The 22nd edition of the Shangri-La Dialogue took place from 30 May to 1 June this year in Singapore.
The dialogue was launched in 2002 as a joint security platform of regional and international importance between the Singaporean Ministry of National Defence and the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (ISS). Since its establishment, the dialogue has held sessions every year.
It has become the leading international forum for high-level debates on the security environment in the Asia-Pacific region and has gained greater significance in the last few years due to the growing competition, some would say confrontation, between the United States and China.
There have also been moves in the West to link European and Asia-Pacific security, concepts that were translated into reality in the Madrid Declaration of the NATO Summit of June 2022 owing to the assertive strategy adopted by the former Biden administration towards China. Some security experts even began to speak about a possible “Asian NATO.”
This year’s edition of the dialogue will be long remembered for its anti-Chinese positions that varied from the strong to the diplomatic and that were adopted by leading speakers from the West. The keynote speaker was French President Emmanuel Macron, who had embarked on an Asian tour of Indonesia, Vietnam, and Singapore before giving his address at the dialogue on 30 May.
The other senior Western official at the dialogue this year was US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth, who outlined the strategy of the second Trump administration in the Asia-Pacific region. He was accompanied by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Cane and Admiral Sam Paparo, commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command.
In his remarks at the dialogue, Macron tried to steer a middle position between the United States and China, but he still could not help drawing parallels between Ukraine and Taiwan. “If we consider that Russia could be allowed to take a part of the territory of Ukraine… how would you phrase what could happen in Taiwan,” he asked. “What would you do the day something happens in the Philippines?”
He urged the countries of the region to develop a “positive new alliance between Europe and Asia,” while stressing that the “shared responsibility” of the two continents is “to ensure that our countries are not collateral victims of imbalances linked to the choices made by the superpowers.”
His remarks seemed contradictory in some instances, for example when he implicitly sided with the American point of view, saying that “revisionist countries,” mainly Russia and China, “want to impose… under the name of spheres of influence… spheres of coercion.”
Hegseth was more explicit in singling out China and always referred to it as “Communist China,” a term that harkens back to the height of the Cold War and has more usually been replaced by the term “People’s Republic of China” or PRC.
He talked about the United States “reorienting towards deterring aggression by Communist China” and accused it of seeking “to become a hegemonic power in Asia.” He added that Beijing hopes to “dominate and control too many parts of the vibrant and vital region” through a “massive military build-up and growing willingness to use military force to achieve its goals” through means that include “grey zone tactics and hybrid warfare.”
He also accused China of using its cyber capabilities “to steal technology and attack critical infrastructure.”
However, the most important accusation directed towards China in Hegseth’s address was the claim that China is “credibly preparing to potentially use military force to alter the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping “has ordered his military to be capable of invading Taiwan by 2027,” Hegseth said, adding that the “threat China poses is real and could be imminent.” US President Donald Trump “has said that Communist China will not invade Taiwan on his watch,” he added.
In an ominous warning, Hegseth went on to say that in case “deterrence fails,” the United States is prepared to do “what the Department of Defence does best – fight and win decisively.”
To temper the bluntness of his references to China and to assure the countries of the Asia-Pacific region that the United States is not going to war against China anytime soon, Hegseth said that “we will be ready, but we will not be reckless.”
Expecting to be in the crosshairs of the US delegation at the dialogue, the Chinese government was not represented by its minister of defence as has been the case in previous years. Instead, Vice-President of the National Defence University Hu Gangfeng, which is attached to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, headed the Chinese delegation.
In his remarks, Gangfeng told his audience that some US “claims are fabricated out of thin air, some distort facts, and some are outright acts of a thief crying ‘stop thief’ – all aimed at provoking trouble, sowing division, initiating confrontation, and destabilising the Asia-Pacific” region.
The probable positions of most of the delegations from the region were best summed up by Prime Minister of Singapore Martin Wong when he said after his meeting with Macron that “we want to embrace comprehensive engagement with all parties and embrace win-win arrangements rather than zero-sum competition.”
This was the most important message of the Shangri-La Dialogue this year. It is to be hoped that the US administration will take note of it when planning how best to manage American relations with the People’s Republic of China.
The writer is former assistant foreign minister.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 5 June, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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