The Shangri-La Dialogue was scheduled to be held in Singapore on June 4-5. The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), the organizer of the dialogue, said in a statement Thursday (May 20) that the dialogue was cancelled due to the New Coronavirus epidemic.
In a statement, the IISS said, “The global New Coronavirus epidemic has recently worsened, partly due to the increase in infectious New Coronavirus variants. There has been an increase in indigenous cases in Singapore, and the country has also recently introduced new restrictions and further tightening cannot be ruled out, all of which could create uncertainty.”
The statement added: “Putting these different factors together means that holding a face-to-face Shangri-La Dialogue this year has become unfeasible.”
The British International Institute for Strategic Studies plans to hold the face-to-face Shangri-La Dialogue again around June next year.
The annual Shangri-La Security Dialogue, which began in 2002, has grown to become the largest security forum in the Indo-Pacific region. Each year, the dialogue attracts senior government officials and senior defense experts from the region and around the world.
The cancellation of the Shangri-La Dialogue also eliminated the possibility of a first meeting between the U.S. and Chinese defense chiefs in Singapore, Chinese official media Global Times said. The report said that the meeting between the two defense ministers is of particular interest to the outside world, especially amid growing tensions in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, hoping to find clues about how military relations between the two countries will develop.
The World Economic Forum on Monday also announced the cancellation of its special annual meeting in Singapore in 2021, which was scheduled to be held in three months.
In a statement, the organization said, “Despite strong support from the Singapore government, the combination of recent travel insecurity, the varying pace of vaccinations, and uncertainty surrounding mutated viruses has made it difficult to bring together global business, political and civil society leaders for a global event of the scale intended. “
The statement added: “The next annual conference will be held in the first half of 2022. The exact location and timing will depend on the global situation in the second half of the year.”
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