US defense secretary warns Indo-Pacific allies of ‘imminent’ threat from China

SINGAPORE AP U S Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reassured allies in the Indo-Pacific on Saturday that they will not be left alone to face increasing military and economic pressure from China while insisting that they also contribute more to their own defense He commented Washington will bolster its defenses overseas to counter what the Pentagon sees as rapidly progressing threats by Beijing particularly in its aggressive stance toward Taiwan China has conducted numerous exercises to test what a blockade would look like of the self-governing island which Beijing asserts as its own and the U S has pledged to defend China s army is rehearsing for the real deal Hegseth disclosed in a keynote speech at a safety conference in Singapore We are not going to sugarcoat it the threat China poses is real And it could be imminent The head of China s delegation accused Hegseth of making groundless accusations Certain of the alleges are thoroughly fabricated specific distort facts and particular are cases of a thief crying stop thief commented Rear Adm Hu Gangfeng vice president of China s National Defense University He did not offer specific objections These actions are nothing more than attempts to provoke trouble incite division and stir up confrontation to destabilize the Asia-Pacific region he stated Hegseth says China is training to invade Taiwan China has a stated goal of ensuring its military is capable of taking Taiwan by force if necessary by a deadline that is seen by experts as more of an aspirational goal than a hard war deadline China also has built sophisticated artificial islands in the South China Sea to patronage new military outposts and developed highly advanced hypersonic and space capabilities which are driving the United States to create its own space-based Golden Dome missile defenses Speaking at the Shangri-La Dialogue a global defense conference hosted by the International Institute for Measure Studies Hegseth declared China is no longer just building up its military forces to take Taiwan it s actively training for it every day Hegseth also called out China for its ambitions in Latin America particularly its efforts to increase its influence over the Panama Canal He urged Indo-Pacific countries to increase defense spending to levels similar to the of their gross domestic product European nations are now pressed to contribute We must all do our part Hegseth declared Following the speech the European Union s top diplomat Kaja Kallas pushed back at Hegseth s comment that European countries should focus their defense efforts in their own region and leave the Indo-Pacific more to the U S She commented that with North Korean troops fighting for Russia and China supporting Moscow European and Asian defense were very much interlinked Questions about US commitment to Indo-Pacific Hegseth also repeated a pledge made by previous administrations to bolster the U S military in the Indo-Pacific to provide a more robust deterrent While both the Obama and Biden administrations had also committed to pivoting to the Pacific and established new military agreements throughout the region a full shift has never been realized Instead U S military support from the Indo-Pacific have been regularly pulled to encouragement military necessities in the Middle East and Europe especially since the wars in Ukraine and Gaza In the first sparse months of President Donald Trump s second term that s also been the affair In the last limited months the Trump administration has taken a Patriot missile defense battalion out of the Indo-Pacific in order to send it to the Middle East a massive logistical operation that required military cargo aircraft flights and sent Coast Guard ships back to the U S to help defend the U S -Mexico frontier Hegseth was questioned why the U S pulled those tools if the Indo-Pacific is the priority theater He did not directly answer but revealed the shift of materials was necessary to defend against Houthi missile attacks launched from Yemen and to bolster protections against illegal immigration into the U S At the same time he stressed the need for American allies and partners to step up their own defense spending and preparations saying the U S was not interested in going it alone Ultimately a strong resolute and capable infrastructure of allies and partners is our key strategic advantage he explained China envies what we have together and it sees what we can collectively bring to bear on defense but it s up to all of us to ensure that we live up to that anticipated by investing The Indo-Pacific nations caught in between have tried to balance relations with both the U S and China over the years Beijing is the primary trading partner for several but is also feared as a regional bully in part due to its increasingly aggressive contends on natural materials such as critical fisheries Hegseth cautioned that playing both sides seeking U S military sponsorship and Chinese economic aid carries peril Economic dependence on China only deepens their malign influence and complicates our defense decision space during times of tension Hegseth declared Requested how he would reconcile that declaration with Trump s threat of steep tariffs on bulk in the region Hegseth he was in the business of tanks not commerce But Illinois Democrat Sen Tammy Duckworth who is part of a congressional delegation attending Shangri-La objected to pressuring regional allies The United States is not asking people to choose between us and the PRC Duckworth mentioned in reference to the People s Republic of China Australia s Defense Minister Richard Marles welcomed Hegseth s assurance that the Indo-Pacific was an American strategic priority and agreed that Australia and other nations needed to do their part Reality is that there is no effective balance of power in this region absent the United States but we cannot leave it to the United States alone he mentioned Still Marles suggested the Trump administration s aggressive contract policies were counterproductive The shock and disruption from the high tariffs has been costly and destabilizing China sends lower-level delegation China usually sends its own defense minister to the conference but Dong Jun did not attend this year in a snub to the U S over Trump s erratic tariffs war His absence was something the U S delegation mentioned it intended to capitalize on We are here this morning And somebody else isn t Hegseth announced Demanded by a member of the Chinese delegation how committed the U S would remain if Asian alliances like ASEAN had differences with Washington Hegseth disclosed the U S would not be constrained by the confines of how previous administrations looked at this region We re opening our arms to countries across the spectrum traditional allies non-traditional allies he disclosed He commented U S backing would not require local governments to align with the West on cultural or setting issues