in March that his island nation risked being “coerced” into choosing between the two. “From Singapore’s point of view, the more exercises we have with countries, the better for confidence-building,” Ng said.
Ng said his Chinese counterpart hoped to “turn a new page” by conducting maritime exercises with the region where China’s South China Sea claims overlap with the territorial claims of five Asean countries — Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Brunei.