Chinese state media gave a response to U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegeseth’s Shangri-La Dialogue speech that was swift and loud. But the Chinese delegation to the security forum failed to match that fervor in-person this past weekend. Most conspicuously, China’s defense minister, Dong Jun (董军), was absent.
About two weeks before the Shangri-La Dialogue, the Financial Times reported that Dong likely wouldn’t be joining. This has raised eyebrows because defense ministers in the region typically attend the dialogue, which is widely regarded as the most prominent and prestigious security forum in Asia. Reporting suggests Dong’s absence might be connected to anti-corruption purges in the People’s Liberation Army — Dong was investigated last year for corruption but had been presumably cleared. It could also be that China wanted to be low key as Hegeseth gave his first extended public statement on the Trump administration’s Indo-Pacific defense strategy. Shangri-La can be an disconcertingly unpredictable forum for China, as it subjects defense officials to panel discussions with a Q&A section.
China made a big effort to downplay Dong’s absence. Rear Admiral Hu Gangfeng (胡鋼鋒), vice president of China’s National Defence University, attended in his stead. Hu emphasized that it’s perfectly normal for China to send different kinds of delegations to the Shangri-La Dialogue each year, and that the defense minister’s absence doesn’t indicate a shift in China’s policy, communication strategy or perception of the Shangri-La Dialogue as a valuable multilateral forum. The state-run Global Times published an “explainer” on the topic, outlining how China first sent a defense minister to the Shangri-La Dialogue in 2011 and has only done so a handful of times since then. This gist is that Dong’s absence is no big deal.
However, this reasoning glosses over the historical pattern of China’s engagement with the Shangri-La Dialogue: in the past several years, it has become an increasingly important forum for China to posture and present a competing vision for its leadership in the region. Until this year, China has sent its defense minister to the dialogue every year since 2019 (except when the dialogue was cancelled in 2020 or 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic). Chinese defense ministers have used the forum as an opportunity to assert their position on Taiwan and other core interests. In 2024, Dong said Taiwan independence “separatists will be nailed to the pillar of shame in history.” In 2023, when describing China’s commitment to defending its core interests, then-defense minister Li Shangfu (李尚福) invoked this song lyric: “When friends visit us, we welcome them with fine wine. When jackals or wolves come, we will face them with shotguns.”
Not only was the Chinese delegation this year lacking in authority, it was also less aggressive than in the past. Hu’s public role was limited to a panel on maritime security, during which he said Hegeseth’s remarks about China’s “destabilizing” actions in the region were “groundless accusations.” Later on, he did not explicitly mention the U.S. when he remarked that “some countries” are forming cliques to increase their presence and seek hegemony in the Indo-Pacific. Ultimately, most of China’s battle for influence with the U.S. at the Shangri-La Dialogue seemed to bear out in Chinese state media rather than in person.
Over the past several years, Chinese media has ramped up its coverage of the dialogue from essentially nothing, presumably to help shape the narrative around U.S.-China security competition. In 2019, even though Beijing sent its defense minister to the dialogue for the first time in eight years, there was hardly any coverage of it in Chinese state media. Reporting suggests this was due to directions that Chinese media received from the Communist Party not to run stories on the U.S. deputy defense secretary’s speech. Coverage gradually increased over the following years, with sixteen articles in the Global Times in 2024. This year, the Global Times has published over 20 articles on the dialogue so far.
Chinese state media coverage of the dialogue this year included many familiar mainstays of China’s anti-American rhetoric, albeit published in greater quantity than in years past. “The remarks made by the U.S. defense secretary were filled with deeply ingrained hegemonic logic, bullying behavior, and Cold War mentality. They seriously provoke China’s sovereignty and interests,” wrote the Global Times. This plays into China’s classic Thucydides Trap argument — Washington is threatening to provoke Beijing into a conflict that could be avoided if the U.S. respected China’s core interests. The crux of the argument is that a war over Taiwan would be the U.S.’s fault. The China Daily, another state-run newspaper, leveraged ASEAN countries’ expressions of non-alignment at the Shangri-La Dialogue, particularly remarks made by Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, as evidence that the U.S.’s attempts at “exclusive” bloc formation were rejected by the region.
The uptick in media coverage this year is perhaps due to increased pressure from Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to “tell China’s story well,” as the Chinese government has stepped up its efforts since 2020 to increase its “international discourse power” relative to the U.S. Since it is the most prominent annual security dialogue in the region, it makes sense for the Chinese government to decide that the Shangri-La Dialogue should no longer be skipped as an opportunity for narrative building.
Another possible reason for the significant backlash in Chinese state media this year is that Hegeseth gave a more provocative speech than American defense secretaries have given at the Shangri-La Dialogue in the past. His speech was certainly direct. Hegeseth specifically rebutted common Chinese anti-American narratives, including by arguing the U.S. doesn’t aim to “encircle” or “subjugate” China. Hegeseth also said China is credibly preparing to invade Taiwan by 2027, China could pose an “imminent threat,” and that the U.S. is prepared to fight and win a war over Taiwan. Despite the directness of his tone, Hegeseth’s speech largely reflected the defense policy outlined in his predecessor Lloyd J. Austin III’s speech last year.
The uptick in Chinese media coverage also seemed like an attempt to compensate for China’s lack of presence at the forum. This approach might have been the best of both worlds for China — narrative building while avoiding being put on the spot amid diplomatic uncertainty with the U.S. But it also could have been a strategic error. Hegeseth showed up and spoke about the importance of fostering good relationships in the region. He met with representatives from Singapore, Australia and the Philippines. Whether or not the participating countries bought Hegeseth’s overtures of friendship among his calls to increase defense spending and the broader trade war turbulence is a fair concern. But at least he showed up.
China continues to project that it is only willing to meaningfully engage with partners on security issues if it has control over the format and content of the forum — for example, at its annual Beijing Xiangshan Forum in the fall. The problem for China is that as it tries to internationalize to gain influence and boost its economy, it will have a hard time convincing people that “globalization with multipolar characteristics” means anything but openness when it serves China’s interests.
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