Nine Singaporean armored infantry vehicles detained by Hong Kong customs

[Xisiqomelir]

After waiting days for ray or fingolfin to make this thread, I thought I'd take a crack at it.

Here is a neutral (i.e. Australian) account:

The seizure by Hong Kong’s Customs of nine Terrex ­armoured personnel carriers owned by the Singapore Army is throwing a spotlight on the complex, swirling relationships ­between China, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong.

These Chinese-speaking ­jurisdictions are more contrasting in their governance and cultures than English-speaking countries such as Australia, the US and Britain.

The four share linguistic and cultural affinities, but vary vastly in other ways. It was once said that they together comprise “Greater China”. But that concept has fallen into disuse as people in the smaller jurisdictions have taken to self-describing as Taiwanese and Hong Kongers, as well, of course, as Singaporeans — rather than primarily as “Chinese”.

All four are involved in the chain of events through which the carriers ended up in Hong Kong, for they had been used by Singaporean soldiers exercising in Taiwan.

And China is of course ­engaged as the sovereign of Hong Kong, as well as claiming sovereignty over Taiwan.

The vituperation in the coverage of the seizure highlights the intense emotions between the four, especially on the part of those in China who feel betrayed that any people of “Chinese” ­ethnic origin should fail to ­acknowledge the authority of the People’s Republic.

Here is a hilarious PRC-media account (will require 华语 skills):

YouTube - 新加坡聯手台灣挑釁中國，運裝甲車經香港被扣押

And here is an even funnier PAP-media whinging one:

SINGAPORE - Singapore will not allow any single issue to hijack its longstanding, wide-ranging relationship with China, Minister for Foreign Affairs Vivian Balakrishnan said on Tuesday (Nov 29).

Dr Balakrishnan, the keynote speaker at The Straits Times Global Outlook Forum, was responding to questions about recent frictions in Singapore-China ties, including last week's seizure of nine Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) armoured vehicles by the Customs authorities in Hong Kong.

Senior officials on both sides understand that the relationship is "longstanding, multi-faceted, mutually beneficial" and will not allow any single issue to hijack it, he said at the forum at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel.

Dr Balakrishnan added: "I wouldn't overreact to that... we expect commercial providers of services to strictly comply with the law.

"It will be a footnote on how to do things strictly, carefully and by the law. It's not a strategic incident."

Last Wednesday (Nov 23), Hong Kong Customs officials seized the SAF Terrex Infantry Carrier Vehicles and related equipment that were on board a container ship belonging to shipping firm APL. The SAF vehicles were bound for Singapore after a military exercise in Taiwan.

For a proximate cause for this diplomatic/logistic comedy, check out Singaporean Prime-Minister-by-primogeniture Lee Hsien Loong's carefully delicate remarks regarding the society and cities of the famously thin-skinned Chinese.

For an entertaining corollary, consider that the multibillion dollar potential contract between ST Engineering subsidiary ST Kinetics and the USMC is now definitely down the crapper since the PLA has had days to look over the vehicle's informatics and weapons control systems. Hopefully they can cry themselves to sleep over the contract for prototypes they got in March.

[Sea Skimmer]

The USMC ACV 1.1 version is different to the tune of weighing seven and a half tons more to increase armor and amphibious performance without consuming all possible growth margin (which was about zero), different engine, and will use US radios, networking and a US remote weapon station, if for only a machine gun anyway. Said version is also to be produced in the US in South Carolina. This is all why making 13 prototypes costs 150 million USD.

The amount of strategic information China can learn from the original version is low, and near zero unless they cut the hull open to look at the original armor, since the US will end up making all the mobility trials data public anyway. This ineptitude at paperwork by the Singapore Army is rather unlikely to scuttle this, though the end of cost of the damn vehicle which is a lot higher then the BAE offering that sat more people still might if the prototypes need further changes compared to the rather simpler mods made for the demonstration phase.

[ray245]

It's kinda funny how long it took for the average Chinese netizen to be aware of Singapore's military trainings in Taiwan. It's basically an open secret for years.

[Sea Skimmer]

Decades in fact, for a long time Singapore was keeping tanks in Taiwan full time for this. Not sure if they still do. But you know, Chinese are always looking for an excuse to become hysterical and ignorance is the best way to facilitate that kind of behavior anywhere.

[Pelranius]

I think the Singaporeans kept several dozen Centurion tanks around in southern Taiwan.

[Sea Skimmer]

For a while they were probably keeping near 100% of the Centurions in Taiwan. I think the rather direct implication of that was that Singapore expected Taiwan to supply a serious ground force should they ever be attacked, in exchange for forming some kind of strategic depth if China ever did attack Taiwan. Malaysia had zero MBTs until recently as it was. Now the Centurions are all retired though, and a much larger number of Leopard 2 tanks exists, I've seen no signs I've heard that those go to Taiwan though I could be wrong, they may well have had export restrictions on that. It would be rather hard to roll them around covertly.