BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese Defence Minister Dong Jun urged nations on Wednesday to avoid provocative acts and curb the resurgence of regressive historical trends in remarks likely to be taken as veiled criticism of Japan.
Dong's comments at the Beijing Xiangshan Forum on security come at a time of roiling regional tension over China-claimed Taiwan and the disputed South China Sea waterway, as doubt grows over traditional U.S. security commitments to Asia.
Warning that the world had arrived at a "fragile moment", Dong called for a fresher, more equal approach to resolving international tension, but offered few specifics or direct criticism of rivals.
"We must bear in mind the lessons of history and remain highly vigilant against all latent manifestations of hegemony, militarism and historical revisionism," he said in an opening speech.
"We must not turn a blind eye or condone such behaviour. By rallying broad-based forces of justice, we must suppress the resurgence of historical dregs and prevent them from exploiting the situation to cause harm."
Ties between China and Japan plummeted last year after Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi suggested a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a Japanese military response.
That spurred Beijing to repeatedly warn that Japan was seeking a return to its militarist past, which included the Japanese occupation of northeast China's Manchuria in 1931 before a full war between the then-Republic of China and Japan.
Some 2,000 military officers, diplomats and academics from 100 countries are attending the three-day event set to run until Thursday, with delegates including some regional defence ministers, a senior Pentagon official, Russian academics and Taliban representatives.
NO DIRECT CRITICISM OF U.S. OR REGIONAL ALLIES
As some analysts predicted, Dong steered clear of direct criticism of the United States or its regional allies, such as Japan, and appeared to hew closely to long-held Chinese positions.
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Dong urged efforts towards a peaceful, multipolar world marked by "partnership rather than alliance, win-win rather than zero sum".
"We must show no leniency towards provocative acts that seek to hijack the overall interests of countries in the region for the sake of personal gain or the interests of particular cliques, and we must work together to rein them in," he added.
The comments come a week before Chinese President XiJinping is expected to visit the United States for a summit with President Donald Trump.
China views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory and has ramped up military pressure around the island, including periodically staging war games. Taiwan's government rejects Beijing's claims of sovereignty.
A tightly scripted rival to the more prominent Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, which is widely seen as a more freewheeling affair, the forum comes at a time of China's expansion of military diplomacy. This often takes the form of bilateral exercises that military attaches say are slowly growing in complexity.
One of the sharper exchanges took place when a Saudi Arabian think-tank researcher, Prince Turki Al-Faisal, shared a panel with a senior Iranian military officer, Mohammad Taghi Osanlou.
Osaulou said the U.S. was attempting to maintain its "unipolar hegmonic system" against the tide of history, and external forces were tearing apart Middle Eastern unity.
While also criticising the U.S. and Germany, Al-Faisal said Saudi Arabia's immediate concern was Iran's inability to respect the sovereignty of the Arab states "culminating in its aggressive and unlawful attacks on their territories and assets in the recent war."