The first sentence is just an extrapolation of your initial
reasoning for the question "are they (China) a threat to South East
Asia?" France still have significant interest in Asia, though more
in China than even the ASEAN combined. There is no reason to
consider them a threat for what they did in Vietnam in the past.
The same way there is no reason to consider China a threat to any
SEA countries based on what China did in Vietnam.
The power in play in the region also include India and Russia,
besides China, US/Australia, Japan and the EU. It is to the
interest of Singapore to stay engaged to all these power without
taking side. We don't see all SEA countries having a common or
solidarity stand on this.
A paper published by somebody in the S Rajaratnam School of
International Studies, 6 June 2007 stated that the spratlys dispute
has actually de-escalated in recent years, it is no longer
perceived as a security flashpoint capable of undermining order in
the region. The territorial dispute has been shelved to some extent
and the parties involved have de escalated what remain inherently a
security issue. It is important we recognise the change of events
and move on.
If any country is identified and recognised as a threat to us,
unless we do not take it seriously, we would need to be prepared
for such threat. and if the other party responds to our
preparation, this would easily lead to a military confrontation,
no?
In security cooperation, Singapore works closely with many nations,
besides some of the powers in play in the region. We have avoided
any form of military cooperation with China, due to sensitivity in
the american and european hardware we are using. It is also for
similar reason, SAF is never welcome to train even within ASEAN,
and we have to send our troops all the way to South Africa for
training. Such is the trust and cooperation WITHIN ASEAN. 
In short, anybody can view China a threat for all you want, but do
not expect the SAF to prepare to use our F15 for strike into
territories far away from Singapore, such as the Spratlys, to
defend SEA. On the other hand, we all know that we need to be
prepared for potential threats which are real, terrorists who are
trained in neigboring countries, foreign leader who want to skin us
like cat, countries who would just re draw their map to include
Singapore as part of their territory.......
F15S must be equipped to fly deep in to take out known terrorists
training camps wherever that may be when necessary,........
