After years of refusing to join the annual Shangri La dialogue on Asia Pacific security in Singapore, China made an impressive political debut this year. The dialogue, organised by the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London, attracts defence ministers of most major countries, including the US, Japan, India, and Australia besides the ASEAN nations.

When Beijing was conspicuous by its absence, the Shangri La dialogue had been a vehicle for former US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to warn the region about China’s military build-up and the lack of transparency in its defence policies. His successor, Robert Gates, was diplomatic this year in avoiding a verbal tirade against Beijing. The leader of the Chinese delegation, Lt. Gen. Zhang Qinsheng, was equally reasonable. He rejected the notion of a Chinese military threat to Asia, promised greater transparency in Beijing’s military policies, proposed greater regional security cooperation, and signaled his readiness to set up a hotline with the Pentagon.

While China and the US seemed eager to tone down their differences and demonstrate a measure of cordiality, the tension between Beijing and Tokyo was palpable at the conference.

Japan was represented at Shangri La this year by a full-fledged defence minister following the recent upgradation of the Japanese Defence Agency into a regular ministry. Japan is in the middle of an important domestic debate on giving greater political flexibility to the government in defining its military missions.

Japanese Defence Minister Fumio Kyuma was quite assertive in raising concerns about the North Korean nuclear proliferation and in responding to some aggressive questioning of his government’s defence policies by the Chinese participants.

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