The IISS Shangri-La Dialogue is Asia’s premier defence summit. It’s a unique meeting where ministers debate the region’s most pressing security challenges, engage in important bilateral talks and come up with fresh approaches together. A positive from the 21st Shangri-La dialogue on 31 May to 2 June 2024 was that US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin actually sat down for a 75-minute meeting with his new Chinese counterpart, Admiral Dong Jun. According to a regional expert, the annual Singapore sound-off between the defence ministers of China and the US had a little less roar-roar and a fraction more jaw-jaw. Like Japanese Kabuki theatre, the annual Shangri-La performance has developed ritual moves and traditional lines. The US defence secretary always addresses the opening session on Saturday while China’s defence minister takes the same first slot on Sunday. China and the US each get a session to itself, while other defence ministers do sessions in threes.

The USA Secretary of Defence Lloyd James Austin’s speech described the US effort to build a matrix of relationships in the Indo-Pacific to underpin its competition with China; he also emphasised the need for more communication. Austin began with what’s now a familiar line on dealing with China: ‘Dialogue is not a reward; it’s a necessity’. The big thought in Austin’s Shangri-La speech was what he called the ‘new convergence around nearly all aspects of security in the Indo-Pacific’. The American vision is of the region converging around a set of principles and norms that China wants to overturn. Washington had moved from its old Asian hub-and-spokes model of a series of military alliances with the US as the hub, Austin said. ‘This new convergence is not a single alliance or coalition, but instead something unique to the Indo-Pacific—a set of overlapping and complementary initiatives and institutions, propelled by a shared vision and a shared sense of mutual obligation’. A stark multifaceted geo-strategic competition wrapped in a wonderfully worded diplomatic parlance, nonetheless.

Reportedly, Admiral Dong, the first navy man to become China’s defence minister, was appointed to the job in December. For his first big international diplomatic bout, Dong went full wolf-warrior with a series of outbursts about Taiwan. ‘A dangerous nation was decoupling and building high trade walls while risking ‘chaos and conflict’, Dong said: ‘We will not allow hegemonies and power politics to undermine the interests of the Asia-Pacific. We will not allow anyone to bring geopolitical conflict or any war, hot or cold, to our region.’ Dong’s harshest language was directed at Taiwan’s new president, Lai Ching Te, and his government, accusing separatists of making ‘fanatical statements’. He said China’s military would smash any steps towards Taiwanese independence: ‘Whoever dares to split Taiwan from China will be crushed to pieces and suffer his own destruction.’ Dong also saw US meddling: ‘They are trying to contain China with Taiwan.’

According to Dr. Andrew Scobell, while Shangri-La engagements have value in theory; they highlight three persistent problems in the practice of U.S.-China relations. First, the United States and China tend to talk past each other. Second, the United States and China have dissimilar systems, which makes identifying and engaging with appropriate counterpart officials very difficult. Third, the United States and China possess fundamentally different understandings about the role of third countries in managing confrontation and mitigating conflict. This means that Beijing perceives countries like the Philippines as mere puppets of the United States. As China has continued to be more assertive in the contested waters in South China Sea, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr argued that the presence of the United States was crucial to regional peace during the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, as the Southeast Asian country faces growing Chinese pressure in waters off its coastline. The Shangri-La Dialogue laid bare the growing frictions with stark display of different realities and perceptions by both China and the US, and the different responses through the different lenses of regional powers. China has accused the US of using the Philippines as a pawn to stir up trouble in the South China Sea. The US needs an expanded fallback option in addition to the groggy Quad, and with the formation of the Squad and momentum of the Camp David Pact and AUKUS, the US gets additional supporting actions by allies through the unilateral actions of bilateral defence diplomacy efforts by Japan and others, with the example of the Reciprocal Access Agreements and the Official Security Assistance involving the region.

Beijing’s subsequent actions to host Putin and the punishment drills against Taiwan for the inauguration speech by President Lai send a clear rebuke and retaliatory message against the US. The systemic rivalry was made clearer during the Shangri-La Dialogue. Seeing deeper containment efforts with the likes of the Squad (The rise in Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific has prompted the emergence of Squad—a grouping between the US, Japan, Australia and the Philippines) and greater bilateral defence engagement with regional powers like India; China continues to hold its card, and the Shangri-La Dialogue is used to present a no holds barred message and China’s perspective. New power tools being used to expand regional dominance have heightened security dilemmas, emerging alliances and sparking arms races. They have also caused systemic circumspection by regional recipients who eventually will be longing for the status quo of a stable rules-based order and rule of law; Pakistan’s security czars need to get past badly shrunk diplomacy and see the evolving bigger security challenges.

Saleem Qamar Butt
The writer is a retired senior army officer with experience in international relations, military diplomacy and analysis of geo-political and strategic security issues.