The annual Shangri-La Security Dialogue, scheduled for June 4-5 in Singapore, was cancelled due to an epidemic, the conference organizer, the British International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), announced Thursday (May 20). This means there is zero chance that the Chinese and U.S. defense chiefs will have their first face-to-face meeting in Singapore.
In a statement issued Thursday, the institute said, “The global New Crown epidemic (CCP virus outbreak) has recently worsened, in part due to an increase in infectious virus 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 create uncertainty.”
The statement added: “A combination of these different factors means that holding a face-to-face Shangri-La dialogue meeting this year has become unfeasible.”
The UK’s International Institute for Strategic Studies plans to hold another face-to-face Shangri-La Dialogue around June next year. The organizers had canceled the dialogue last year due to the viral pandemic.
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.
This year, 18 defense ministers had been confirmed to attend, including the United States, China, the United Kingdom, France, and Japan.
Chinese media reported that the meeting between the Chinese and U.S. defense ministers has attracted particular attention, especially in light of the increasingly tense situation in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea, in the hope of finding clues about how the military relationship between the two countries will develop.
The Defense Department announced in early May that Defense Secretary Austin would attend this year’s Shangri-La Security Dialogue on the ground and deliver a speech titled “Advancing the U.S. Indo-Pacific Strategy,” taking the opportunity to attend the annual meeting to reinvigorate U.S. relations with regional allies and partners.
In earlier years, the Chinese Communist Party sent its defense minister to the annual Shangri-La Dialogue, but after the Communist Party began to build islands and militarize in the South China Sea, which became a major topic of conversation at the annual event, Beijing rarely sends senior officials to the Dialogue anymore, sending only lower-ranking generals and colonels to lead delegations. This year, however, it is confirmed that Defense Minister Wei Fenghe will attend the meeting.
In addition, the World Economic Forum also announced on Monday (17) the cancellation of its special annual meeting in Singapore in 2021, which was scheduled to be held in three months.
The organization said in a statement, “Despite strong support from the Singapore government, the combination of recent travel insecurity, the varying pace of vaccinations, and uncertainty around mutating viruses, many factors make it difficult to bring together global business, political and civil society leaders for a global event of the scale originally planned. “
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.”
Recent Comments