Samir Puri
They came from different sides of the world and were meeting for the first time. For everyone’s sake, we hoped they’d be on speaking terms by the time they arrived at our event. Because if their countries ever truly fell out, this incongruous pair could end up taking us closer to World War III.
It was June 2022 and U.S.-China relations had plunged to a new low. Our guests were meeting in Singapore, the Switzerland of the modern era: a neutral place to meet at a time of tension. I had moved to Singapore two years previously to join the small team that ran the Shangri-La Dialogue, a big annual security summit. After a lull in face-to-face diplomacy caused by the pandemic, we were finally up and running.
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