On 12th June, Asia Pacific’s leading forum for defence diplomacy - the Shangri-La Dialogue ended after a pandemic-induced three-year hiatus. While the Dialogue is procedurally focused on cultivating a sense of security community within the Asia Pacific, which it solely lacks, this year’s event concluded under the uncertain shadow of the Ukraine-Russia conflict and the increasingly tenuous US-Sino relations.
The Shangri-La Dialogue is an intergovernmental security conference held in Singapore, by the London based think tank, the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in collaboration with the government of Singapore. The Dialogue is chiefly attended by state actors such as Military chiefs, Defence and Foreign Ministers. However, non-state participants too, such as legislators, academic experts, distinguished journalists and business delegates attend the summit. Named after the host venue since 2002, the Shangri-La Hotel in Singapore, the forum serves as a platform for debate, expression of views and discussion on specific issues through bilateral meetings. However, off the record meetings are also held, chaired by IISS, to advance policy goals more freely.
Apart from the host nation, participating countries for the 2022 Shangri-La Dialogue included Australia, Cambodia, Brunei, Chile, France, Canada, China, India, Germany, Japan, Indonesia, Laos, South Korea, Myanmar, Mongolia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Russia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sweden, Sri Lanka, Timor-Leste, Thailand, Vietnam, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and the United States. The Dialogue was attended by about 500 delegates from more than 40 countries.
Forum Proceedings
The 2022 Dialogue, as all previous sessions, was commenced by Dr John Chipman, the Director-General and Chief Executive of the IISS. This year’s keynote address was given by Fumio Kishida, the Prime Minister of Japan, who set the overall tone for the dialogue - the need for security cooperation and collective action between state and non-state actors in the Asia pacific to counter growing threats in the region and beyond. Broad topics such as the US Indo-Pacific Strategy - a significant shift of resources from the Middle eastern theatre, Competition in a Multipolar world, Military Modernisation, Prescriptions for Myanmar and China’s vision for Regional Order were covered.
US-China
Relations - a String Pulled Taut
The 2022 Shangri-La Dialogue was a
significant milestone in contemporary US-China relations. The forum facilitated
a meeting between the U.S. Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin and the Chinese
Defence Minister Gen. Wei Fenghe, the first face-to-face encounter since
President Biden's inauguration in January 2021. Any hope or reassuring signs of
reinstalling lines of direct communication were dispelled by the increasingly
sparring headline speeches and subsequent conversations between the two
nations, on topics ranging from the status of Taiwan, proceedings within the
South China Sea and questions and concerns surrounding grave human rights
violations within China.
The US primary criticism of China’s international conduct centred around the latter’s coercive and aggressive actions in the disputed South China Sea, wherein China has constructed man made islands within the shared seaway in an attempt to solidify its claim to the areas enclosed by a ‘9-dash line’ which is claimed by Beijing to grant it exclusive rights, despite non-recognition by international law. “Indo-Pacific countries shouldn’t face political intimidation, economic coercion, or harassment by maritime militias,” Secretary Austin asserted, as “the PRC’s moves threaten to undermine security, stability, and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific.” He further reaffirmed the US position to defend its interests and those of its allies despite increased Chinese movement, mobilisation and pressure.
Secretary Austin’s Chinese counterpart's response was as headline jarring as his. Minister Wei Fenghe described his country’s position as one of self-defence in a global world of zero-sum, self-interested actors. Wei acknowledged his country’s increased nuclear and naval capabilities, in a speech peppered with warnings to tread carefully and avoid Chinese provocation. He further reaffirmed China’s strong stance of a rising great power, one of self-defence but also a crave for international legitimacy through recognition as a peaceful actor. Wei stressed that “It is a historic and strategic mistake to take China as a threat or enemy”. To ensure global peace and development, by virtue of China now being a great power, Wei called for a stop in attempts to “contain China, to stop interfering in China’s internal affairs, and stop harming China’s interests,” signalling that peace was conditional on China’s free reign. His speech further contained a stronger reiteration of the Chinese position on the disputed island of Taiwan - “If anyone dares to secede Taiwan from China – let me be clear – we will not hesitate to fight. We will fight at all costs and we will fight to the very end.”
