By WENDELL MINNICK
SINGAPORE — The 12th Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore could easily have been renamed after Shakespeare’s play “Much Ado About Nothing,” as Chinese officials offered little information about their defense and foreign policies on the eve of a summit between US President Barack Obama and newly appointed Chinese President Xi Jinping last weekend.
Sponsored by the International Institute of Strategic Studies, the May 31-June 3 Dialogue was held a week before a Obama-Xi meeting in California to discuss cybersecurity, North Korea, the South China Sea and the US Asia pivot.
Just as Shakespeare’s comedic play ends joyfully with multiple marriages and no deaths, this year’s Shangri-La lacked any real sense of crisis, minus cyber, as China and the US held their tongues over the recent Chinese military incursion into India, challenges over the Japanese-controlled Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, disputes over exclusive economic zones (EEZs) and Beijing’s territorial disputes in the South China Sea.
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