China skips Shangri-La defence summit as US, AUKUS allies gather in Singapore

SINGAPORE: China’s senior defence leadership is set to miss the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore for a second straight year, leaving Asia’s leading security forum without a meeting between US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and his Chinese counterpart at a time of tensions over Taiwan and the war involving Iran.

The three-day summit, which opens on Friday and brings together top officials from about 45 countries, will instead feature Hegseth as its headline speaker. China’s Defence Minister Dong Jun will not attend, and Beijing said on Thursday it would send a delegation of experts and scholars from military research institutions.

Major General Meng Xiangqing of the National Defence University will head the Chinese delegation, which will also include scholars from the National Defence University, the Academy of Military Sciences and the Navy. Dong had attended the forum in 2024, when he held the first substantive face-to-face talks in 18 months with then US defence chief Lloyd Austin, but he was absent last year and will again not be present this time.

The absence means there will be no encounter at the forum between Dong and Hegseth as Beijing warns Washington over its role in Taiwan and the United States seeks an end to the Middle East war. The Middle East accounted for 57 per cent of China’s direct seaborne crude imports in 2025, or 5.9 million barrels per day, according to maritime tracking firm Kpler.

Analysts see shift in China’s approach

Beijing may now see less need to send its defence minister to a forum where Chinese officials face sustained scrutiny from regional counterparts and Western delegates.

Oh Ei Sun, a senior fellow at the Singapore Institute of International Affairs, said Hegseth’s speech on Saturday was expected to be "quite strong against China, but mainly for internal [US] consumption"

Oh also said: "I think under Trump anything is negotiable and even with enemies deals can be done… [even] with Taiwan as a negotiating chip"

Hegseth’s second visit to the Shangri-La Dialogue comes after US President Donald Trump travelled to China in May and later suggested that US arms sales to Taiwan could be used as leverage in dealings with Beijing. Trump said "fantastic" trade deals had been reached after that trip, though details remained unclear and no breakthrough emerged with Beijing over the war involving Iran.

As fighting between the United States and Iran flared again on Thursday, Oh said "is unlikely that any possible deal will be discussed at the Shangri-La Dialogue"

William Choong, principal fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, said: "For one thing, China has truly arrived as a major power in the region, so it does not really need to send its defence minister to brave a fusillade of questions and try to ‘score’ brownie points"

Jennifer Parker, an adjunct professor at the University of Western Australia’s Defence and Security Institute, said: "It’s kind of a poisoned chalice for any Chinese defence minister to speak out publicly"

Two former Chinese defence ministers, Wei Fenghe and Li Shangfu, had previously addressed the Shangri-La Dialogue and were later given suspended death sentences on graft charges.

Choong also said Beijing risked losing an opportunity to reassure regional participants if discussion turns to Taiwan or the Strait of Hormuz. He said: "At a time when perceptions of US leadership are falling, Beijing could soothe some jangled nerves in the region by reassuring delegates that it would use force against the island only as a last resort"

AUKUS ministers to meet

The defence ministers of the United States, Britain and Australia are also expected to meet on the sidelines of the summit under the AUKUS security partnership. The alliance says its purpose is to support a free and open Indo-Pacific, though it is widely viewed as a counterweight to China, which opposes the arrangement.

Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles said on Friday that Canberra was seeking "the maintenance of the global rules-based order" in the region.

He told journalists at the forum: "We’ve seen China engage in a very significant military buildup… and it has not happened with the kind of strategic reassurance which (we) would expect"

"Fundamentally, we want to have a productive relationship with China. We want to live in a world which is governed by rules," Marles added.

Australian media have reported that the AUKUS countries are expected to unveil a major project, possibly involving uncrewed underwater vehicles.