Singapore CNN —

China will not send its defense minister to this year’s Shangri-La Dialogue, shunning a chance for a high-level meeting with US and Asian counterparts as tensions simmer with Washington.

China announced Thursday it will instead be represented by a delegation from the People’s Liberation Army National Defense University, marking the first time in five years a high-level delegation from Beijing will miss Asia’s largest defense and security forum.

The United States will be represented by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at the event, which often provides opportunities on the sidelines for rare face-to-face meetings between top generals and defense officials from the US and China.

Last year then-US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met with Minister of National Defense Adm. Dong Jun on the sidelines of the event and the two pledged to continue a US-China dialogue amid simmering military tensions over Taiwan and Chinese aggression in the South China Sea.

Beijing’s decision not to send Dong this year throws into question whether there will be any meeting between the US and China at a time of heightened tensions between the two.

China has railed against America’s efforts in recent years to tighten its alliances and defense posture in Asia, while economic frictions rose to historic levels earlier this year after US President Donald Trump’s imposition of tariffs on China sparked a tit-for-tat between the two countries that saw duties rise to more than 100% on each other’s goods.

While the two sides announced a temporary tariff truce earlier this month, tensions flared against this week. On Wednesday, two days before the forum’s opening, the US aimed a shock double punch targeting software exports to Chinese tech companies and study visas granted to Chinese students, risking a fragile trade war truce between Washington and Beijing.

At a Chinese Defense Ministry press conference on Thursday, a spokesperson ducked a question on why Beijing was not sending its defense minister to the Singapore forum, expected to be attended by defense chiefs from around Asia, including many more closely tied to Washington than Beijing.

China was “open to communication at all levels between the two sides,” a ministry spokesperson said when asked about a potential sidelines meeting with the US delegation.

China’s downgrading of its Shangri-La delegation showed Beijing was not happy with Washington, a US defense official told CNN on Thursday.

“They’re torqued at us,” the official said.

Chinese minister of national defense Dong Jun attends a meeting at the Office of the Party Central Committee in Hanoi, Vietnam, on April 14. Minh Hoang/Pool/Reuters

“It’s a signal that they are concerned about the level of engagement, specifically with the United States, to send a message that everything is not completely normal within that and there’s probably some other underlying reasons about just uncertainty about what Shangri-La is intended to accomplish,” the official said.

China has traditionally had few friends at Shangri-La, where its speakers face real-time, unscripted questioning from journalists and academics attending the conference.

“Beijing always wants to control the narrative and discourse. Shangri-La does not enable that,” said Drew Thompson, senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) in Singapore.

Last year, Defense Minister Dong faced tough questions after, in a Friday note keynote speech, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. denounced illegal, coercive and aggressive actions in the South China Sea in an apparent allusion to China.

China’s military has also been in the spotlight in recent years as its top ranks have been roiled by a sweeping corruption purge, with more than a dozen high-ranking figures in China’s defense establishment ousted since 2023.

Analysts said the absence of a high-level Chinese delegation at the defense meeting may signal Beijing is emphasizing economics and trade over military relations in its foreign affairs at this time.

“While surely security engagements such as the SLD (Shangri-La Dialogue) … do matter in the broader scheme of geopolitics, at this juncture it seems regional governments are perhaps even more concerned about the tariff impact on their economies,” said Collin Koh, also an RSIS research fellow.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth leaves after a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the IISS Shangri-La Dialogue security summit in Singapore on Friday. Edgar Su/Reuters

US is ‘here to deter adversaries’

Ahead of the weekend conference, much attention has focused on how US-led alliances across the region that grew during the Biden administration would hold up under Trump’s second term.

There was broad consensus among analysts that unlike the turmoil Trump has caused in Europe – with threats to pull back from NATO and abandon Ukraine in its fight against Russia’s invasion – the US role in Asia has largely been consistent, centered on a policy to counter Chinese influence and back Taiwan.

Hegseth’s first trip to Asia as Defense Secretary began in the Philippines – on the front lines of China’s increasingly aggressive posture in Asia – where he said the US would work with allies to “reestablish deterrence” to counter “China’s aggression” in the Indo-Pacific.

On Friday, during an early morning workout with sailors aboard a US Navy ship in Singapore, he had a similar message:

“We send the signal to our allies and partners, hey, here in the Indo Pacific, America’s here, and we’re not going anywhere. We’re here to deter adversaries who would seek us harm.” Analysts noted that US-led military exercises, especially those involving key allies Japan, Australia, the Philippines and South Korea, have continued or even been bolstered in 2025.

A US Pacific Command spokesperson told CNN there would be 120 bilateral or multilateral exercises involving US forces in the Indo-Pacific this year.

But while increased US involvement is welcome by those participating in such exercises, Washington must be careful they don’t aggravate China so much that new tensions threaten the security of regional nations that are not US treaty allies, said Evan Laksmana, editor of the 2025 Asia Pacific Regional Security Assessment compiled by the International Institute of Strategic Studies.

“The deepening of US security engagement is welcome but not so far on the strategic side that it raises tensions,” he said.

