SINGAPORE: US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth on Saturday reassured allies in the Indo-Pacific that they will not be left alone to face increasing military and economic pressures from China.He said Washington will bolster its defences 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 US 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.” China has a stated goal of having its military be able to take 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.But China has also developed sophisticated man-made islands in the South China Sea to support new military outposts and built up highly advanced hypersonic and space capabilities, which are driving the US to create its own space-based “Golden Dome” missile defences.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 repeated a pledge made by previous administrations to bolster US military capabilities in the region to provide a more robust deterrent.While both the Obama and Biden administrations had also committed to pivoting to the Pacific — and even established new military agreements throughout the region — a full shift has never been realised.Instead, US 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.The Indo-Pacific nations caught in between have tried to balance relations with both the US 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.“Beware the leverage the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) seeks with that entanglement,” Hegseth said.China usually sends its own defence minister to this conference — but in a snub this year to the US and the erratic tariff war Trump has ignited with Beijing, its minister Dong Jun did not attend, something the US delegation said it intended to capitalise on.“We are here this morning. And somebody else isn’t,” Hegseth said.He urged countries in the region to increase defence spending to levels similar to the 5 per cent of their gross domestic product European nations are now pressed to contribute.“We must all do our part,” Hegseth said.It’s not clear if the US can or wants to supplant China as the region’s primary economic driver. But Hegseth’s push follows Trump’s visit to the Middle East, which resulted in billions of dollars in new defence agreements.Hegseth said committing US support for Indo-Pacific nations would not be based on any conditions on local governments aligning their cultural or climate issues with the West.
