Hegseth tones down warnings on China but says US remains committed to Pacific security

SINGAPORE — U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth assured Pacific allies on Saturday that Washington remains engaged in the region, but toned down previous comments calling China a threat.

Speaking to a group of world leaders, diplomats and senior security officials at the Shangri-La defense conference in Singapore, Hegseth said the region “has profound implications for the security and prosperity of the United States” and that Washington’s priority was to “achieve a sustainable and favorable balance of power in the Pacific.”

This was the second time he addressed the forum organized by the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Last year he angered Beijing warning of rapidly evolving threats from China, particularly its aggressive stance toward Taiwan. He said China was no longer just strengthen its military forces To take Taiwan, it’s about “actively training for it, every day.”

This year, however, the meeting comes only about two weeks after U.S. President Donald Trump visited Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing, after which Trump called Xi a “great leader” and said they were going to have a “fantastic future together.”

Hegseth, who was with Trump in Beijing, said the two leaders agreed that China and the United States should “build a constructive relationship of strategic stability, based on fairness and reciprocity, reaffirming that while our nations will vigorously protect each other’s interests, we can reach practical and mutually beneficial agreements where our interests align.”

However, he said ensuring that China is not allowed to dominate the Indo-Pacific remains a US priority.

“There is legitimate concern about China’s historic military buildup and expansion of its military activities in the region and beyond,” he said.

“We share a clear-eyed assessment of this security environment and a mutual understanding that a Pacific dominated by any hegemon would disrupt the regional balance of power and undermine the balance we all seek to preserve.”

Later in the day, Chinese Major General Meng Xiangqing welcomed Hegseth’s remarks about the meeting between Xi and Trump, saying the consensus reached by the leaders “should provide strategic direction for China-US relations over the next three years and beyond.”

“In his meeting with President Trump, President Xi Jinping made it clear that such constructive strategic stability should be a positive form of stability centered on cooperation, a form of healthy stability in which competition remains within reasonable limits, a state of normal stability in which differences are managed and contained, and a form of lasting stability that offers prospects for peace,” he said.

U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth, who was part of a congressional delegation to the conference, accused the Trump administration of “coziing up” to China.

“I worry that this administration is getting distracted by wars that it has started in other parts of the world to the detriment of our engagement here in the Indo-Pacific,” the Illinois Democrat told reporters on the sidelines.

“I’m concerned that it seems like our president is, you know, engaging in policies where he does what Beijing wants him to do,” she added.

After the meetings between Xi and Trump, the American president raised questions about Washington’s will to defend Taiwan, calling a new $14 billion arms package he has yet to greenlight a “very good bargaining chip for us” with China.

China claims this democratic and autonomous island as its own, and Xi does not rule out using force to seize it. The United States is required by law to help provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself, but it follows a policy of “strategic ambiguity” over whether it would intervene militarily if China were to attack the island.

Hegseth told the forum there was “no change in our status” with respect to Taiwan, but he would not comment on the arms deal.

“Any decision regarding future arms sales to Taiwan, as the president has said, will be up to him,” he said.

He highlighted the Trump administration’s insistence that allies increase defense spending, saying “we need partners, not protectorates.”

He praised several Asian countries for their efforts, while reiterating his criticism of European allies, without naming names, who he said have been “distracted by meaningless globalist rhetoric about the rules-based international order.”

“Our partners in Asia have long understood that the foundation of a lasting partnership is not based on idealistic values ​​but on the concrete alignment of national interests,” he said.

“When our interests diverge, we adjust pragmatically, without drama or moralizing,” he added. “I think Western Europe could take note – it’s a mindset we fully embrace. »

Hegseth did not mention either the war in Ukraine or the war in Iran in his speech. Asked about Iran, he only responded that Trump had assured him that once negotiations with Tehran were completed, “any deal would be a good deal.”

Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles, whose country is among those Hegseth has praised for increasing its military spending, said that while the rules-based international order is not perfect, the “task before all of us, including the great powers, is the renovation of that order, not its dismemberment.”

“When the rules apply, small states have some capacity to act,” Marles said in a speech that followed Hegseth’s. “When rules give way to power, sovereignty becomes, as others have said, a matter of the powerful, and no state in this room today, regardless of its size, is well served by that outcome. »

At an event outside the conference, Hegseth, Marles and British Defense Secretary John Healey announced a new initiative under their AUKUS partnership, the main focus of which has been the development and construction of nuclear-powered submarines.

As part of the second pillar of AUKUS, the three said they would invest together in developing improved capabilities for underwater drones.

“Together we are producing a range of cutting-edge sensors or weapon systems for underwater drones,” Healey said, adding that this will help detect threats, including against underwater cables and pipelines.

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