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The Shangri-La Dialogue, which attracts top military officials, diplomats and arms manufacturers from around the world, will take place June 10-12 in Singapore, the first time the event has been held since 2019 after being postponed twice due to coronavirus.
On the sidelines of the summit, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Chinese Defense Minister General Wei Fenghe are expected to have their first face-to-face meeting since President Joe Biden took office more than two years ago.
"We expect, from our perspective, the substance of this meeting to focus on managing competition on regional and global issues," a senior US official said."
Chinese media also reported that Beijing will use the meeting to discuss cooperation with the United States.
Austin and Wei are likely to then use speeches over the weekend to reaffirm their commitment to the Asia-Pacific region and are expected to deliver sharp remarks to each other.
Relations[/B] between China and the United States have been strained in recent months, with the world's two largest economies clashing over everything from China's belligerence toward Taiwan, its military activity in the South China Sea and Beijing's efforts to expand influence in the Pacific region, Reuters reports.
Although the summit focuses on Asian security issues, Russia's invasion of Ukraine will remain at the center of discussions. The conflict, which has killed tens of thousands of people, uprooted millions and reduced cities to rubble, entered its 100th day last week.
[/P]Ukraine will send a delegation to the meeting, but the Russians will not attend, according to a source familiar with the list of participants.
"The American participants will use the opportunity to criticize China's strategic cooperation with Russia," said Li Mingyang, an associate professor at the School of International Studies at the S.S. National University of China. We will see some conclusions about China-Russia cooperation as a coalition of autocracies."
"China will defend its relationship with Russia, its position and policy on Ukraine.
With US military and political capital absorbed by the war in Ukraine, Austin will be under pressure to convince China's rivals in Asia that they can count on Washington.
"They say China is this huge threat and they even say it's an acute threat. However, it seems that a lot of the attention and resources are basically directed to Europe," said Elbridge Colby, a former senior Pentagon official.
Bilateral talks between the United States and China, and much of the conference, will likely focus on Taiwan.
China, which claims democratic Taiwan as its own territory, has increased military activity near the island in the past two years in response to what it calls "collusion" between Taipei and Washington.
This month, Biden said the United States would get involved militarily if China attacked Taiwan, though the administration has since made clear that U.S. policy on the issue has not changed and Washington does not support Taiwan's independence.
Washington has had a longstanding policy of strategic ambiguity about whether it would militarily defend Taiwan.
The Pacific islands have also emerged as a key front in Washington's strategic competition with China.
Biden's special envoy is due to visit the Marshall Islands next week amid growing US concerns about China's efforts to expand its influence in the region. Last week, a meeting of 10 Pacific foreign ministers hosted by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Fiji agreed to postpone consideration of a Chinese proposal for a sweeping trade and security pact.
Also looming large in the Shangri-La Dialogue is the growing military threat posed by North Korea, which has conducted at least 18 rounds of weapons tests this year, highlighting its evolving nuclear and missile arsenals.
Officials from South Korea, the United States and Japan said Wednesday that North Korea's recent missile tests were "serious, illegal" provocations.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will open the conference Friday with a keynote speech in which he is expected to call for a peaceful resolution of disputes in the Asia-Pacific region.
Source: CNA
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