US defense secretary warns Indo-Pacific allies of 'imminent' threat from
China
[May 31, 2025]
By TARA COPP and DAVID RISING
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 said Washington will bolster its defenses overseas to counter what
the Pentagon sees as rapidly developing 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 claims as its own and the U.S. has pledged to
defend.
China's army “is rehearsing for the real deal,” Hegseth said in a
keynote speech at a security 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.”
“Some of the claims are completely fabricated, some distort facts and
some are cases of a thief crying ‘stop thief,” said 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 said.
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 2027, 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 support 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 security conference hosted
by the International Institute for Security Studies, Hegseth said 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 5% of their gross domestic product European nations are
now pressed to contribute.
“We must all do our part,” Hegseth said.
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 said that with North Korean troops fightingforn
Russia and China supporting Moscow, European and Asian security were
“very much interlinked."
Questions about US commitment to Indo-Pacific
He 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 resources from the Indo-Pacific have been
regularly pulled to support military needs in the Middle East and
Europe, especially since the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. In the first few
months of President Donald Trump’s second term, that’s also been the
case.
In the last few 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 73
military cargo aircraft flights, and sent Coast Guard ships back to the
U.S. to help defend the U.S.-Mexico border.
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U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth delivers his speech during 22nd
Shangri-La Dialogue summit in Singapore,Saturday, May 31, 2025. (AP
Photo/Anupam Nath)
Hegseth was asked why the U.S. pulled those resources if the
Indo-Pacific is the priority theater. He did not directly answer but
said the shift of resources 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 network of allies and
partners is our key strategic advantage,” he said. “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 potential 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 many, but is also feared as a
regional bully, in part due to its increasingly aggressive claims on
natural resources such as critical fisheries.
Hegseth cautioned that playing both sides, seeking U.S. military
support and Chinese economic support, carries risk.
“Economic dependence on China only deepens their malign influence
and complicates our defense decision space during times of tension,”
Hegseth said.
Asked how he would reconcile that statement with Trump’s threat of
steep tariffs on most in the region, Hegseth he was “in the business
of tanks, not trade.”
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 said, 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 said.
Still, Marles suggested the Trump administration’s aggressive trade
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
said it intended to capitalize on.
“We are here this morning. And somebody else isn’t,” Hegseth said.
Asked by a member of the Chinese delegation how committed the U.S.
would remain if Asian alliances like ASEAN had differences with
Washington, Hegseth said 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 said.
He said U.S. support would not require local governments to align
with the West on cultural or climate issues.
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