China kept a suspiciously low profile at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore on Friday, sending only a group of academics instead of Defense Minister Dong Jun or other top military officials.
This led Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles to suspect that Beijing did not want to answer tough questions about its massive military buildup or aggressive behavior.
“We’ve seen China engage in the biggest conventional military buildup in the world since the end of the Second World War, and that has not happened with a strategic reassurance for other countries,” Marles pointed out in an interview with Reuters on Friday.
“The global rules-based order is under pressure in the Indo-Pacific. This is a moment in time where we are looking to all the relationships that we have around the world, where we have common ground and where we can work together and where we can, we do,” he said.
Marles said that China’s presence was “welcomed in the past,” because “having opportunities to engage with China are important.”
The Shangri-La event is billed as a “dialogue,” after all, and including China in the conversation has helped to reduce tensions in the past, since China is the security threat that most of the other members are most worried about.
Hosted by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), the Shangri-La Dialogue began in 2002 during a time of great international apprehension following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The early events were billed as the “Asia Security Conference,” with a relatively small membership of 14 defense ministers, but it grew steadily to include almost 50 nations, and it is noteworthy when a country’s delegation does not include its top defense officials. The United States delegation for the 2026 conference was headed by Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.
The event is still sometimes referred to by its old name, but it was renamed the “Shangri-La Dialogue” after the name of the hotel in Singapore where it has been held since its inception.
China might have faced some awkward moments if it had sent officials instead of research assistants to this year’s Dialogue. Another attendee was the Philippines, which has been fending off increasingly aggressive Chinese behavior in the South China Sea. Beijing is currently raging against Manila for arresting 24 Chinese nationals in an immigration raid on Monday.
China is also howling at the Philippines for growing closer to Japan. The Philippines and Japan just announced the beginning of discussions to define mutually acceptable maritime borders for a region near Taiwan, while China claims the region in its entirety.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr., paid a very cordial visit to Tokyo on Thursday, during which he agreed to closer defense cooperation and intelligence sharing with Japan. Neither Marcos nor Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae made any secret of the fact that China is the threat they are most urgently interested in cooperating against.
The Filipinos are in discussions to purchase advanced destroyers from Japan, which would make it harder for China’s Coast Guard and alarmingly well-armed “fishing fleet” to bully the Philippines.
Vietnam’s love-hate relationship with China has also grown more tense of late due to territorial conflicts and American efforts to woo Hanoi away from its traditional trading partners in China and Russia.
Vietnamese President To Lam delivered the keynote address at the Shangri-La Dialogue on Friday, while Hegseth will speak at the beginning of Saturday’s session. Lam is expected to meet with Hegseth on the sidelines of the summit, and apparently does not mind having China wonder what they talked about.
Marles told Reuters he was pleased to see that “America remains very committed to the Indo-Pacific,” despite the obvious distraction of the Iran crisis, and Australia continues to regard its alliance with the U.S. as “absolutely fundamental to our national security.”
Marles is scheduled to join Hegseth and British Defense Minister John Healey on Saturday to make an announcement related to AUKUS, the trilateral defense pact between the three nations that was meant to provide Australia with a top-shelf fleet of nuclear submarines.
The Shangri-La Dialogue announcement will reportedly concern underwater drones, a portion of the AUKUS agreement that has been developing more slowly than originally anticipated. Australia is a world leader in stealthy uncrewed underwater vehicle (UUV) technology.
The Asia Times took a less confident view than Marles, arguing that “the true currency of the forum is moving to the hotel corridors and closed-door lounges” as the other Shangri-La members cut defense deals and worry about America’s ability to juggle simultaneous security crises in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.
“The inconclusive fallout from the recent Iran conflict has only sharpened those doubts, leaving both traditional allies and non-aligned states questioning the reliability of American security guarantees,” the Asia Times wrote on Friday.
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