China's defence minister Dong Jun unlikely to attend 2025 SLD security forum in S'pore

China's Minister of National Defense, Dong Jun, is unlikely to attend the 2025 Shangri La Dialogue in Singapore at the end of May.

This will be the first time in recent years that China's defence minister has been absent from the gathering, although it appears that China will still send a delegation to the event.

Non attendance

The Financial Times reports that China has "signalled" to Singapore that Dong will not be attending the annual security summit.

The SLD is touted as "Asia's premier defence summit" and is held by security think tank the International Institute for Security Studies, with the cooperation of Singapore's government, particularly the Ministry of Defence.

The SLD gathers the defence personnel of major regional and international players, and world leaders have regularly attended to deliver keynote speeches to make their country's position on Indo-Pacific security known.

The upcoming 2025 edition of the conference will see France's President Emmanuel Macron deliver the opening keynote speech, and Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim is scheduled to speak on Jun. 1.

However, it looks increasingly likely that China's Dong will not be attending, although the FT reported that it is unclear why this is the case.

It is also possible that this will change at the last minute, although the probability seems low.

Counterparts

United States Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is expected to speak at the event, having been invited to the gathering by former Singaporean defence minister Ng Eng Hen earlier in the year.

Both the U.S. and China have used the SLD as an event to air their different visions for the Indo-Pacific region, and the gathering has turned into a canvass for geopolitical micro-drama to play out.

However, it has been clear that security practitioners who attend the SLD have primarily portrayed China as the country of most concern.

As a result, as the FT reports, China's officials have been confronted with ongoing hectoring over its conduct in the South China Sea, something that China has pushed back against.

Despite this back and forth, it has also been an opportunity for the two countries to meet.

The SLD often features a panel focused on U.S. approaches to the region, with the U.S. Secretary of Defense speaking, and this panel is mirrored the next day with a panel on China's approach, featuring China's defence minister.

Experts that the FT spoke to viewed Dong's non-attendance as China having "missed an opportunity" in the face of worries about U.S. disengagement from the region and economic turmoil caused by U.S. President Donald Trump's tariff policy.

Corruption speculation

Dong's absence will also mean he will not meet with Singapore's newly installed defence minister, Chan Chun Sing.

In the past three iterations, Ng had welcomed all three of his Chinese counterparts to the Ministry of Defence, as well as his U.S. counterpart Lloyd Austin.

Since then, two of those ministers have been arrested on corruption charges, and FT speculated about further purges within China's security establishment, noting that two of high ranking members of China's Central Military Commission had been suspended or removed in the past six months.

Dong himself was subject to such speculation in 2024, although nothing has ultimately come of this.

FT reports that Dong has been cleared of wrongdoing and has recently attended other international events.

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Top image via Mothership