China missed a chance to reduce military friction by again sending no defence minister to the Shangri-La Dialogue. Germany's chief of defence, General Carsten Breuer, told a media roundtable in Singapore that Beijing's decision to dispatch a lower-level team rather than its defence minister risked higher tensions in an already contested security environment. Dong Jun skipped the conference for a second straight year and Beijing sent a delegation led by Major General Meng Xiangqing from the PLA National Defence University. Breuer urged officials to use every dialogue forum to compare positions, clarify intentions and avoid miscalculation.
As Beijing sent a delegation led by a university major general, Germany's chief of defence framed the move as a strategic setback.
Breuer: a missed opportunity to manage tensions
General Carsten Breuer said on Saturday at the IISS Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore that China was "losing a chance" to engage by not sending a ministerial-level delegation to the annual defence forum. He made the remarks at a media roundtable on the sidelines of the conference while meeting other national counterparts and defence officials at side events and gatherings.
Breuer argued that ministerial attendance matters because it opens direct political and military channels for candid exchange. "I strongly recommend to use each and every dialog forum to discuss with each other and to compare not only notes but also opinions," he said, calling the absence of a defence minister "dangerous" because it reduces opportunities for face-to-face exchanges that can defuse misunderstanding between militaries.
He said contact with the Chinese representatives was ongoing, but added that higher-level participation would allow for more substantive discussions at both political and military levels. "In my 42 years as a soldier, I've never experienced such dangerous times like we're living in the world as today," Breuer said, stressing his view that the current security environment felt unusually perilous.
Split views among delegates
Not all senior delegates read Beijing's decision the same way.
Philippines national defence secretary Gilberto Teodoro described China's presence at the forum as largely promotional and said it was "no major loss for me." Teodoro framed the lower-level delegation as not sufficiently substantive to change his own assessment.
Across other remarks at the conference, U.S. official Pete Hegseth took a sharper line towards Beijing, saying that "no state, including China, can impose its hegemony and hold the security or prosperity of our nation and our allies in question." His comment underlined a strand of opinion at Shangri-La that sees China's posture as assertive and in need of robust pushback.
The Shangri-La Dialogue is an annual defence forum in Singapore that draws defence ministers and senior military officials from across the Asia-Pacific. In that setting, the absence of a defence minister carries symbolic weight because it narrows the scope for political-level signalling and for the kind of off-the-record conversations that often accompany formal sessions.
Breuer framed the absence as the riskier reading: that it reduces the channels available to manage incidents and clarify intent. He urged officials to make full use of existing dialogue platforms precisely to avoid miscalculation between major militaries. That recommendation is practical: when ministers or chiefs are present, discussions can move beyond scripted statements to concrete, operational exchanges.
At the same time, some delegations took the lower-level representation as evidence of a different strategy by Beijing, one that either seeks to de-escalate through distance or to avoid the scrutiny that ministerial-level participation invites. The exchange at Shangri-La therefore reflected a wider debate among participants about whether absence signals restraint or reticence.
Breuer's warnings were delivered in a forum where relationships are tested not just by public addresses but by a dense schedule of side meetings.
Related Articles
- Early heavy rains threaten China’s grain belt
- China crackdown forces two-year exit for cross-border traders
- China tells offshore brokers to stop onboarding by Oct 31
The single concrete fact at Shangri-La was simple: Dong Jun did not attend for a second straight year. Attention now turns to whether Beijing will return to ministerial engagement at next year's Dialogue and whether states will bolster bilateral military channels to reduce the risk of miscalculation. Originally reported by Reuters.
This article was created with AI assistance.
