South China Sea | Singapore says Chinese newspaper ‘fabricated’ report

In this undated file photo released by Xinhua News Agency, a Chinese H-6K bomber patrols the islands and reefs in the South China Sea

Singapore accused a nationalist Chinese state-run newspaper of fabricating details in a news report that it said falsely depicted the city-state’s conduct at a recent summit in Venezuela.
The Global Times report, published on its Chinese-language website, said that Singapore requested that the final document of the 17th Non-Aligned Movement summit include an endorsement for an international arbitration panel’s July ruling favoring the Philippines in its dispute with China over the South China Sea. The report cited unnamed sources it said “had knowledge of the situation.”
The report said that most of the countries objected to the Singaporean delegation’s request, angering the delegation. The newspaper said the delegation also spoke rudely to those countries’ officials.
The report triggered an unusually public dispute between Singapore’s ambassador to China and the chief editor of the tabloid newspaper, which is published by the ruling Communist Party’s mouthpiece People’s Daily. The outspoken paper targets a domestic audience for whom nationalistic appeals resonate strongly.
In an open letter to the Global Times’ editor-in-chief, the ambassador, Stanley Loh, said that the report “attributed actions and words to Singapore which are false and unfounded.”
In the letter, Loh said that “the proposal to update the Southeast Asia paragraphs in the NAM Final Document was not done at the last minute nor by any single ASEAN country. There was a common and united ASEAN position.”
It said that Singapore was “disappointed that an established newspaper published this irresponsible report replete with fabrications and unfounded allegations with no regard for the facts,” and noted that Singapore was represented at the summit, while China was not.
The editor-in-chief of the Global Times, Hu Xijin, stood his ground against Loh’s accusations, saying that the report “was based on a serious and reliable source who attended the summit,” according to the newspaper.
The ambassador wrote a second letter aimed at refuting Hu’s response.
Singapore doesn’t have any claims to disputed islands in the South China Sea and its officials say it is interested in safeguarding the stability of the region’s waterways. AP