General Ngo Xuan Lich, member of the Politburo, Deputy Secretary of the Central Military Commission, Vietnamese Minister of National Defense, will lead the Vietnamese high-ranking military delegation to participate in and deliver a speech at the dialogue.
Opportunity to promote security initiatives
The Shangri-La Dialogue is a track-one inter-governmental security forum organized by the UK-based International Institute for Security Studies. The dialogue attracts the participation of countries, international organizations, and prestigious research institutes, including the 10 ASEAN member countries, China, Japan, the Republic of Korea, India, the U.S., Russia, Canada, the U.K., France, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, etc.
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A working session at the Shangri-La Dialogue in 2013 |
The first Shangri-La Dialogue was held at Shangri-La Hotel in Singapore in 2002. Since then, the dialogue, named after the hotel, has provided opportunities for leaders, defense and security policy makers, experts and academicians to discuss regional emerging security issues and listen to, research, and understand strategies of countries. Thus, relevant parties may assess and design their defense strategies to settle regional security challenges and disagreements by peaceful means on the basis of international law.
So far, the Shangri-La Dialogue has been held 16 times. Thanks to the dialogue, many proposals have been made to promote initiatives on important security issues, including maritime security in the Malacca Strait, discussion on regional security structure, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, control of conflicts, and settlement of disputes by peaceful means on the basis of international law. The Shangri-La Dialogue has been confirming its prestige as the most important security forum in the region.
Vietnam contributes to maintaining peace in the region and world
In recent years, Vietnam has participated in many multilateral forums, including the Moscow Conference on International Security, the Xiangshan Forum, the US Pacific Command Chiefs of Defense Conference, the Seoul Defense Dialogue, the Shangri-La Dialogue, especially mechanisms led by the ASEAN such as the ASEAN Defense Ministers' Meeting (ADMM), the ADMM Plus, the ASEAN Chiefs of Defense Forces Informal Meeting...
Vietnam’s participation in these multilateral defense-security forums proves the country’s role and status in the region and in the world and confirms its foreign policy of multilateralization and diversification, and the guideline of activeness and responsibility in international integration.
Vietnam was invited to take part in the Shangri-La Dialogue right from the first one in 2002, including four times at the ministerial level. Vietnamese leaders or defense ministers all delivered important speeches at plenary sessions of the dialogue. Notably, in 2013, Vietnamese Prime Minister was invited to deliver a keynote speech at the 12th Shangri-La Dialogue. The speech, that stressed building strategic confidence as a key for peace, cooperation, and prosperity in the region, was resonated by domestic and international community.
Additionally, activities of the Vietnamese high-ranking military delegation in the last 16 dialogues not only contributed to the success of the forum but also demonstrated the country’s foreign policy of independence, self-reliance, openness, multilateralization, and diversification. All these reiterated that Vietnam is a reliable partner of the international community.
This 17th Shangri-La Dialogue will have five plenary sessions and six simultaneous special sessions. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to deliver a keynote speech. Hot issues of the region and the world including de-escalating the Korean Peninsula crisis; shaping Asia’s evolving security order; new dimensions of terrorism and counter-terrorism, enhancing maritime security... are expected to be discussed at this dialogue.
Vietnamese Minister of National Defense Ngo Xuan Lich is expected to deliver a speech in the third session, themed “Shaping Asia’s evolving security order.” The participation of General Ngo Xuan Lich and the Vietnamese high-ranking military delegation once again affirms Vietnam’s support and active participation to contribute to strengthening trust and mutual understanding among countries for peace, stability, cooperation, and development in the region and world.
Translated by Nam Long