The Shangri-La Dialogue is typically attended by defense ministers of major Western powers and regional Asian powers, along with security and intelligence representatives from participating nations. However, the existence of a separate closed-door meeting of intelligence officials has never been reported before. On Saturday, the Reuters news agency cited discussions with “five sources”, who claimed that such a meeting occurred between June 2 and 4.

According to Reuters, the meeting was discreetly organized by the Singaporean government and held at a separate venue alongside the security summit. This type of meeting has reportedly been taking place annually for several years, but was previously undisclosed. The secret meeting is believed to have included representatives from approximately two dozen major intelligence agencies from countries such as the United States, China, and India. The United States intelligence community was represented by Avril Haines, the Director of National Intelligence, according to the news agency.

The Reuters report did not mention whether the Russian intelligence community participated in the event. When asked about the alleged secret meeting, a spokesperson from the Singapore Ministry of Defense said that participants at the Shangri-La Dialogue included “senior officials from intelligence agencies”, who “also take the opportunity to meet their counterparts”. The spokesperson added that the Singapore Ministry of Defense “may facilitate some of these bilateral or multilateral meetings”, because “participants have found such meetings held on the sidelines of the [main event] beneficial”.

The governments of the United States, China and India did not respond to requests for comment by Reuters.