Sunday Jun 04, 2023
Senior officials from about two dozen of the world's major intelligence agencies held a secret meeting this weekend on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue security meeting in Singapore, five people told Reuters.
Such meetings are organized by the Singapore government and have been discreetly held in a separate location next to the security summit for several years, they said. The meetings were not previously reported.
The US was represented by Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, head of her country's intelligence community, while China was among the other countries in attendance, despite tensions between the two superpowers.
Samant Goel, head of India's overseas intelligence-gathering agency, Research and Analysis Wing, also attended, an Indian source said.
"The meeting is an important item on the international shadow agenda," said one person familiar with the discussions. “Given the range of countries involved, this is not a craft festival, but rather a way to foster a deeper understanding of the intentions and end results.
“There is an unspoken code among intelligence services that they can talk when more formal and open diplomacy is more difficult – this is a very important factor in times of tension and the action in Singapore helps to support this.
All five sources who discussed the meetings declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter.
A spokesman for Singapore's Ministry of Defense said that while attending the Shangri-La Dialogue, "participants including senior officials from intelligence agencies are also taking the opportunity to meet their counterparts".
"Singapore's Ministry of Defense may facilitate some of these bilateral or multilateral meetings," the spokesman said. "Participants find such meetings held on the sidelines (of the dialogue) beneficial."
The US Embassy in Singapore said it had no information about the meeting. The Chinese and Indian governments did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The United States, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand operate what is called the Five Eyes network, which collects and shares a wide range of intelligence, and their intelligence officials meet frequently.
Larger meetings of the intelligence community are rarer and almost never made public.
Although few details were available about specific discussions in Singapore, Russia's war in Ukraine and transnational crime figured in Friday's talks, a person familiar with the discussions added. On Thursday night, intelligence chiefs held an informal meeting.
No Russian representative was present, one of the sources said. Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Volodymr V. Havrylov was at the Shangri-La dialogue but said he did not attend the intelligence meeting.
Another of the sources said the tone of the meeting was collaborative and cooperative, not confrontational.
As part of the main security dialogue, more than 600 delegates from 49 countries held a three-day plenary session as well as bilateral and multilateral closed-door meetings at the sprawling Shangri-La Hotel.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese delivered the keynote address, while US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu and counterparts from Britain, Japan, Canada, Indonesia and South Korea also spoke.
Haines was one of the official American delegates to the Shangri-La Dialogue. In a cyber security discussion at the main meeting, she said, when asked by a Chinese military officer, that cooperation between the countries is essential.
"It's absolutely critical, even when there's mistrust and even when you're facing real adversaries, that you still try to work on issues of common interest and cooperate on them, and also try to manage the potential for escalation," she said.
US officials said on Friday that CIA Director William Burns visited China last month for talks with Chinese counterparts as the Biden administration seeks to strengthen communications with Beijing.
