Exposing how China manipulates other countries

The Straits Times gave Bilahari Kausikan’s article on the above topic a full coverage on 1 Jul with a full page including a picture of China’s aircraft carrier Liaoning in a major naval exercise in the South China Sea. This full page article appeared a second time within a week which is a way of saying how important is Bilahari’s view on China as a bad guy.
 
What is Singapore trying to say to China or what was the Straits Times editor trying to tell China with this article is clearly nothing pleasing to China. Is Singapore sending a message to China that it should not trifle with Singapore, or is it telling China that Singapore would not be cowed or pressured by China, or is it saying that unless China treats Singapore kindly or else Singapore would take a hostile stance towards China?
 
The intent and purpose of the article were simply to badmouth China as a trouble maker, a bully, as if China is the only big power that is doing what Bilahari said and no other country is doing the same, all angels. While saying that all countries adopted a series of legitimate or covert activities, persuasion, inducement and coercion, China was unique in the following, ie other countries would not do what China is doing:
“First, the nature of the Chinese state; second, this holistic approach which melds together the legal and the covert, and persuasion, inducement and coercion; and third, the aim of such operations which is not just to direct behavior but to condition behavior.”
 
The message that Bilahari was putting out is that China is not only unique as a state, a civilization state, but doing all the bad things to influence and manipulate other states and this is very bad as other big powers are nothing doing these bad things. That is why he said it is unique only to China. Singapore was never pressure to do the biddings of the American, including sending its soldiers to support the American wars in the Middle East. Singapore did it willingly without being coerced into it.
 
It does not need much intelligence for anyone knowing how evil the American Empire and the western powers were and are, to know that they have been doing the same as China and many times worse than China for centuries. But what Bilahari was trying to do is to manipulate the readers’ thought into thinking that China is the only bad guy doing these bad things. And he is given the licence, the encouragement, the space to have this anti China view published in the main media, the Straits Times.
 
What do these mean in Singapore’s relations with China? Was it not in the recent past that Singapore leaders have been bragging that relations with China is very good? Teo Chee Hian is still in China and saying the same thing, relations very good. If that is so, would the publishing of such anti China articles be conducive and favourable to good relations between the two countries? Or is Singapore confirming that relations between the two states is going downhill and Singapore is hardening its position towards China and is coming out openly to criticize and attack China, to badmouth China, to influence and manipulate the readers of the Straits Times to think badly about China?
 
What do you think? Would a good friend of China be so eager and pleased to publish such articles in its main media that would put China in a bad light?
 
Bilahari concluded his article by asking “what is the point?” and answered himself by saying, “The point is – exposure is therefore the best countermeasure.” In diplomacy, when a country exposed negative things about another country in the media, it is as good as saying, this is the end of the relationship and it is time to burn the bridges.
 
Is this the case in Singapore’s relation with China?