12/06/2019
- Observers will be watching to see if General Wei Fenghe holds talks with his American counterpart
- Forum comes as Beijing and Washington are at odds over issues ranging from security to trade
General Wei Fenghe will be the first Chinese defence minister to attend the Shangri-La Dialogue in eight years. Photo: Reuters
China is sending its defence minister to a leading Asian security forum next week, the first time in eight years that a high-ranking Chinese general will represent the country at the conference.
General Wei Fenghe, a State Councillor and China’s defence minister, will speak at the three-day Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, a gathering that comes as Beijing and Washington are at odds over issues ranging from security to trade.
“In a highly anticipated speech, General Wei Fenghe will speak on China’s role in the Indo-Pacific at a pivotal time for the region,” the International Institute for Strategic Studies, an organiser of the conference, said on Monday night.
Chinese military sources said that Wei would lead a “relatively big” delegation to the gathering, which starts on May 31 and is co-organised by the Singaporean government.
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The last time Beijing sent a high-ranking officer to the event was in 2011 when General Liang Guanglie, then the defence minister, attended.
Acting US secretary of defence Patrick Shanahan will also attend the conference and deliver a speech.
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Beijing-based military specialist Zhou Chenming said observers would be watching to see whether the two senior defence officials held talks.
“The whole world will keep a close eye on any possible encounters between the Chinese and the Americans … At least now China has shown its sincerity in sending Wei to attend the conference, who is of equal standing as Shanahan, if the latter is willing to hold talks with him in good faith,” Zhou said.
But he said a meeting between Wei and Shanahan would be difficult because of the current distance between Beijing and Washington on major issues.
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“It’s not realistic to expect they will make a breakthrough because both sides will just sound their own bugles. The … mistrust between China and the US is actually growing every day,” Zhou said.
Just on Sunday, the USS Preble, an Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer, sailed within 12 nautical miles of the Scarborough Shoal, an area in the South China Sea claimed by both China and the Philippines.
The
by strongly urging “the US to stop such provocative actions” and saying it would “take all necessary measures” to protect its “national sovereignty”.
Military analysts said the size of the Chinese delegation at the conference would underscore the importance of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) attached to the event this year.
One military insider said the delegation would also include Lieutenant General He Lei, former vice-president of the Academy of Military Science, who headed China’s delegation in 2017 and 2018; and Senior Colonel Zhou Bo, director of the defence ministry’s Centre for Security Cooperation. In addition, the PLA would send a number of Chinese academics to speak at various sessions of the forum.
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Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong will deliver a keynote speech on the opening day of the annual dialogue.
Japan and South Korea are also sending their defence ministers, according to a report by The Korean Times on Tuesday. The report also said South Korean Defence Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo was keen to hold one-on-one meetings with his Chinese and Japanese counterparts on the sidelines of the conference.
Source: SCMP
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29/05/2019
- The Asian security forum in Singapore had been seen as an ideal venue for a breakthrough in the growing diplomatic spat – but Tokyo has got cold feet
- That will ease the pressure on Beijing in the South China Sea, analysts say
Hopes are fading for a breakthrough in Japan-South Korea relations at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. Photo: Kyodo
Hopes that
and
could use the Shangri-La Dialogue in
to address their growing diplomatic spat are receding.
The three-day Asian security forum, which begins on Friday, had been seen as an ideal neutral venue for the two countries’ defence ministers to hold formal talks on issues including Tokyo’s claim that in January a
onto a Japanese reconnaissance aircraft.
The issue is one of the biggest deviling the bilateral relationship, alongside Japan’s perception that Seoul has backtracked on a promise to draw a line under Japan’s use of
– euphemistically known as “comfort women” – in military-run brothels during World War Two.
However, Tokyo appears to have concluded that formal talks on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue would be premature. The Yomiuri newspaper has reported that a formal meeting will no longer take place and that Takeshi Iwaya and Jeong Kyeong-doo, his South Korean opposite number, will now be restricted to a brief, stand-up exchange of their positions.
