The United States announcement on its plan to shift more navy warships to the Pacific region obviously made the headlines at an Asian security forum, but efforts by most countries in the region and beyond to communicate with one another prevailed.

The defense ministers, senior defense officials and military commanders as well as scholars from the Asia Pacific region and beyond delivered speeches and held discussions at the three-day Shangri-La Dialogue, which concluded in Singapore on Sunday.

They also had bilateral and multilateral meetings on the sidelines of the meeting in efforts to exchange their views and resolve their differences.

Not only the defense minister from the region are engaging one another, the ministers from countries beyond the Asia Pacific also said at the forum that they are linked to the region.

French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said that the Asia Pacific region is integral part of the safety environment for the French and European people.

"Anything that contributes to increasing safety in Asia-Pacific is beneficial to world stability, since this region carries weight in the world's business, and will carry even more weight in the future," he said.

U.S. TO SHIFT WARSHIPS TO PACIFIC

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said at the forum that the United States seeks to strengthen its strategic trust with China in handling the "very important relationship."

"Our aim is to continue to improve the strategic trust that we must have between our two countries, and to discuss common approaches to dealing with shared security challenges," he said.

He outlined U.S. plans to deploy 60 percent of its Navy ships in the Pacific by 2020, up from the current 50 percent.

"By 2020, the Navy will re-posture its forces from today's roughly 50-50 percent split between the Pacific and the Atlantic to about a 60-40 split between those oceans. That will include six aircraft carriers, a majority of our cruisers, destroyers, littoral combat ships, and submarines," he said.

He also said the number and sizes of U.S. military exercises in the Pacific will also increase. The United States will make efforts to strengthen its partnerships with its allies and partner countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam and New Zealand. Despite fiscal pressures, the world's only super power is designing a strategy to maintain the strongest military in the world, which will be smaller, leaner but agile and more advanced technologically, he said.

SINO-U.S. MIL-TO-MIL RELATIONSHIP

Panetta said that the increased U.S. involvement in the region is "fully compatible" with the development and growth of China and "will actually benefit China as it advances the shared security and prosperity of our two countries."

Panetta spoke rather candidly about the relationship between the militaries of the United States and China.

"We are not naive about this relationship, and neither is China. We both understand the differences we have. We both understand the conflicts we have. But we also both understand that there really is no other alternative for both of us but to engage and to improve our communications and to improve our military-to-military relationships," he said.

He also said he might visit China later in the summer, and he was hoping that the visit by some military commanders will improve the communication over what the United States is doing in the Pacific.

Lieutenant General Ren Haiquan, who headed the Chinese delegation to the forum, said what Panetta said shows that the United States is seeing its relationship with China as very important and is also making efforts to strengthen it.

Ren, who is also vice president of the Academy of Military Sciences of the People's Liberation Army, also had exchanges with participants from other countries at the forum.

"I think he was speaking candidly," he said, referring to what Panetta said at the forum. "The relationship between China and the United States is one of the most important relationship in the world now. Apart from defense and military, he also mentioned the cooperation in politics, diplomacy and economy. This is in line with their strategic interest. I think if they take a proper approach in line with their interests, it is likely that the world situation will move towards the better."

China should not consider the U.S. plans to put more warships in the Pacific as anything disastrous, but an adjustment to its strategy in line with its national interest, fiscal conditions and the international situation, he said.

Neither will China ignore the move, Ren said. "We have never sought hegemony. We are not seeking it now. Neither will we seek it in future. But we should have the means and the capabilities to defend our fundamental national interests when they are under threat," he said.

EMERGING SECURITY CHALLENGES

The efforts to promote cooperation in addressing security challenges, especially the emerging challenges such as those in maritime security and the cyber space, outshined discussions on other topics including the South China Sea disputes.

Singapore's Defense Minister Ng Eng Hen said this calls for new approaches to global governance.

"Our common security challenges are often transnational and as we have witnessed can overwhelm resources episodically," he said at the multilateral security forum organized by the London-based think tank International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).

"No single country has the resources or ability to provide lasting solutions," he said. "This generation is witnessing significant change in the global order and the new security challenges that come with it."

Many of the defense ministers, including Malaysian Defense Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, highlighted the emerging security challenges in cyber space, while others talked about the asymmetric threats posed by criminal networks, pirates and terrorist organizations.

"While regional and inter-state rivalries persist in many places around the world, the most pervasive and worrying threats now come from non-state entities and non-traditional security challenges," said Peter Gordon MacKay, Canadian Minister of National Defense.

The coordinated international response to the 2004 Asian tsunami, the 2010 Haitian earthquake, and the more recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan, are all good examples, he said.

"I think the dominant theme at the Shangri-La Dialogue is dialogue and cooperation for Asia Pacific security," Ren said.