18th Shangri-La Dialogue opens in Singapore

Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong deliver his opening speech at the 18th Shangri-La Dialogue

The dialogue this year attracted the largest ever number of participants, who are defence officials and scholars from nearly 50 countries and territories, including 30 ministers and deputy ministers.

The Vietnamese delegation to the event is led by General Ngo Xuan Lich, who is a Politburo member, Vice Secretary of the Central Military Commission and Minister of Defence.

In his opening speech, Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong underlined the importance of stable and constructive ties between the US and China. He also highlighted the potential role that Singapore and other small nations can play to contribute to strengthening the multilateral world order.

The 18th Shangri-La Dialogue will have six plenary sessions featuring the US’ vision on Indo-Pacific security; Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) security: next steps; Asia’s evolving security order and its challenges; China and international security cooperation; preventing conflicts in contested domains; and ensuring a resilient and stable region.

There are also six simultaneous special sessions on maritime security, defence industrial development and defence cooperation as well as hundreds of sidelines meetings.

 Defence Minister Ngo Xuan Lich is scheduled to address the fifth plenary session on preventing conflicts in contested domains on June 2.