Despite the report, South Korean officials were guarded when asked whether the meeting had been shelved. “A detailed plan [on the bilateral talks] has yet to be fixed. Consultations are still underway between authorities of the two countries,” said the South Korean defence ministry spokesperson Choi Hyun-soo on Tuesday.
Analysts suggested Japan had run out of patience with South Korea and that the biggest winner in the stand off between two US allies would be China.
Japanese Defence Minister Takeshi Iwaya. Photo: Kyodo
“My sense is that Japan sees South Korea as not engaging in negotiations on a number of issues and not adhering in good faith to agreements that it has already signed,” said Stephen Nagy, a senior associate professor of international relations at Tokyo’s International Christian University.
Tokyo has been incensed that the administration of
has gone back on a 2015 agreement that was meant to draw a final line under the “comfort women” issue. Its anger deepened when Seoul said it would not intervene in a South Korean Supreme Court ruling, which ordered Japanese companies to pay up to 120 million won (US$100,000) to each of a dozen
of the Korean peninsula from 1910-1945.
Like its stance on “comfort women”, Japan believed a line had been drawn under the issue, this time in a 1965 pact that normalised relations between the two countries. Seoul argues that the 1965 treaty, which it signed after receiving US$800 million in grants and soft loans from Tokyo as compensation, does not cover individual victims of colonial-era atrocities.
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“Japan is not ready to get into any more agreements because it fears that Seoul will not follow through or that they will become politicised in the future,” Nagy said.
“Tokyo wants binding, long-lasting agreements rather than having to renegotiate something each time a new Korean government comes in,” he said.
“The biggest winner in this stand-off between the US’ two most important allies in the region is, of course, China,” he added. “They must be delighted to see this playing out because it means the US is not able to exert nearly as much pressure in areas such as the
A long-standing strategic aim in US foreign policy circles has been to form a trilateral alliance with South Korea and Japan to present a united front against common security concerns, including China’s growing influence. However, the seeming inability of the two countries to get along has long thwarted this ambition.
“If Japan, South Korea and the US could find a way to cooperate, imagine the influence they could exert over the South China Sea or over
,” Nagy said. “If Japan and Korea could find a way to put their differences aside and with their security capacity, it would be a powerful deterrent to Beijing and Pyongyang.”
South Korean protesters demonstrate against Japan’s use of sex slaves – euphemistically termed ‘comfort women’ in World War II. Photo: AFP
Toshimitsu Shigemura, a professor of international relations at Tokyo’s Waseda University, agreed that the schism between Seoul and Tokyo would be of serious concern to Washington, but he believed that US pressure had already been brought to bear on the two neighbours.
“By avoiding talks in Singapore, Japan is doing its best to avoid public problems between the two sides and I believe that talks are already taking place between the two governments on these issues,” he said.
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“The US will have told Tokyo and Seoul that it does not want to see more disagreements and that it is very important that they cooperate and calm things down a bit,” he said.
“I am sure that Washington knows exactly what happened when the Korean warship locked onto the Japanese aircraft in January, but they’re not publicly taking sides and instead they’re telling both governments to put the dispute behind them and to move on,” he added.
Other analysts were more pessimistic.
“The dynamics in domestic politics in both countries are currently overwhelming any diplomatic motives to improve bilateral ties,” said Bong Young-sik, a researcher at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Photo: AFP
“For President Moon Jae-in, Japan-bashing is a useful political card to appeal to his supporters while for
, giving the impression that South Korea is going too far in pressing Japan is also beneficial for his own political gains.”
Professor Ha Jong-moon at Hansin University said there were “no solutions in sight” to resolve the differences over forced labour and wartime sex slavery, but said there would be a chance to “smooth ruffled feathers” at the G20 summit in Osaka, which takes place at the end of June.
The last time the defence ministers of the two countries met was in October last year, when they held talks on the sidelines of the Asean Defence Ministers’ Meeting in Singapore.
Source: SCMP
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