China's defence ministry announced on Tuesday that Beijing will be represented at this week's ASEAN defence ministers' meeting in Cebu by the defence attaché at its embassy in Manila — not by Defence Minister Dong Jun. It is a drop of several ranks from the ministerial level China sent to the same meeting in each of the past two years, and analysts cited in regional coverage are calling it a deliberate downgrade aimed at the host country, the Philippines, as the two governments trade accusations over the South China Sea. In the same hall, the United States will be represented in person by Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, who is expected to arrive on Wednesday.
The meeting is the 13th ASEAN Defence Ministers' Meeting-Plus (ADMM-Plus), held alongside the 20th ASEAN Defence Ministers' Meeting in Lapu-Lapu City, Cebu, from October 26 to 30, with the main ministerial sessions on Wednesday and Thursday at the Mactan Expo Center. The ADMM-Plus brings together the ASEAN member states and eight dialogue partners — the United States, China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia, Russia and New Zealand — and around 500 delegates and guests are expected. The Philippines holds the ASEAN chairship this year; its defence secretary, Gilberto Teodoro Jr., chairs the sessions and hands the chairship to Singapore on Thursday. This year's hosting also falls on the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia.
Beijing's own statement gave no reason for the change. China's defence ministry said the attaché would represent China at the meeting, that China would exchange views with other countries on maintaining dialogue and negotiation and enhancing mutual understanding and trust, and that it firmly supports ASEAN's central role in regional cooperation. The announcement did not name the attaché, did not say why Dong Jun would not attend, and did not describe the lower level of representation as any kind of signal.
The comparison is what makes the move read as one. Dong Jun attended the ADMM-Plus in person in Vientiane, Laos, in 2024 and in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, last year. Even in 2023, when no minister came, China sent a deputy chief of staff of the Central Military Commission at the rank of major general — still well above an embassy attaché. This is the first ADMM-Plus in three years to convene without a Chinese defence minister in the room, and it comes while other partner governments are sending their ministers as usual: India's Rajnath Singh landed in Cebu on Tuesday, and Japan's and Singapore's defence ministers are attending in person. Analysts cited in coverage of the announcement read the step down as a deliberate downgrade connected to Beijing's territorial dispute with Manila.
A second explanation is also in circulation, and it is important to be plain that Beijing has confirmed neither. Other reporting notes that the Cebu meetings fall in the same week as the Chinese Communist Party's fifth plenum in Beijing, which runs from Monday to Thursday and which Dong is expected to attend as a member of the party's Central Committee. Dong also skipped the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore in May, for the second consecutive year. Scheduling clash or diplomatic message, the reason for his absence is officially unexplained.
The backdrop between the two capitals is raw. In June, China sanctioned Teodoro and his immediate family over his remarks on the maritime dispute. The two countries have continued to trade accusations over the South China Sea, where the Philippines' resupply missions to its outpost at Second Thomas Shoal remain a live flashpoint, and reports of a Chinese marine research vessel operating north of the Philippines have sharpened the meeting's focus on critical undersea infrastructure and maritime law. China's foreign ministry spokesman, Guo Jiakun, said on Monday that the ADMM-Plus should play a positive role in regional dialogue — and added: "We firmly oppose any forces misusing public platforms for private ends, and hijacking ASEAN to stir up trouble."
Washington's side of the seating plan is the opposite choice. Hegseth is expected in Cebu on Wednesday for the plenary, a separate ASEAN–United States informal defence ministers' meeting, and bilateral talks. His department says he will hold bilateral and multilateral meetings to "strengthen deterrence, advance key alliances and partnerships, and expand burden-sharing across the region," and that the trip reaffirms Washington's commitment to "peace through strength" in the Pacific. Teodoro said on Monday that he will hold a bilateral with Hegseth, plus a "Squad" meeting with the United States, Japan and Australia, covering the "enhancement of defense relations" — checking, in his words, "if we need to add what we are doing, if we need to accelerate, decelerate or what have you." The Philippine defence department's spokesman, Arsenio Andolong, said strengthening the alliance is Manila's broad priority, with military modernisation and future capability building likely on the table. South Korea's defence minister, Kang Shin-chul, is also expected to sit down with Hegseth on Wednesday — their first meeting since Kang took office in September — with the transfer of wartime operational control on the agenda ahead of the allies' December meeting in Washington.
For ordinary people, a seating chart in Cebu may look remote, but the water it is about is not. The South China Sea carries trade worth trillions of dollars a year — a large share of everything shipped between Asia and the rest of the world, including goods on American shelves — and the Philippines sits on its eastern edge, a treaty ally of the United States whose coast guard and navy face Chinese vessels in disputed waters week after week. Meetings like this one are where the region's governments argue about those waters in a room instead of on them. A defence attaché cannot commit a ministry the way a minister can, so whatever China might have signed, softened or objected to in person has a lower ceiling this week; a U.S. defence secretary at the table in person is the counter-signal Washington wants its allies — and Beijing — to register. None of that decides prices or safety by itself, and it would be dishonest to claim otherwise. What it does is set the temperature of the region's most contested sea lane for the months ahead.
What remains unknown is the centre of the story. Beijing has not said why Dong Jun is staying away, so both readings — the Communist Party plenum and the deliberate snub — rest on outside analysis, not on any Chinese statement. It is also not yet known what the ministers will adopt in Cebu, if anything: Philippine officials say bilateral outcomes are usually decided inside the meetings themselves, and Teodoro is expected to give details in his turnover address on Thursday. What is established is narrower and plain: the region's defence ministers are gathering in Cebu with the South China Sea on the agenda, the United States is sending its defence secretary, and China is sending an embassy attaché.
📰 ProfiloPolitics Member News — choose your news, share it, earn credit
Members choose the news they want — share it and earn credit.
📣 Join ProfiloPolitics on Telegram — breaking news first
Follow @profilopoliticsnews for every update on this story.