Rear Admiral Hu Gangfeng (Photo: AFP/Mohd Rasfan)
Eurasia
31/05/2025 23:50
This year's dialogue drew representatives from 47 countries, including 40 ministerial-level delegates, 20 chief of defense forces-level delegates, over 20 senior defense officials, and prominent academics, according to the Singapore Ministry of Defense. China was represented by a delegation from the National Defense University of the Chinese People's Liberation Army.
On Friday, French President Emmanuel Macron addressed the event as the first European head of state to deliver a keynote speech at the opening of the Dialogue since it began in 2002. “I will be clear, France is a friend and an ally of the United States, and is a friend, and we do cooperate – even if sometimes we disagree and compete – with China,” he said. According to Reuters, he also said during his remarks that the division between the two superpowers, the US and China, is the main risk currently confronting the world, as he emphasized the need for building new coalitions between France and its partners in the “Indo-Pacific.”
In his speech, Macron compared Taiwan’s situation to Moscow’s aggression in Ukraine, warning that unchecked Russian aggression in Ukraine could set a precedent in Asia. If Russian President Vladimir Putin could take Ukrainian territory “without any restrictions, without any constraints … what could happen in Taiwan? What will you do the day something happens in the Philippines?” Macron said, according to Politico.
“Comparing the Taiwan question with the Ukraine issue is unacceptable. The two are different in nature, and not comparable at all. The Taiwan question is entirely China's internal affair. There is but one China in the world, and Taiwan is an inalienable part of China's territory. If one try to denounce ’double standard’ through the lens of double standard, the only result we can get is still double standard,”
the Chinese embassy in Singapore reacted on Facebook.
Speaking at the Dialogue, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had warned of the “threat” China poses as he called on allies in the Indo-Pacific to spend more on their own defence needs, according to Channel News Asia. “China’s army is rehearsing for the real deal,” Hegseth said in his speech. “We are not going to sugarcoat it – the threat China poses is real. And it could be imminent.”
“We do not accept groundless accusations against China. Some of these claims are completely fabricated, some distort the truth, and some are outright cases of ‘the thief crying thief’,” said Rear Admiral Hu Gangfeng, who is leading a delegation from the National Defense University of the People’s Liberation Army.
“They are essentially aimed at provoking conflict, creating division, inciting confrontation, and destabilising the Asia-Pacific,” he said, adding that such actions “go against the tide of the times, are unpopular, and will not succeed.”