Source: Global Times | 2017-06-03
Major topics concerning security and peace in the Asia-Pacific region, including North Korea's nuclear issue, are expected to be discussed during the 16th Shangri-La Dialogue (SLD), experts said.
This year's SLD, which kicked off in Singapore on Friday, is attended by 22 ministerial-level delegates and 12 Chiefs of Defence Force, as well as senior defence officials and academics from 39 countries and regions.
The Chinese delegation is headed by Lieutenant General He Lei, vice president of the Academy of Military Science of PLA of China. Delegates include officers from the Mimistry of National Defense and scholars affiliated with the PLA. They will attend four group meeting of the SLD.
North Korea's nuclear issue is expected to be a major flashpoint at this year's SLD, with a special session themed Nuclear dangers in the Asia-Pacific scheduled on Saturday afternoon.
Robert A. Manning, a resident senior fellow at the Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security, Atlantic Council, believes the issue is the primary security threat in the region and will dominate the Shangri-La discussions.
SLD is an opportunity for enhancing cooperation among the five frontline states - the US, China, Russia, North Korea and Japan. US officials will use the occasion to consult with China and other key partners to build support for putting more intense pressure on North Korea to get Pyongyang to halt its missile and nuclear tests, put its nuclear weapons back on the negotiating table, Manning told the Global Times.
Each year, the SLD provides a platform for the US to affirm its strategic commitment to the Asia-Pacific region, and this year is no exception, Chinese experts said.
Washington has sent its Defence Secretary James Mattis, among some other senior military officials to this year's SLD. And he will deliver a speech during the first of the five plenary sessions on Saturday morning.
The Global Times reporter at the SLD learned that Mattis is expected to explain the US' Asia-Pacific strategy under the administration of Donald Trump that has been barely six months in office. It will be the first time for a senior Trump administration official to address the US allies in the region.
Mattis may spend much of his time reassuring US allies and security partners in the region, stressing the US' leadership role in security and reaffirming its security promises, Li Mingjiang, an associate professor at S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University of Singapore, told the Global Times.
The Chinese delegation will pay close attention to Mattis' explanation on China's role in the US' Asia-Pacific strategy, which will decide whether the future of the Sino-US ties is cooperative or confrontational, Zhao Xiaozhuo, a research fellow from the Academy of Military Science of the PLA, who attends the SLD, told the Global Times.
Zhao noted that US should know that it would be difficult to solve the North Korean nuclear issue without China's cooperation and it should try to win over all parties' efforts to deal with the problem instead of merely denouncing any party.
As the SLD has become a battlefield for Asia-Pacific diplomacy, regional countries may have pondered over the significance of China's rise for the region's future and the US' role in it, experts said.
At a press conference jointly held by Five Power Defence Arrangements Defence Ministers from Singapore, Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand and Britain on Friday morning, some reporters raised questions about the South China Sea, while the hosts apparently wanted to play down the issue, only giving very brief answers to the questions.
This is a diplomatic victory for China, ASEAN countries and South China Sea claimant countries. Replacing disputes and conflicts with negotiations and solving territorial disputes through peaceful means is the sole option to ensure peace in the South China Sea, Yao Yunzhu, director emeritus at the Center on China-America Defence Relations under the PLA Academy of Military Science, told the Global Times.
Li from the Nanyang Technological University of Singapore also noted that many regional countries have adopted a hedging strategy toward China and China needs time and tactics to turn its economic influence into security clout.
Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said during his keynote speech at the opening dinner of the Shangri-La Dialogue on Friday evening that China's growing power continues to be the topic of the most intense debates.
China should continue to utilize its economic strength to improve its political, diplomatic and even security ties with regional countries. If it can make these countries give more considerations, and make compromises when necessary, to China's interests, and prevent the US from implementing new security arrangements and military deployment in the region, it would be a credit for China itself, Li told the Global Times.
The SLD, organized by the British think tank International Institute for Strategic Studies, was initiated in 2002. It has now become Asia's premier defence and security dialogue where defence ministers and various levels of representatives from regional countries share their views on the Asia-Pacific's security architecture.