This year has seen the most extraordinary intensification of international and domestic political activity. Indeed, domestic agendas are heavily charged this year, keeping a few leaders busy at home. This weekend is the last before a general election in the UK, where the defence secretary is busy campaigning. In Germany too, the defence minister is engaged in electoral matters at the state level. In India, the finance minister, who also has additional duties as defence minister, is greatly occupied with the introduction of major tax reform that will be unveiled in 30 days.
In China, the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) is in the middle of the most intense and wide-ranging military reform process in its long history. I had excellent meetings with senior Chinese officers in April and again in May on the sidelines of the successful Belt and Road conference hosted in Beijing to which IISS was invited. I want to thank the PLA for their discussions with me. They explained, first, that they accepted the IISS position that only individuals of full ministerial rank should speak in plenary at the SLD; second, that as this year the military reform process was occupying their leading Central Military Commission members, they could not field someone at that level to the 2017 Dialogue; third, that the Chinese delegation this year would therefore express itself formally in the special sessions as well as during Q and A in plenary; and fourth, that they fully intend in 2018 to send to the SLD a delegation led by a four star officer of CMC rank. I want to thank the PLA for their commitment to the Shangri-La Dialogue and, from this hall, especially as there are a number of PLA officers present here, send our congratulations on the 90th anniversary of the PLA that will be celebrated this August.
The type of international defence diplomacy conducted by all of you here, and also at our IISS Manama Dialogue, is perhaps even harder than traditional foreign affairs diplomacy. It has fewer conventions, and it carries even greater risks of misunderstanding, with either the ‘defence’ or the ‘diplomacy’ component being given too much weight by foreign opposite numbers or by the domestic political base of the practitioner. Keeping defence and diplomacy in the right balance is the essence of sound strategy.
|
