The willingness of the Chinese to sit down with other powers without Moscow’s presence signifies that Russia is not seen as a great power. Obviously, China did not insist that Russia be included. I doubt that Russia was absent from prior meetings, but it was missing from this one. Russia’s absence from the smaller group is also important. I would guess that the meeting was accompanied by secret bilateral meetings, if not by others then by the Americans and Chinese. ![]() If any serious discussions were held, it is hard to believe they took place in the company of all the other nations present. In democratic countries like the United States, intelligence agencies are already distrusted by many. The loss of secrecy will raise public concern in at least some countries as to why the meetings were held, why they were kept secret, and what was discussed and agreed to. The cover of the meeting was blown simultaneously by five sources. The focus on security might seem less important than the reasons for the leak, but in this case, they are closely linked. But it is hard to believe that 24 national intelligence heads, plus other officials in each country who had to know of the preparations, could for years fail to leak a conference such as this. Obviously, preparations for the Shangri-La Dialogue mostly would have covered the smaller conference. The American head of intelligence can’t be casually chatting with the Chinese. Their briefings on official positions and authorized threats that might be made require weeks of preparation for the chief and some staff. Intelligence chiefs know secrets that their governments don’t want blurted out, and they aren’t casual about this. Heads of intelligence need to know what they will be dealing with, at least generally. A meeting of such people requires several weeks of logistical planning, security preparations, and exchange of proposed agendas and position papers. That the leakers seem not to have identified the others present is interesting, since it suggests the leak came from official sources who respected requests for anonymity – and indicates that those named didn’t mind it being revealed that they had attended secret meetings with major powers for some years.Įqually interesting is that the meeting of two dozen heads of intelligence could have been kept secret. What is fascinating is that there was an organized attempt by someone to blow the cover off the meeting. and China were both there and Russia was not, is important. The existence of these meetings, and the revelation that the U.S. When five leak the same information simultaneously, it is the equivalent of a press release. When one person leaks information, it is one of those things. It was noted that Russia was not represented – whether by its choice or by the organizers’ exclusion is unclear.Īccording to Reuters, the source of the information was five separate (and I assume unconnected) people. India’s top intelligence chief was also present, as were chiefs from the Five Eyes network (the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand), but no other attendees were identified. Such conferences, perhaps usually smaller, are common gatherings of government officials and others who want to be and are allowed to be there.Īmong the roughly 24 intelligence chiefs at the informal meeting were the heads of U.S. ![]() The venue for the talks was the Shangri-La Hotel, also the meeting place for a large, widely known conference called the Shangri-La Dialogue, involving about 600 representatives from around the world. Over the past weekend, major global media outlets revealed that the heads of intelligence of about two dozen countries held a (formerly) secret meeting in Singapore and had in fact been held annually for several years.
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