Senior officials from about two dozen of the world’s major intelligence agencies held a secret meeting on the fringes of the Shangri-La Dialogue security meeting in Singapore this weekend, five people told Reuters.
Such meetings are organised by the Singapore government and have been discreetly held at a separate venue alongside the safety summit for several years, they said. The meetings haven’t been previously reported.
The U.S. was represented by Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, the pinnacle of her country’s intelligence community, while China was among the many other countries present, despite the tensions between the 2 superpowers.
Samant Goel, the pinnacle of India’s overseas intelligence gathering agency, the Research and Evaluation Wing, also attended, an Indian source said.
“The meeting is a crucial fixture on the international shadow agenda,” said one person with knowledge of the discussions. “Given the range of nations involved, it isn’t a festival of tradecraft, but slightly a way of promoting a deeper understanding of intentions and bottom lines.
“There’s an unspoken code amongst intelligence services that they will talk when more formal and open diplomacy is harder – it’s an important factor during times of tension, and the Singapore event helps promote that.”
All five sources who discussed the meetings declined to be identified due to sensitivity of the matter.
A spokesperson for the Singapore Ministry of Defence said that while attending the Shangri-La Dialogue, “participants including senior officials from intelligence agencies also take the chance to satisfy their counterparts.”
“The Singapore Ministry of Defence may facilitate a few of these bilateral or multilateral meetings,” the spokesperson said. “Participants have found such meetings held on the sidelines of the (dialogue) helpful.”
The U.S. Embassy in Singapore said it had no information on the meeting. The Chinese and Indian governments didn’t immediately reply to requests for comment.
America, Britain, Canada, Australia and Latest Zealand operate what is known as the Five Eyes network to assemble and share a broad range of intelligence, and their intelligence officials meet incessantly.
Larger meetings of the intelligence community are rarer, and almost never publicised.
Although few details were available on the particular discussions in Singapore, Russia’s war in Ukraine and transnational crime figured within the talks on Friday, the person with knowledge of the discussions added. On Thursday evening, the intelligence chiefs held a casual gathering.
No Russian representative was present, one among the sources said. Ukraine’s deputy defence minister, Volodymr V. Havrylov, was on the Shangri-La Dialogue but said he didn’t attend the intelligence meeting.
One other of the sources said the tone on the meeting was collaborative and cooperative, and never confrontational.
On the major security dialogue, greater than 600 delegates from 49 countries held three days of plenary sessions, in addition to closed-door bilateral and multilateral meetings on the sprawling Shangri-La Hotel.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese gave the keynote address while U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Chinese Defence Minister Li Shangfu and counterparts from Britain,
Japan, Canada, Indonesia and South Korea also spoke.
Haines was among the many official U.S. delegates to the Shangri-La Dialogue. At a discussion on cybersecurity within the major meeting, she said in response to an issue from a Chinese military officer that cooperation between countries was essential.
“It is completely critical, even when there may be distrust, and even if you find yourself facing in effect adversaries, that you just still attempt to work through and cooperate on problems with mutual interest and in addition try to administer the potential for escalation,” she said.
U.S. officials said on Friday that CIA Director William Burns visited China last month for talks with Chinese counterparts because the Biden administration seeks to spice up communications with Beijing.
