\n<\/p>\n
Last year, the Chinese delegation was led by Hu Gangfeng, a PLA major general and vice-president of the National Defence University. It remains unclear who will lead China\u2019s delegation this year and it is still possible that Dong could attend.<\/p>\n
In recent years, Chinese defence ministers have faced mounting pressure at the forum over Beijing\u2019s increasingly assertive military activities<\/a> in the region.<\/p>\n At last year\u2019s dialogue, Hegseth accused China of seeking to \u201cfundamentally alter the region\u2019s status quo\u201d, remarks that Hu dismissed as \u201cgroundless\u201d and aimed at inciting confrontation.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Beijing has attached increasing importance to its own Xiangshan Forum<\/span>, launched in 2006, as its answer to the Shangri-La Dialogue and a platform for presenting China\u2019s security positions.<\/p>\n Dong\u2019s attendance at the Shangri-La Dialogue in 2024 marked his first major international appearance since becoming defence minister in late 2023.<\/p>\n He replaced Li Shangfu, who was then placed under investigation amid the country\u2019s anti-corruption efforts in the military. China announced earlier this month that Li received a suspended death sentence after being found guilty of corruption.<\/p>\n Dong\u2019s absence would also mean a potential meeting between the Chinese and US defence chiefs may not take place on the sidelines of this year\u2019s forum, as such talks typically occur when both sides attend, such as in 2024.<\/p>\n Hegseth travelled to Beijing with US President Donald Trump<\/a> earlier this month, where he was seen briefly exchanging remarks with Dong.<\/p>\n Also during the summit, which was aimed at stabilising bilateral ties, President Xi told Trump that the two countries should make good use of military communication channels.<\/p>\n China\u2019s defence ministry later said it was willing to implement the important consensus reached by the two heads of state and to \u201cstrengthen communication and dialogue\u201d with Washington.<\/p>\n During his meeting with Trump, Xi also said Taiwan remained the most important issue in bilateral relations and warned Washington to handle the matter with the \u201cutmost caution\u201d.<\/p>\n The Taiwan issue<\/a> is expected to be among the key topics at this year\u2019s dialogue.<\/p>\n Beijing has sent military aircraft near the island<\/a> on an almost daily basis in recent years and has conducted four large-scale military exercises since William Lai Ching-te took office in May 2024.<\/p>\n The forum also comes amid continued tensions in the South China Sea, where Beijing has overlapping territorial claims with several Southeast Asian nations. Tensions with Manila, marked by repeated clashes between Chinese and Philippine vessels, have been particularly high.<\/p>\n Vietnamese President and General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam To Lam is scheduled to deliver the keynote address at this year\u2019s dialogue on Friday.<\/p>\n This article was first published on <\/em>SCMP<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Last year, the Chinese delegation was led by Hu Gangfeng, a PLA major general and vice-president of the National Defence University. It remains unclear who…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":55484,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2611],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-headlines","wpcat-2611-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=55483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55483\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/55484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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