Regional tensions key in security talks

The fraught Sino-US relationship is expected to loom over Asia's top security meeting this week, as are the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, and simmering South China Sea tensions.

The Shangri-La Dialogue will see 600 top defense officials, senior military officers, diplomats, weapons makers and security analysts from 50 countries attend from today to Sunday in Singapore.

It opens with a keynote address by Filipino President Ferdinand R Marcos Jr, who has said new South China Sea rules outlined by China's coast guard were an escalation and "worrisome" and that it was significant that he had been asked to talk about the South China Sea.

The US delegation headlines tomorrow's speech and China features on Sunday.

Last year, China had declined to meet the US delegation. The US-Sino relationship has improved since then, and US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will meet his Chinese counterpart, Dong Jun, today.

Collin Koh, a security scholar at Singapore's S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, said "the schism between the two powers is so deep that the Sino-US rivalry has become a structural reality," he said.

"Maintaining strategic communications is perhaps the best thing we could hope to ensure this strategic contestation doesn't degenerate."

Drew Thompson, a former Pentagon official who is now a National University of Singapore scholar, said China had antagonized many of its neighbors.

"We've seen pretty rapid development of the security relationship between Korea and Japan, Australia and Japan, the Philippines and Japan, and South Korea providing more and more arms to the region, particularly southeast Asia," he said. "This is largely in response to China and its much more aggressive foreign policy and its military build up."