Singapore: Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth is the headline speaker at Asia’s premier defence summit, which began on Friday with top Chinese officials notably absent despite weighty questions over Taiwan and the war in Iran.
Beijing’s defence minister is skipping the three-day Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore for the second year running, which analysts viewed as a sign of China’s rising power.
The forum brings together top officials from around 45 nations and has historically provided a setting for debate as well as both quiet and high-profile diplomacy.
But the absence of China’s Dong Jun means no meeting with Hegseth, even as Beijing tests American commitment to Taiwan and Washington seeks an end to the Middle East war.
Vietnamese leader To Lam called on countries to make such talks “truly effective instruments of risk reduction”, adding in a keynote address on Friday evening that the Shangri-La Dialogue should not become a platform for merely “restating positions”.
He urged “responsible commitment” from influential nations “both within and beyond the region”, without mentioning the United States or China by name.
“Competition must be bounded by law, guided by transparency and exercised with restraint,” Lam said.
He also said Vietnam’s position on the South China Sea, where it has a territorial dispute with Beijing, remained “clear, consistent and principled”.
Recently elected president and Communist Party leader -- a dual role evoking China’s Xi Jinping -- Lam is Vietnam’s most powerful leader in decades.
Hegseth’s second trip to the forum comes after US President Donald Trump’s visit to China this month.
Trump said the countries struck “fantastic” trade deals, although details have been vague, and he has suggested Washington could use arms sales as a bargaining chip with Beijing.
Hegseth’s speech on Saturday is expected to be “quite strong against China, but mainly for internal (US) consumption”, said Oh Ei Sun, senior fellow at the Singapore Institute of International Affairs.
