Singapore is committed to keeping the Strait of Malacca open, the city state’s top diplomat Vivian Balakrishnan told his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi during talks in Beijing.
According to the Chinese government, the Singaporean foreign minister on Monday said that keeping the critical global shipping lane open was in the interest of all parties.
Balakrishnan also voiced Singapore’s support for free passage through the strait and other international waterways, the Chinese read-out showed.
According to the read-out, Wang was quoted as saying that “safeguarding the security of global industrial and supply chains and the smooth flow of maritime traffic is a shared aspiration of all countries and is in the common interest of the international community”.
“China is willing to continue making efforts to this end,” Wang added.
The foreign ministers’ talks came as the US-Iran conflict and the ensuing crisis in the Strait of Hormuz have thrust China’s so-called Malacca dilemma back into the spotlight.