Shared Ukrainian Costs
Ukrainian President Volodymyr
Zelenskyy participated in this year’s Dialogue for the first time through a
video link teleconference. Highlighting the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he
urged the attendees of primarily Asian states to “remember that support and
attention is not only for Ukraine but for (the greater Asia) as well, to ensure
that our and your future is safe’’ in the contemporary globalised world.
Despite Ukraine’s geographical distance from Asia, Russia’s invasion of his
country has global implications, as the political, social and economic distance
between countries are much shorter in the present than they ever were. Thus,
the costs of war are shared between states, through trade interdependence,
geopolitical institutions, and have direct effects such as rising global
inflation.
Mr Zelenskyy further stressed that there are ideological costs, as “it is on the Ukrainian battlefield that the future rules of this world are being decided along with the boundaries of the possible.” His position drew clear parallels and a not-so-subtle nod to China's desire for Taiwanese reunification. The political alignments and the ideological divides of the attendee states were made abundantly clear as Prime Minister of Japan Kishida noted that “Ukraine today may be East Asia tomorrow,” further adding to the underlying tension of the Dialogue.
Collective Concerns of the Divided
Despite the lack of collective
action on political qualms and tensions owing to non alignment of political
compasses, the attendee states of the 2022 Shangri-La Dialogue remained
receptive to prescriptions for collective concerns. The Dialogue served as a
platform to tackle contemporary issues such as global underdevelopment and need
of environmental security as a response to climate change, and the green
defence agenda wherein the low-lying nations of Maldives, Polynesia and
Micronesia were focused upon. The scope of prescriptions for global development
and climate degradation are far beyond a single state, and collective action of
all nations has shared global benefits. However, talks of nuclear disarmament
were pushed by Prime Minister Kishida, who raised the potential for nuclear
weapons of China, Russia and North Korea, to cause devastation more than that
which was experienced in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Despite such a statement
representing a significant change in the security environment, as it differed
from the zero-sum, negative peace structure of the past, it was not well
received possibly as one nation may seek to gain more from the said action than
the other.
Why They Do What They Do
Security forums such as the
Shangri-La Dialogue would be those where one is likely to hear more bad news
than good. However, the 2022 forum was not so much a “glass half empty but more
of a vessel placed precariously close to the edge of a table, one small slip
away from smashing to pieces” (Sachdeva, 2022). As New Zealand Defence Minister
Henare noted, there existed “an underlying tension”.
Borrowing from the English School of International Relations (Buzan et al 2002, Bull 1977) would contribute to an apt analysis of the Shangri-La Dialogue. Great power interests define international aspirations and ambitions, even in regional institutions. The Dialogue subscribed to the broad tensions of the Ukraine-Russia conflict and the US-China hostilities. Military diplomacy and international institutions which are dominated by great power interests, and smaller developing states are more rule takers than agenda setters. Further, international and weak regional institutions would have little sway in changing great power behaviour and are platforms for great power machinations. Weak regional institutions and forums would have less stringent rules, and less enforcement of such rules which would serve as checks and balances to the power of larger states. Fora such as the Shangri-La Dialogue, as opposed to stronger institutions such as NATO do “not provide much in the way of reassurance about the future trajectory of the relationship (between states) and only reinforces the sense that competition between the two powers is likely to linger thereafter” (Parameswaran 2019).
The fact that the sour relations between US and China continued on since the 2019 Dialogue, which was dominated by the subject of heightened U.S.-China competition serves to solidify the aforementioned understanding.
Despite such dire notions for international cooperation and mitigating global anarchy, the Shangri-La Dialogue represents a necessary, albeit insufficient platform for diplomacy and the peaceful resolution of differences between states. Institutions are only as strong as the rules that states are willing to enforce on themselves. However, institutions and fora such as the Shangri-La Dialogue are still important platforms which aim to resolve statist tensions through negotiated compromise and diffused reciprocity over hard power coercion and war (Keohane and Nye, 1977). The contemporary world is interconnected, with the space and time between events and reactions to such decreasing at an exponential rate. The contemporary world cannot afford to disregard the power of diplomacy for in the words of Henry Kissinger, despite animosities of history, diplomacy serves as means of restraining power.
