Hegseth warns Indo-Pacific allies of ‘imminent’ threat from China

SINGAPORE — 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.”

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“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.

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 fighting for Russia and China supporting Moscow, European and Asian security were “very much interlinked.”

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.

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.

Copp and Rising write for the Associated Press.