The American and Chinese delegations to the IISS Shangri-La Dialogue 2023 have an opportunity to make modest progress improving bilateral communication mechanisms regarding security and defence issues.
Security ties between China and the United States will be a central focus for delegates gathering on 2 June for the 20th IISS Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. The 2022 summit featured a debut bilateral meeting between China’s then-defence minister General Wei Fenghe and US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, raising tentative hopes for renewed military dialogue between the two powers. These hopes, however, appear to have amounted to little over the last 12 months.
Sino-American relations have instead worsened steadily, reaching a low point after then-speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in August 2022. In addition to a series of assertive military displays, China signalled its displeasure at Pelosi’s trip via what it called the ‘three cancellations’, meaning the suspension of a trio of operational-level military-to-military communication channels with the US.
So far, those channels have not been fully restored. To take one example, Austin and Wei met for a second time in November 2022 on the sidelines of the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting–Plus in Cambodia. During their meeting, the duo reportedly agreed to reinstate one of the three suspended mechanisms, which involved talks between US Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM) and China’s Southern Theatre Command (the division of the People’s Liberation Army responsible for the South China Sea).
Speaking during an IISS lecture in March 2023, US Admiral John Aquilino, USINDOPACOM commander, noted that even this formal ministerial-level agreement had been insufficient for talks to resume:
‘I have not yet received a response for a year and a half to accept my request for a conversation. I haven’t received a no[.] … I’ve just received no answer. … We continue to ask because I do think it’s important. But it’s concerning to me that I don’t have the ability to talk to someone should there be a reason to talk.
The inability of Beijing and Washington to maintain even a rudimentary level of communication regarding defence issues is a growing cause of concern in Southeast Asia and around the region more broadly. Many onlooking defence ministers will gather in Singapore this week and will likely put pressure on both China and the US, in private at least, to use the opportunity presented by the dialogue to strike a more conciliatory tone and begin to de-escalate tensions that have built up over the last year.
Two elements will therefore be watched closely at this year’s summit. The first will be whether the two sides actually meet. China appointed General Li Shangfu as defence minister in March. Following last year’s reportedly constructive discussion in Singapore, many regional observers hope that a repeat sit-down between the Chinese and American delegations will be possible this year too.
The second will be both delegations’ plenary speeches. Last year’s remarks from Austin and Wei offered firm restatements of their respective national positions, with a particular focus on hot-button issues such as Taiwan. Wei’s remarks were notably pointed. ‘Let me make this clear’, he said. ‘If anyone dares to secede Taiwan from China, we will not hesitate to fight. We will fight at all costs and we will fight to the very end.’
Given the broader context of rising tensions, few expect the tone to be markedly softer this year. Indeed, if anything, the rhetoric used by both sides has become more coarse and confrontational as strategic competition across multiple domains has come to dominate the relationship, reducing in turn the possibility of achieving wide rapprochement.
Nonetheless, there have been tentative signs of improvements in ties over recent months. In early May, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan met with Wang Yi, director of the Office of the Central Committee Foreign Affairs Commission. Other cabinet-level bilateral meetings are reportedly being planned. There are also two further high-level meetings that may occur later this year between presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping – at the G20 Leaders’ Summit in September and at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in November. Many attendees at the Shangri-La Dialogue will be hoping that modest improvements might be possible in the defence and military domain as well.
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