Navy to base ships in Singapore

Washington Post:
If China is unhappy with the Obama administration’s decision to send a handful of Marines to northern Australia, wait until the U.S. Navy starts basing warships in Singapore, on the edge of the disputed waters of the South China Sea. 
The United States and Singapore are in the final negotiating stages of an agreement to base some of the U.S. Navy’s new Littoral Combat Ships at the Changi Naval Base. Former Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates announced in June that a deal was near to deploy the ships to Singapore, and a Pentagon spokesman said this week that officials “remain excited about this opportunity.” 
The initial announcement barely caused a ripple compared with the stir caused by President Obama’s declaration Wednesday that he would permanently station a small number of Marines in Australia. The former involves 250 to 2,500 Marines deployed roughly 2,500 miles from China. 
The latter is significantly closer — and is sure to be viewed as more threatening by Beijing. Littoral Combat Ships are among the most modern in the Navy’s fleet and can be outfitted for a variety of missions, from anti-piracy to submarine tracking and special operations. They’re designed to operate in shallow coastal waters and travel at a top speed of more than 40 knots. 
Singapore is a city-state that carries outsized influence because of its strategic location along the Straits of Malacca, the main thoroughfare between the Indian and Pacific Oceans and home to some of the busiest shipping lanes in the world. It is also on the southern edge of the South China Sea, the subject of increasingly nasty territorial disputes with Vietnam, the Philippines and other countries.
...
It seems odd that a nation of a billion people would be concerned about the stationing of a maximum of 2,500 troops over a thousand miles away in Australia.  But the troops do complicate China's power grab in he South china Sea, by being a force that could make that grab on small bases more difficult and also threaten a much larger response from the US.  The Singapore base will have a similar effect.
 

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