Shangri-La’s Harder Edge

A Harder Edge at Asia’s Premier Security Forum

At this year’s Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, Asia’s leading defense conference took on a sharper, more urgent tone: spend more, prepare faster, and speak more plainly about China.

Over three days, defense chiefs and senior officials from across the Indo-Pacific used the annual gathering to signal a region adjusting to a more dangerous strategic environment. The immediate flash points remained familiar — Taiwan, the South China Sea, military pressure in the East China Sea — but the arguments onstage suggested the contest is now being defined just as much by industrial capacity, alliance burden-sharing and the vulnerability of the infrastructure beneath the ocean floor.

The 23rd edition of the summit, held from May 29 to 31, unfolded against a backdrop of swelling military budgets across Asia, continuing lessons drawn from the war in Ukraine about deterrence and munitions stockpiles, and growing unease over whether the United States will remain as dependable as regional allies hope. That anxiety did not weaken calls for cooperation. If anything, it intensified them.

American officials pressed partners to do more for their own defense, framing a stronger alliance network not as a retreat by Washington but as a necessary adaptation to a more contested era. The message resonated with governments that have been steadily increasing military outlays, though whether that rhetorical momentum translates into larger budgets and faster procurement remains uncertain.

One notable absence hung over the proceedings. China did not send its defense minister, dispatching instead a delegation of military scholars and experts. The decision left other countries largely free to define the public conversation about Beijing’s military rise without direct minister-to-minister rebuttal, reinforcing a sense that concern over China had become the summit’s organizing theme.

Japan Pushes Back Against ‘Militarism’ Charge

No country seemed more intent on shaping that debate than Japan.

Japan’s defense minister, Shinjiro Koizumi, used his appearance to reject longstanding Chinese accusations that Tokyo is sliding back toward militarism, insisting that Japan would continue to strengthen its defenses while remaining a transparent and “peace-loving” nation. He paired that rebuttal with criticism of China’s own military expansion, arguing that Beijing’s capabilities have grown without sufficient openness.

The argument reflected the delicate line Japan is now trying to walk. Under Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, Tokyo has accelerated its move away from the strict postwar restraint that defined much of its security policy, encouraged by the United States and propelled by fears over China’s military modernization, North Korean missile development and Russia’s war in Ukraine. Yet Japan remains acutely aware of the historical sensitivities its rearmament stirs across Asia, especially in China and South Korea.

Koizumi’s language in Singapore was calibrated accordingly: firm on the need for military strengthening, but equally insistent on dialogue, trust and transparency. He said he had hoped to meet his Chinese counterpart at the summit and expressed disappointment that no such meeting took place. Even as he challenged Beijing’s narrative, he sought to present Japan’s defense expansion as a stabilizing response to a worsening environment rather than a repudiation of its postwar identity.

That messaging matters well beyond the conference hall. Japan is attempting to normalize a larger security role at a moment when many regional governments want it to do more, even as they remain wary of how far that transformation could go. By emphasizing openness and continued dialogue with Beijing, Tokyo is trying to reassure neighbors that the greater source of instability lies not in Japan’s military shift but in China’s opaque buildup.

AUKUS Turns to the Seabed

If Japan’s intervention highlighted the politics of deterrence, a separate announcement from Australia, Britain and the United States pointed to the changing geography of competition.

The three AUKUS partners said they would launch the first “signature project” under Pillar II of their security pact, centered on payloads and enabling systems for uncrewed undersea vehicles. The project is intended in part to help protect critical undersea infrastructure, including the cables that carry much of the world’s data and communications. The first capabilities are expected to enter service in 2027.

Australia’s defense minister, Richard Marles, cast the effort in stark terms, warning that “the seabed is a battlefield.” His remarks reflected a widening concern among Western allies that undersea cables and other seabed assets have become strategic vulnerabilities, exposed not only to sabotage and espionage but also to the murky behavior of vessels operating with little transparency.

For years, security debates in Asia have centered on warships, missiles and contested airspace. But the new AUKUS project underscored how rapidly attention is expanding to the hidden architecture of globalization: the cable networks that enable financial transactions, government communications and internet traffic across continents. Disruption there, whether by accident or design, could have consequences that extend far beyond the military realm.

The initiative also suggested that AUKUS, often discussed primarily in terms of Australia’s future nuclear-powered submarines, is trying to show more immediate practical output. Pillar II, which focuses on advanced technologies, has sometimes appeared more abstract than the submarine program at the core of the pact. By announcing a concrete undersea-drone effort with a relatively near-term target date, the three countries appeared to be signaling that they can move from broad strategic rhetoric to deployable capability.

Still, important questions remain. The partners released limited detail on how broadly the systems would be used, how quickly they could be fielded at scale, and how effective they would be in monitoring or protecting vast cable networks spread across thousands of miles of ocean. Like many multinational defense technology projects, it faces the risk of moving more slowly than its language suggests.

China at the Center, Even in Absence

The summit’s broad conclusion was difficult to miss: China remained at the center of regional security calculations, even without its defense minister in the room.

Officials repeatedly returned to themes that have become central to the Indo-Pacific debate — deterrence, stockpiles, industrial resilience, military transparency and the need for partnerships able to withstand coercion. The war in Ukraine hovered in the background as both warning and lesson, reinforcing arguments that wars are not decided only by front-line forces but by ammunition production, alliance cohesion and the ability to sustain operations over time.

That framework is helping drive a new phase of Asian defense policy. It is no longer only about whether countries feel threatened by China’s rise; many now appear to be reorganizing budgets, force posture and technology partnerships around the assumption that prolonged strategic rivalry is the region’s defining condition.

Whether that shift produces lasting changes remains to be seen. Calls for higher defense spending are politically easier to make at a security forum than at home, where governments face fiscal limits and competing public demands. Japan’s bid to enlarge its military role will continue to invite scrutiny from neighbors and domestic critics alike. And AUKUS’s promise to protect undersea infrastructure will be judged not by announcements in Singapore but by whether it produces useful systems soon enough to matter.

But the mood at Shangri-La was unmistakable. The Indo-Pacific’s security agenda is broadening, hardening and becoming more technologically ambitious. What was once discussed mainly as a contest over disputed waters and military balances is now also a race to secure the systems — industrial, digital and undersea — on which modern power depends.