China’s defense minister heads to ASEAN forum

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Chinese Defense Minister Chang Wanquan headed to the Philippines on Monday for an Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) security meeting.

The two-day ASEAN Defence Ministers' Meeting-Plus (ADMM-Plus) will open on Monday in Clark, Pampanga, two hours north of Manila, and will bring together the defense chiefs of eight dialogue partners.

The partner nations include China, Japan, South Korea, Russia, the US, Australia, India and New Zealand.

The Korean Peninsula issue is likely to dominate the agenda of the ADMM-Plus. S. Korean defense chief Song Young-moo said he will hold trilateral talks with his American and Japanese counterparts, James Mattis and Itsunori Onodera.

CGTN Photo‍

The defense ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on Monday started their high-level security dialogue to discuss security issues facing the region including counter terrorism, drug trafficking and maritime conflicts.

Earlier Monday morning, ASEAN defense ministers held a breakfast meeting before the formal opening of the ADMM and discussed the threat of violent extremism in the region, the spokesman of the Philippines’ defense ministry, Arsenio Andolong, said.

The ADMM is the highest defense consultative and cooperative mechanism in the ASEAN.

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