By Jan Hennop and Matthew Walsh

Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth is the headline speaker at Asia’s premier defence summit opening Friday, but China’s top officials aren’t expected despite weighty questions like Taiwan and the war in Iran.

Beijing’s defence minister is to skip the three-day Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore for the second year running, which analysts viewed as a sign of China’s rising power.

Yet, the forum that brings together top officials from around 45 nations has historically provided a setting for debate as well as quiet and high-profile diplomacy.

Defence Minister Dong Jun’s absence means no meeting there with Hegseth as China warns the US over its involvement with Taiwan and Washington seeks an end to the Mideast war.

The Middle East was the source of 57 percent of China’s direct seaborne crude imports in 2025 — 5.9 million barrels per day (mbd) — maritime tracking firm Kpler said.

Hegseth’s second trip to the Shangri-La Dialogue comes after US President Donald Trump’s visit to China in May, and his subsequent suggestion that US arms sales to Taiwan could be used as a bargaining chip with Beijing.

See also: China is ‘preparing’ to use military force in Asia, US says

Hegseth’s speech on Saturday is expected to be “quite strong against China, but mainly for internal (US) consumption”, said Oh Ei Sun, senior fellow at the Singapore Institute of International Affairs.

“I think under Trump anything is negotiable and even with enemies deals can be done… (even) with Taiwan as a negotiating chip,” Oh told AFP.

Trump said “fantastic” trade deals were struck after his visit to China, although details were vague and no breakthrough with Beijing emerged in the war with Iran.

China arrived as ‘major power’

As the US and Iran clashed again on Thursday, threatening to derail a fragile push for peace, it “is unlikely that any possible deal will be discussed at the Shangri-La Dialogue”, Oh said.

China sent Dong to the dialogue as recently as 2024, where he and then Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin met for their first substantive face-to-face talks in 18 months.

“Dong was absent last year, reportedly due to China’s reluctance to engage with… Hegseth,” said William Choong, principal fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute think-tank.

China said Thursday it would send experts and scholars from its army’s study institutions.

Major General Meng Xiangqing of the National Defense University will lead the delegation, which is to include scholars from the National Defense University, the Academy of Military Sciences and the Navy.

Two other former defence ministers Wei Fenghe and Li Shangfu previously spoke at Shangri-La. Both were subsequently handed suspended death sentences on graft charges, analysts point out.

“It’s kind of a poisoned chalice for any Chinese defence minister to speak out publicly,” said Jennifer Parker, adjunct professor at the University of Western Australia’s Defence and Security Institute.

With Dong again not attending, one of the reasons seemed obvious, said Choong, writing for the Lowy Institute think-tank.

“For one thing, China has truly arrived as a major power in the region, so it does not really need to send its defence minister to brave a fusillade of questions and try to ‘score’ brownie points,” he said.

Beijing, however, like last year, risked not having a senior leader present if the two most pertinent global security issues — Taiwan and the opening of the Strait of Hormuz — do come up.

“At a time when perceptions of US leadership are falling, Beijing could soothe some jangled nerves in the region by reassuring delegates that it would use force against the island only as a last resort,” Choong said.

AUKUS focus

The defence ministers of the United States, Britain and Australia — the members of the AUKUS security alliance — are also due to convene.

AUKUS’s stated goal is to ensure a free and open Indo-Pacific region, though it is widely seen as a bulwark against a rising China, which strongly opposes the pact.

Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles said on Friday that Canberra was seeking “the maintenance of the global rules-based order” in the region.

“We’ve seen China engage in a very significant military buildup… and it has not happened with the kind of strategic reassurance which (we) would expect,” he told journalists at the forum.

“Fundamentally, we want to have a productive relationship with China. We want to live in a world which is governed by rules.”

Australian media outlets have reported, citing unnamed sources, that the AUKUS nations are expected to announce a major project, perhaps involving uncrewed underwater vehicles.

By Matthew Walsh

Japan’s defence minister took a veiled swipe at China on Sunday, pledging to keep strengthening the military despite Beijing’s criticism of Tokyo’s increasingly muscular security stance.

Under Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, Japan has quickened its pivot towards a more proactive defence policy, further shaking off — with US encouragement — its pacifist outlook in place since the end of World War II.

The change has drawn frequent rebukes from Beijing, which has accused Tokyo of following a reckless policy of “new militarism” that could destabilise the region.

Japanese Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi hit back on Sunday, saying “nothing could be further from the truth”.

“Think about it. There is a country that has a huge arsenal of nuclear weapons and strategic bombers,” Koizumi said at the annual Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore.

“Japan has neither of such weapons. And yet, Japan is labelled (as) ‘new militarism’. Isn’t it strange?” he said, without mentioning China by name.

China is thought to possess hundreds of nuclear warheads and has been rapidly developing its military in recent years.

A diplomatic spat between the Asian rivals has been rumbling since Takaichi suggested in November that Japan might intervene militarily if China were to attempt to seize Taiwan, the self-ruled island that Beijing claims is part of its territory.

Koizumi said that China was expanding its military capabilities “without sufficient transparency” and that its military activities were “a matter of serious concern for Japan”.

Tokyo would “steadily build up its defence capabilities and make continuous updates with a high degree of transparency”, including in the fields of artificial intelligence, uncrewed systems as well as cyber and space defence, he said.

“Japan’s past as a peace-loving nation has been valued by the region and by international community. This fact will not be shaken by false claims, because it is a fact,” he said.

Maritime disputes

In a meeting with his Philippine counterpart Gilberto Teodoro, the two countries confirmed that Japan would aim to transfer Abukuma-class destroyers and TC-90 aircraft to the Southeast Asian nation during Japan’s fiscal year 2027, a Philippine statement said.

