Shangri-La Dialogue: can Asia do ‘less Shangri-La, more ships, more subs’?

AI Summary

At the Shangri-La Dialogue, regional defense spending and security commitments were major topics, with the US urging allies to increase defense budgets to 3.5% of GDP, which most ASEAN countries find challenging except Singapore. The dialogue highlighted ongoing concerns about maintaining peace and security in Asia.

As the Shangri-La Dialogue drew to a close on Sunday, two issues dominated discussions throughout the event: defence spending and the varying level of commitment of countries to maintain peace in the region after calls by Washington for its allies and others to pull their weight. Analysts said the 3.5 per cent of gross domestic product for defence spending proposed by US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth was not something that most Asean countries – aside from Singapore – could commit to. Hegseth...