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By Li Ying The 10th International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) Asian Security Summit will gather its highest-ranking delegations, including Chinese Defense Minister Liang Guanglie and his US counterpart Robert Gates, in Singapore from Friday to Sunday. The summit, known as the Shangri-La Dialogue, is one of the most important inter-governmental security forums in Asia. Tim Huxley, executive director of the IISS-Asia said, 2011 Dialogue would highlight "significant shifts in the distribution of relative military strength away from the West and toward Asia." "What makes contemporary Asian military modernization programs dangerous is that they often reflect undeclared efforts to hedge against the ulterior motives of other regional players," Huxley told US-based Defense News, "This is leading to potentially destabilizing interaction among defense strategies, doctrines and capability development programs." Having attended the last four editions of the annual dialogue, Gates helped put the dialogue "on the map as a viable forum for the exchange of ideas on the Asia-Pacific's security issues." Su Hao, head of the Strategy and Conflict Management Research Center at China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times that exchanges between China and the US are still the focus of this year's forum. "This will be the first time that a Chinese defense minister has attended the Shangri-La Dialogue, and he will deliver a speech on China's international security cooperation, which is an unprecedented move," Su said. "This forum could be a useful venue to increase transparency in regard to defense policies and military modernization of China." The level of the delegation also shows China's willingness to strengthen mutual trust and cooperation with relevant parties in the region, he added. |
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