SINGAPORE — The White Home on Monday introduced a sequence of latest agreements with Singapore aimed toward combating cyberthreats, tackling local weather change, addressing the COVID-19 pandemic and assuaging provide chain points. The bulletins coincide with Vice President Kamala Harris’ go to to the area, as a part of the Biden administration’s efforts to counter Chinese language affect there.

On cybersecurity, the Treasury and Protection Departments, in addition to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Safety Company, have every inked a memorandum of understanding with their Singapore counterparts increasing info sharing and coaching to fight cyber threats,

On local weather, the 2 nations are launching the U.S.-Singapore Local weather Partnership, a brand new effort between the Departments of Commerce, Power, Transportation and Treasury and their counterparts in Singapore to develop new local weather requirements and collaborate on tasks to broaden clear vitality infrastructure improvement and enhance sustainability.

The 2 nations agreed to cooperate extra intently to trace COVID-19 variants and have interaction in analysis on coronavirus therapies. And the Division of Commerce is becoming a member of with the Singapore Ministry of Commerce and Trade to create a partnership centered on strengthening commerce all through a handful of key industries.

The White Home introduced extra agreements between the 2 nations fostering cooperation on area exploration and protection points as nicely. The bulletins got here Monday after Harris met with Singapore President Halimah Yacob, and Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

Harris’ Southeast Asian journey, which brings Harris to Singapore after which later to Vietnam this week, is aimed toward broadening cooperation with each nations to supply a counterweight to China’s rising affect within the area.

On Monday morning, Harris participated in a welcome ceremony outdoors the Istana, the presidential palace, the place she held her hand over her coronary heart whereas a marching band performed the Star Spangled Banner. She then walked across the courtyard, reviewing the band, accompanied by Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

Loong then confirmed her a species of an orchid that was named in her honor, and Harris participated in a short courtesy name with President Halimah Yacob, earlier than heading right into a sequence of bilateral conferences with the prime minister.

After her conferences, the vp will take part in a joint information convention, and later go to the Changi Naval Base, the place she’ll communicate to American sailors aboard the usTulsa, a fight ship.

On Tuesday, Harris will ship a speech outlining the Biden administration’s imaginative and prescient for the area, and meet with enterprise leaders to debate provide chain points.

The journey marks Harris’ second overseas journey — she visited Guatemala and Mexico in June — and would be the first time a U.S. vp has visited Vietnam.

Singapore is the anchor of the U.S. naval presence in Southeast Asia and has a deep commerce partnership with the U.S., however the nation additionally seeks to take care of sturdy ties with China and a place of neutrality amid more and more frosty U.S.-China relations.

Relations between the U.S. and China deteriorated sharply underneath Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, and the 2 sides stay at odds over a number of points together with know-how, cybersecurity and human rights.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. Protection Secretary Lloyd Austin made their first abroad journeys to Japan and South Korea. Austin traveled to Singapore, Vietnam and the Philippines final month and he vowed U.S. help towards Beijing’s intrusions within the South China Sea.

Harris is predicted to emphasise the necessity for a free and open Indo-Pacific area in her conversations with Singapore’s and Vietnam’s leaders.

Alexander Feldman, president and CEO of the US-ASEAN Enterprise Council, mentioned Harris should watch out in her conversations with Singapore’s leaders to not focus too closely on China, however to emphasise a constructive, productive U.S. relationship with Singapore and Vietnam.

“The place she may fall right into a lure is absolutely making an attempt to pit this as a U.S. versus China journey. it must be a U.S. journey to our mates and companions in in Southeast Asia,” Feldman mentioned.

If China turns into the primary point of interest, he mentioned, “that makes it more durable for our mates to maneuver ahead throughout the area, not solely in Singapore and Vietnam however past that.”

Certainly, Singapore International Minister Vivian Balakrishnan mentioned in a latest interview that Singapore will “be helpful however we won’t be made use of” in its relations with each nations, and the nation’s prime minister beforehand warned the U.S. towards pursuing an aggressive method to China.

Beijing, nevertheless, has seized on the go to, with China’s official Xinhua Information Company issuing an editorial Saturday on Harris’ journey portraying it as a part of a drive to include China.

Visits to Southeast Asia by senior Biden officers are aiming to “woo these nations to type a hoop of containment towards China. However Southeast Asian nations are reluctant to decide on sides between China and the US, and America’s ‘wishful plan’ will finish in failure,” Xinhua mentioned.

The U.S. method is predicated on “outdated Chilly Struggle pondering and is meant to impress troubles of their relations with China, create division and confrontation, and attempt to create a hoop of containment,” the editorial mentioned.

Whereas Harris navigates the difficult diplomacy surrounding the difficulty of China, she’ll additionally face the duty of reassuring key U.S. allies of America’s dedication to Southeast Asia, within the wake of the tumultuous Afghanistan exit. Photos of determined Afghans mobbing American plans leaving Kabul have drawn comparisons to pictures from the autumn of Saigon on the finish of the Vietnam Struggle.

Harris’ aides have been cautious to emphasise that whereas she stays deeply engaged on the state of affairs in Afghanistan, the Southeast Asia journey was deliberate nicely earlier than the latest occasions, they usually say Harris’ work in Singapore and Vietnam is necessary, impartial of the developments in Afghanistan.