It is What You Make of It

Celebrating its 20th anniversary, the annual Shangri-La Dialogue held in Singapore in June 2022 brought together dozens of defense ministers and ministry chiefs from over two dozen Asia-Pacific and global countries to discuss and address security issues in the region. The Dialogue has become a beacon of the benefits of face-to-face communication and frankness in a region highly fraught with political, social and historical grievances, disagreements and partnerships. It has also become a trusted space for military leaders of the Asia-Pacific to share their perspectives and priorities with both the public and privately with their peers. This year’s 19th Shangri-La Dialogue, held from 10-12, 2022, fostered particular anticipation on the world stage for two main reasons.

First, the Dialogue came at a time of severe discord in the Asia-Pacific; discord which was largely exacerbated by activities conducted by the United States and China. While other regional security issues were discussed and addressed, the U.S.-China competition in the Indo-Pacific region was undoubtedly on everyone’s mind—and in their commentary—as security officials across the region hoped that the bilateral engagement taking place at the event was the beginning of peace and stability in the region.

Second, the Dialogue—like many of its sister multilateral gatherings—had not been held for more than two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This Dialogue was the first opportunity in years that many of the region’s military leaders had to speak face-to-face. For some, such as the U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Chinese Minister of Defense General Wei Fenghe, it was their first time meeting and speaking in person.

On the sideline of the Dialogue, Secretary Austin and General Wei successfully held a closed-door, previously-scheduled meeting that lasted almost one hour. This was the second known case of the two military leaders talking directly and the first case of them meeting face-to-face. After this private discussion—which both parties provided brief readout summaries for—Secretary Austin and General Wei, in their own plenary sessions, gave insightful public speeches on the state of security in the Asia-Pacific; speeches which naturally also included commentary on the current state of U.S.-China relations.

By breaking down the content and layout of these speeches, observers can infer further insight into the brief readout summaries provided by Beijing and Washington of the private conversation held on the first day of the Dialogue. Although the known engagement held between China and the United States’ top security officials still included accusations and discontent, the 19th Shangri-La Dialogue is nevertheless a positive starting point to honestly reconstruct U.S.-China military-to-military lines of communication; an invariably essential tool for all parties to maintain.

This relatively positive outlook on their meeting is compounded by Washington’s popularization of the term “guardrails” in their discussions about and with China. While this can be a very useful visual representation of Washington’s intent—establishing border lines to prevent competition from vearing into conflict as lines of communications are reestablished—the Biden administration must first make sure that China’s own vision and theoretical understanding of ‘guardrails’ is equal to their own, and vice-versa. Which, based on cultural and practical understanding, might not be.

For instance, the U.S. Department of Defense’s unusual public opposition of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s potential visit to Taiwan could be a good example of how dialogues, while based on the principle of agreeing to disagree, help shape the bottomline and provide ‘guardrails’ in the event of a crisis. That being said, it is up to the Biden administration whether or not such an approach could properly aid the benign construction of the U.S.-China bilateral relationship and ultimately bring stability to the Indo-Pacific region.

Amidst the growing attention to establishing lines of communication and various upcoming policy releases by both parties, time will tell if either side chooses to take advantage of this opportunity or instead continue to bow to the pervasive negativity clouding today’s U.S.-China relationship. It will be what they make of it.