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China's defence minister to skip Shangri-La Dialogue for second year
BEIJING, May 28 (Reuters) - Chinese Defence Minister Dong Jun will skip this week's Shangri-La Dialogue, after Beijing on Thursday said it is sending a delegation of "experts and scholars" from the People's Liberation Army to the security forum.
China will be represented by officials from PLA-run research institutes and the navy, defence ministry spokesperson Jiang Bin said on Thursday. Last year, Beijing had also dispatched a similar and relatively low-level delegation to the event.
This marks the second year that Chinese Defence Minister Dong Jun will be skipping the event. It offers rare opportunities for interactions between Chinese and U.S. defence chiefs.
At last year's gathering in Singapore, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called China a threat in the Indo-Pacific and urged Asian allies to step up defence spending, irking Beijing. Officials in Beijing said such comments vilified China and criticized Washington for creating tensions in the Asia-Pacific region.
China began participating in the Shangri-La Dialogue in 2007 and has sent its defence minister a handful of times, including in 2022, 2023 and 2024, with Defence Ministers Wei Fenghe, Li Shangfu and Dong Jun having travelled to Singapore for the event.
Wei and Li - Dong's predecessors - have both been purged in a widening anti-corruption campaign in the Chinese military. The pair were both sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve earlier this month.
The Chinese delegation this year is likely to face pointed questions at the forum about how sweeping corruption purges of senior officers are affecting the military's combat readiness, foreign military attaches said.
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