Quora Answer: Can China Invade Singapore?

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “Can China invade Singapore, and obliterate it within seconds?” 

The only way China could “obliterate” Singapore would be through a nuclear attack.  Singapore is well within range of its ICBMs.  However, China does not have a first use policy.  Only the Americans are that belligerent.  China, also, would not want to pay the political and economic cost of such an act.  Singapore straddles the busiest shipping lane in the world, being at the southern end of the Malacca Straits.  What could China possibly gain from irradiating its economic lifeline?  You do not begin a war by crashing your own economy.  This is notwithstanding the economic reprisals.  Or, the fact that the US military has a refit base in Singapore. 

If we consider conventional warfare, China and Singapore is almost 4,000 kilometres apart.  Even if China had all her military available to attack Singapore, with no consideration for defending her own borders, she does not have the military sealift and airlift capability to bring a force to bear that can overcome Singapore’s defending force.  A naval invasion requires both naval and air superiority so that the invasion force can make it to the landing zone.  China has a far larger navy, but the entrance to the Singapore Straits, at Horsburgh Lighthouse, has a narrow lane, just over two kilometres across an entrance five kilometres wide.  It would be a shooting gallery, as the Chinese fleet comes in, one vessel at a time. 

When it comes to air cover, the nearest Chinese aircraft are based at Hainan Island, with limited air-to-air refueling capability.  Their planes would be outnumbered, and shot down by the RSAF, which is one of the largest fighter fleets in the region.  As the defending force, they have the advantage of a quick turnaround. 

As can be seen, such an military venture is not about the numbers, but terrain and logistics.  China’s military is geared towards defence of the near abroad.  They do not have the capability of even attempting an invasion of Taiwan, just across the Straits, due to the same lack of lift capability.  They are certainly in no position to even consider an invasion of Singapore, so far away.