On Thursday, Chinese Defense Ministry spokesperson Senior Colonel Zhang Xiaogang said China “attaches great importance to the military relations” with the US, but warned Washington against “conjuring up a powerful enemy for itself whether intentionally or unintentionally.”

“Such imagination is not rational and extremely dangerous,” Zhang said.

Thompson, the RSIS researcher, said an extra irritant for China at this year’s Dialogue is the large European contingent in attendance, including French President Emmanuel Macron, who gave the keynote speech on Friday night.

“China’s support for Russia (in its war in Ukraine) has hugely impacted its relationship with Europe, which finds it harder and harder to ignore evidence of China’s support for Russia’s war machine, making a public tongue-lashing very likely,” Thompson said.

“This makes for an awkward environment for a high-level PLA officer trying to manage and improve relations in Asia. If you can’t win, don’t join them.”

In his speech, Macron called out Beijing as holding a double standard on what is expected in Europe and what is expected in Asia.

He noted China has expressed opposition for any expansion of NATO to Asia, but not criticized North Korea’s military support for Russia in its war in Ukraine.

“If China doesn’t want NATO being involved in Southeast Asia or Asia, then they should prevent clearly the DPRK (North Korea) from being involved on European soil,” Macron said.

Zelenskyy condemns Russia’s approach to potential peace talks and denounces latest strikes on ‘ordinary civilian life’

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has criticised Russia for its approach to potential peace talks in Turkey next week.

“For a meeting to be meaningful, its agenda must be clear, and the negotiations must be properly prepared,” he said.

“Unfortunately, Russia is doing everything it can to ensure that the next potential meeting brings no results.”

As we’ve been reporting, Ukraine is refusing to commit to talks in Istanbul on Monday 2 June, unless Russia provides a list of its conditions for ending the war.

That follows the first direct talks between the two sides in more than three years, also in Istanbul, earlier this month.

Ukraine’s delegation left those talks frustrated, after Russia presented demands the Ukrainians couldn’t agree to.

Zelenskyy also criticised Russia’s ongoing drone strikes earlier today.

Posting on X, he said of a strike on Kharkiv that destroyed a bus depot and damaged nearby residential buildings. “A typical Russian strike on ordinary civilian life.”

He added: “In total, Russians used 90 attack drones and two ballistic missiles overnight.

“Such strikes happen every day.

“The vast majority target civilian infrastructure and have no military purpose.

“Russia’s strategy is simply to destroy lives.”

SINGAPORE: French President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday (May 30) that division between the two superpowers, the United States and China, is the main risk currently confronting the world as he emphasised the need for building new coalitions between Paris and partners in the Indo-Pacific.

Macron is visiting the region as France and the European Union aim to strengthen their commercial ties in Asia to offset uncertainty over US President Donald Trump’s tariff measures.

“I will be clear, France is a friend and an ally of the United States, and is a friend, and we do cooperate – even if sometimes we disagree and compete – with China,” said Macron, who was speaking at the Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia’s premier defence forum, alongside a two-day state visit to Singapore.

The French president said in his keynote address that Asia and Europe have a common interest in preventing the disintegration of the global order.

“The time for non-alignment has undoubtedly passed, but the time for coalitions of action has come, and requires that countries capable of acting together give themselves every means to do so,” Macron said.

“I had objected to NATO having a role in Asia because I don’t believe in being enrolled in someone else’s strategic rivalry,” Macron said, hinting that Paris could revisit its stance.

North Korean troops have supported the Kremlin’s war on Ukraine as part of a military pact between the two countries, with Moscow using Pyongyang’s soldiers to try push Ukrainian forces out of the Kursk region of southwestern Russia.

Macron’s speech comes on the heels of an Asian tour that started with a marital dispute and took him to Vietnam and Indonesia, where France signed a series of deals, including on defense.

His trip is concluding in Singapore, where he was invited to deliver the keynote speech at the International Institute for Strategic Studies’ Shangri-La Dialogue, a conference that typically draws leaders and defense ministers from around the world. Among those in attendance this year were U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and top EU diplomat Kaja Kallas.

The French president also warned against the risk of nuclear proliferation and the potential collapse of the global order established after World War II.

Doubling down on France’s traditional mantra, the French president called on Asian nations to be “independent” from both the U.S. and China.

“France is attached to strategic autonomy, freedom of sovereignty. We defend this approach for Europe and for the Indo-Pacific,” Macron said.

Trump this week officially fulfilled a campaign promise to unleash sweeping tariffs, a move that has sparked fears of a global trade war and prompted a major question about what has become the centerpiece of his economic agenda: What’s his endgame?

In both size and scope, Trump’s ultimate blueprint for global tariffs — a 10% baseline tariff on virtually every country, with higher numbers on countries with which the United States has larger trade deficits — was more than most expected. It has left global financial markets tumbling and Trump’s Republican supporters trying to thread the political needle of not criticizing him while also understanding the economic peril the tariff plan may usher in ahead of 2026 midterm elections in which the GOP will try to defend its slim House and Senate majorities.

Trump’s team has so far not had a clear message to either explain the strategy behind the tariffs that his political allies can echo or his thought process behind the decision to go much further than even supporters were expecting.

What’s more, multiple elements of the sweeping measures made it seem as if the administration rushed through the process.

Read the full story here.