Manila has been eyeing the Abukuma-class vessels — which are being retired by Japan — for some time, with the military sending a contingent to examine them in 2025.

The countries have been deepening defence ties in the shadow of China’s naval ambitions, announcing that they will discuss intelligence sharing and open maritime border talks condemned by Beijing as an “illegal” violation of its expansive territorial claims.

Teodoro singled out Beijing’s activities in the South China Sea for criticism, saying Manila “will not sacrifice our territorial integrity and sovereignty because our constitution does not allow us”.

“To do so would be to subvert the popular, democratic and free mandate that the people gave our political leaders, unlike some autocratic systems where the mandate comes from above, dictated down.”

Beijing claims almost the entire South China Sea despite an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis.

As Teodoro spoke, China’s People’s Liberation Army Southern Theater Command issued a statement online saying it had “conducted combat readiness patrols” in the waters and airspace around Scarborough Shoal, the site of a years-long territorial dispute with the Philippines.

The patrols “serve as an effective countermeasure to cope with all sorts of rights-violation and provocative acts” around the shoal, “an inherent part of China’s territory”, the statement said.

See also: Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth says US seeks ‘stable equilibrium’ with China in Asia

The Shangri-La Dialogue is Asia’s top defence forum, bringing together security officials and experts from about 45 countries.

In contrast to Japan — and its ally the United States — China has sent a watered-down delegation that does not include its defence minister, Dong Jun, for the second year running.

Koizumi said he was “feeling sad that we were unable to have the opportunity to have a meeting this time”.

By Matthew Walsh and Ludovic Ehret

Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth struck a measured tone towards China at a major defence forum on Saturday, noting “rightful alarm” over Beijing’s military build-up but saying the United States sought a “stable equilibrium” in Asia.

Hegseth’s headline speech at Singapore’s Shangri-La Dialogue, which brings together top defence officials and experts from around 45 countries, contrasted with his strongly confrontational remarks on China at last year’s gathering.

Unlike Beijing, which has sent a panel of military experts and scholars instead of defence minister Dong Jun for the second year running, Hegseth is leading a bumper US delegation to the event that provides chances for both open debate and behind-closed-doors diplomacy.

“When we look across the region today, there is rightful alarm regarding China’s historic military build-up and the expansion of its military activities in the region and beyond,” Hegseth said.

Washington does not seek “needless confrontation in the region”, but rather “a genuinely stable equilibrium (in Asia) that works for Americans as well as our allies”, he said.

That means “a favourable but durable balance of power in which no state, including China, can impose its hegemony and hold the security or prosperity of our nation and our allies in question”, he added.

He said the United States sought “respectful” and “good-faith” engagement with Beijing, adding: “I wish my counterpart was here at this conference, but I look forward to other options when we can cross paths.”

Trump visited China this month, talking up “fantastic” trade deals but giving few details and later suggesting Washington could use its arms sales to self-ruled Taiwan as a bargaining chip with Beijing.

There had been “no change” in Washington’s stance towards Taiwan, but “any decision about future Taiwan arms sales… will rest with” US President Donald Trump, Hegseth said.

Vibe shift

The remarks contrasted sharply with last year’s event, when Hegseth painted China as a potentially “imminent” threat to security and outlined a swaggering vision of muscular American deterrence.

That day, he also took potshots at Beijing’s absent minister, saying: “We are here this morning, and somebody else isn’t.”

Chinese delegate Da Wei, director of the Center for International Security and Strategy at Beijing’s Tsinghua University, said this year’s address was “much more moderate”.

However, he found Hegseth’s depiction of China “ironic”, adding: “Everyone in the room must have been thinking: who is really hegemonic?

“Given what the US is doing in Iran and has done in Venezuela, I think it’s clear to everyone,” Da said.

US delegate Tammy Duckworth, a Democratic senator and strong Trump critic, said she was “somewhat disturbed” by Hegseth’s remarks, viewing them as overly conciliatory towards China.

“I worry that this administration is being distracted into wars that they’ve started in other parts of the world at the expense of our commitment here in the Indo-Pacific,” she told reporters.

Instead of Dong, China has sent experts and scholars from its army’s academic institutions, led by Major General Meng Xiangqing of the National Defense University.

Analysts have said Dong’s no-show reflects Beijing’s confidence as an established power with little inclination to answer publicly for its assertive moves in the region.

But some argue that China is also running the risk of having no senior policymaker present if two major security issues come up: reopening the Strait of Hormuz, and Beijing’s claim to Taiwan.

Hegseth again urged US allies to spend more on their own defence, singling out South Korea, Japan, Australia and the Philippines for praise while threatening consequences for nations that “free-ride on the generosity of the American taxpayer”.

“Those days are over. Allies who refuse to step up and carry their own weight for our collective defense will face a clear shift in how we do business.”

Iran threat

Hegseth’s remarks came as a peace deal between the United States and Iran to end their war remained elusive.

A White House official told AFP on Friday that Trump, who is weighing a final decision on a potential accord, would only commit if Iran met all his conditions.

But Iran has said “no final agreement” is in place, and its state media has rebutted parts of Trump’s characterisation of the deal.

Hegseth said Washington was “more than capable” of restarting the war if it wanted.

The head of the Pentagon is also due to meet his British and Australian counterparts as part of the AUKUS security alliance.

Australian media outlets have reported, citing unnamed sources, that the AUKUS nations are expected to announce a major project, perhaps involving uncrewed underwater vehicles.