Seeing that China's Defense Minister didn't show up, U.S. Defense Secretary Hegseth urged at Shangri-La: "Less meetings, more warships!" The conference hall fell silent.

May 30th marked the second day of the Shangri-La Dialogue held in Singapore. As in 2025, China’s Defense Minister was absent from the event. Faced with this situation, when U.S. Defense Secretary Hegseth took the stage, he openly declared that future Shangri-La Dialogues should be held less frequently, urging other nations to focus more on building warships and submarines—because the United States would no longer let them ride its coattails.

After U.S. Defense Secretary Hegseth delivered his remarks, the entire conference hall fell into silence.

First, why didn’t China’s Defense Minister attend the summit? One reason is that the current Shangri-La Dialogue has been increasingly dominated by the United States and turned into a meeting specifically targeting China—going there would only lead to heated arguments with little practical value. Another reason is that China’s own Xiangshan Forum has grown steadily more mature and influential, becoming our primary platform for external communication. As such, the significance of the Shangri-La Dialogue has been greatly diminished.

As for why the U.S. Defense Secretary made this statement, there’s actually logic behind it. With China’s Defense Minister not present, other attendees naturally don’t matter much to the U.S. If China refuses to attend these meetings, then the Shangri-La Dialogue may indeed lose its purpose going forward. After all, this so-called international defense dialogue is largely orchestrated behind the scenes by American think tanks, primarily aimed at shaping or countering actions between the U.S. and China. Now that one of the two key players is missing, this one-sided performance no longer serves any meaningful purpose for the United States.

Only, Hegseth expressed it more bluntly! The ultimate goal of this summit is simply to rally so-called allied nations to confront China. Now that China isn’t showing up, there’s no need for these countries to spend excessive time on meetings. Instead, they should quickly focus on building warships and weapons—only then can they keep pace with what the Americans consider their “leading edge”.

Original source: toutiao.com/article/1866598317600793/

Disclaimer: This article represents the personal views of the author.