The Chinese Defense Minister, scheduled to skip the security forum in Singapore

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China’s Minister of Defense in China is not expected to attend the Shangri dialogue, not in Singapore next week, while it will be an extraordinary absence after years of attendance at the meeting.

China He referred to Singapore that the Admiral Dong Yun will not attend the annual IISS forum, a thinking center, according to five people who are aware of this issue.

Iis Shangri-La dialogue is the first gathering of its kind in Asia and became the main forum for US defense ministers and Chinese to meetEspecially since none of the parties has not sent senior defense officials to the other country for more than a decade.

People familiar with the matter said it is unclear why Dong will not attend. French President Emmanuel Macron will address the event on May 30.

One person warned that Beijing could still change his opinion, but he said that this was unlikely to be just two weeks before the forum.

In recent years, the Chinese delegation has been subjected to Shangri’s dialogue, not to severe pressure, as we and other Indian Pacific officials have criticized the increasingly firm activity by the People’s Liberation Army throughout Taiwan and other parts of the South China Sea.

“The Shangri-La dialogue is always uncomfortable for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army because almost every person there suffers from the firm and enforced China behavior in one way or another,” said Elie Ratner, who held the position of Best Pentagon in the affairs of India and the Pacific, said.

“No matter how difficult Beijing is trying to distract from it, most of the defense leaders in the region are sacrificing their greatest threat,” said Ratner, who is now director of the Marathon Initiative.

An American official said the Pentagon had not been told that Dong would not attend. US Defense Minister Beit Higseth is expected to speak at this event. The Chinese embassy in the United States did not respond to a request for comment.

The possible absence of Dong comes as a president Xi Jinping He continued to purify high -level officers in the six -member Military Committee, which runs the Chinese People’s Liberation Army.

Financial times stated last month that Xi has removed Year is WidongThe second number of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, six months after the suspension of Admiral Miao Hua, another member of CMC.

FT reported last year that Dong was investigated, but he remained in this role. Two people were aware of his case that Dong had undergone an initial investigation, but it appears to have been disinfected.

A decision not to send Dong to Singapore at a time when Beijing is trying to take advantage of President Donald Trump’s global trade war by saying that China is a more reliable partner for countries in India and the Pacific Ocean. Beijing runs a campaign for social media that is depicting China as a defender of those who face bullying by the United States.

Zach Cooper, a security expert in Asia at the American Projects Institute, said that even before the US President’s trade war, China used the forum in Singapore to photograph itself as a more reliable partner of Southeast Asian countries, said Zach Cooper, a security expert in Asia at the American Projects Institute.

“With the questions that revolve around whether Higseth will attend, the possibility of not being associated can become the dominant narration at this year’s meeting. But Higseth is now attending and Dong is not.” “It seems that China has lost an opportunity here to photograph itself as a more reliable and shared superpower in the region.”

The Chinese People’s Liberation Army is expected to send a delegation to the forum led by a minimum defense official.