Minister of Foreign Affairs Vivian Balakrishnan told Parliament on Monday that Singapore is advancing regional ties that will help prevent any one major power from dominating in the Asia-Pacific.

“This provides small countries like Singapore more room for maneuver than if there was only a single power dominating our region,” he said. “Naturally, we do not want the major powers to make Asia their battleground or conduct proxy wars here.”

Singapore enjoys close ties with its neighbours and has recently made progress on longstanding disputes that have tested those relationships in the past. Resolving these issues has taken greater urgency as the region comes to grips with the prospect of conflict in Asia, due in part to tensions between the US and China over Taiwan.

An American defence official last week said the US is increasing its small contingent of troops in Taiwan to train local forces, in the latest move of support for the island’s democracy and willingness to raise the ire of China.

“This represents, in fact, a fundamental deficit of strategic trust, rooted in incompatible worldviews and aggravated by their respective domestic political pressures,” Balakrishnan said of the broader US-China relationship.

Last year, Indonesia and Singapore settled a dispute over airspace and signed an extradition deal after years of disagreement. Earlier this month, Singapore agreed to temporarily suspend development and reclamation activities on an island that has been a source of tension with Malaysia, even though the International Court of Justice ruled in 2008 that the city-state had sovereignty over it.

“In the spirit of mutual cooperation and good faith, we temporarily suspended the works in May 2022 to facilitate discussions on Malaysia’s concerns,” Balakrishnan said. “We agreed to Malaysia’s requests for more time for them to consider our clarifications and proposals.”