Signals from Shangri-La 2026

When Japan’s Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi took to the  podium at this year's Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore on  31 May, the atmosphere inside the well-air-conditioned  conference hall felt as heated as the tropical weather outside.  Having watched US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth read out a  list of ‘model allies’ to be rewarded with expedited arms sales and  deeper intelligence sharing, Koizumi gently asked Hegseth for a  message of reassurance. It was an awkward yet telling moment  between two staunch Cold War allies. Tokyo, now under Prime  Minister Sanae Takaichi, is spending more, coordinating more,  and shouldering greater regional security burdens than at any  point in the post-war era. And yet Japan still felt the need to ask,  publicly, whether America was actually committed. 

Japan’s defense minister, Shinjiro Koizumi speaks at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore amid growing questions about the durability of the US-Japan alliance. Photo: Reuters 

That exchange got lost in summit coverage which was dominated  by headline friction between Washington and Beijing. Yet it was  precisely the signal that tells you where things actually stand in  the Indo-Pacific. Looking across the three most recent  Shangri-La summits, one under Biden and two under Trump, a  clear pattern has emerged: Indo-Pacific nations are adapting to  Trump's America, but adaptation does not equal alignment, and  the region’s responses are more varied, and in some cases more  unsettling, for long-term American strategy than the surface  picture suggests.

Prize list replaces partnership 

Where Biden's Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin came to  Singapore in 2024 speaking of ‘new convergence’ and Pete  Hegseth in 2025 still framed China as an ‘imminent threat’ to  Taiwan, Hegseth’s speech this year was qualitatively different.  The new US National Security Strategy had signalled the shift:  allies must contribute more, and those that do will be prioritised.  At Shangri-La 2026, Hegseth listed his favoured partners –  Australia, Japan, India, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines,  South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand. He made clear that  ‘model allies’ would ‘move to the front of the queue’. The  partnership had become a prize list. 

US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth outlined a new approach that rewards ‘model allies’ with deeper  cooperation, signalling a shift from traditional alliance management toward conditional partnership. Photo: Reuters 

Equally telling was what he did not say. Taiwan went  unmentioned – the first time in more than a decade that a US  defence chief had left the island out of his Shangri-La address.  AUKUS, the trilateral security pact between the US, UK and  Australia built explicitly around countering Chinese power, did  not feature. Nor did the Quad, Washington's flagship democratic  grouping in the Indo-Pacific. Three of the most visible  institutional expressions of America's China-facing strategic  architecture, and not one of them named. 

Three silences, one signal 

These omissions sit alongside other signals that together form a  pattern uncomfortable to dismiss. Days after Trump left Beijing,  the White House paused a $14 billion arms package to Taiwan  that Congress had already cleared. Trump described Taiwan's  arms package as ‘a very good negotiating chip for us’, a framing  that broke with every previous administration's public position.  Within the same fortnight, Xi met Putin in Beijing and signed  more than 40 cooperation agreements, reaffirming their strategic  partnership days after hosting Trump. Then came the Xi-Kim  summit in Pyongyang, where Xi acknowledged North Korea's  ‘sovereignty, security and development interests’ in language that  analysts at the American Enterprise Institute noted implicitly  legitimised Pyongyang's demands for sanctions relief. 

No formal bargain has been announced, and whatever was or was  not agreed in Beijing remains opaque. But the cumulative  pattern raises a question the region is quietly asking: if Taiwan's  security, AUKUS and the Quad are all too sensitive to mention in  public, what exactly is on the table in private, and who was  consulted?

China's absence is its argument 

Beijing's response across three years is consistent enough to  constitute a considered strategy. In 2024, Defence Minister Dong  Jun attended in person. He was combative on Taiwan and the  South China Sea but present and attempting to shape the room.  Since then, Beijing has sent only scholars. Two consecutive  absences invite speculation about the PLA's anti-corruption  campaign – Dong’s two predecessors both received suspended  death sentences earlier this year – though his appearance  alongside Xi in Pyongyang in early June puts those rumours to  rest for now. 

As Beijing kept its distance from the Shangri-La  Dialogue, China continued to deepen strategic ties with Russia through high-level diplomatic and security engagements. Photo: Reuters 

The more durable explanation is categorical. A serving PLA  general described attending as walking into ‘a lion's den  intended to directly counter Western disinformation’ and China's  defence ministry condemned Washington for using the dialogue  to ‘create disputes, sow discord, provoke confrontation and seek  selfish interests’. Senior diplomat Wang Yi went to the Munich  Security Conference in February rather than Singapore in May,  choosing ground where he could contest the normative order on  his own terms. Beijing turns up where the argument is worth  having. 

What it chose to do inside the room at the Shangri-La Dialogue  was pointed nonetheless. Chinese delegates directed their  sharpest criticism not at Washington but at Tokyo, questioning  Japan's standing to speak about regional security given its  wartime history – a deliberate effort to pressure the US-led  coalition where it is most susceptible to fracture. 

Three ways the Indo-Pacific adapts 

The rest of the Indo-Pacific has not waited for clarification.  Regional powers have begun adapting in at least three distinct  ways. 

The first is willing integration. Japan and Australia have broadly  aligned with Washington's direction, spending more, deepening  interoperability, accepting the burden-sharing logic. Japan's  adaptation is the more consequential, involving not just  increased defence expenditure but a genuine shift in how Tokyo  talks about its security role: less apologetic, more direct about  regional threats, more willing to be seen as an independent actor.

The second is transactional autonomy. India’s instincts –  issue-based partnerships, no formal commitments, cooperation  on its own terms – fit the Trump era more comfortably than they  fitted Biden’s emphasis on rules-based order. At Shangri-La,  India's defence secretary held talks with US counterparts while  simultaneously engaging NATO officials: India intends to remain  indispensable to multiple frameworks by belonging fully to none. 

The third is perhaps the most instructive. In 2025 President  Macron of France had stood at this same podium and argued  that the era of non-alignment was definitively over. Vietnam's  president, who leads a communist one-party state sharing a land  border with China, delivered remarks pointing in precisely the  opposite direction. This year, Washington named Vietnam a  trusted partner and placed it on the model-ally prize list  alongside treaty allies. Hanoi accepted without allowing the  designation to constrain its posture. Speaking two strategic  languages simultaneously is an art form Vietnam has been  practising for fifty years. 

Taiwan continues to strengthen its defences amid  growing uncertainty over regional security  commitments and the future balance of power in the Indo-Pacific. Photo: AP 

The keynote shift nobody mentioned 

The reality is that the Indo-Pacific has not coalesced around  Trump's security framework. It is adapting to it, which is a  different thing. Allies are spending more, but some because the  security environment demands it regardless of what Washington  does. Partners are lining up, but on terms that preserve their  freedom to manoeuvre. China has decided the forum is no longer  worth attending to contest. And somewhere in all of this, Taiwan  has approved nearly $25 billion in additional defence spending  and is waiting to find out whether the silence around it is  temporary, or the shape of things to come.