US not ‘turning back’ on Asia allies, but expects them to boost defence – Hegseth

The US military is not “turning our backs” on Asia while fulfilling “global obligations” such as the Iran war, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has told a top regional defence forum in Singapore.

Hegseth sought to reassure Asia-Pacific allies about US commitment to the region, including fulfilling arms deals in the wake of a suspended Taiwan weapons package – even as he reiterated calls for Asian partners to spend more on defence.

While noting the threat of China’s military build-up in the region, Hegseth also said the US wanted to avoid “needless confrontation”.

Hegseth was speaking weeks after US President Donald Trump held positive talks with ​China’s President Xi Jinping in Beijing.

Hegseth was asked by Japan’s defence minister to address concerns about US commitment at the Shangri-La Dialogue on Saturday.

Shinjiro Koizumi said “some countries might underestimate” that level of commitment and may want to “drive a wedge” between the US and its allies.

Hegseth replied that part of the US national defence strategy was aimed at “power projection” in the Pacific and working with allies.

“People want to conflate that we have global obligations with the turning of our backs to this region,” he said, denying that was the case.

“We can do two things at one time,” he insisted, saying the US was “quietly but very strongly” working with allies with a “substantive, serious approach” to the Pacific, while maintaining “global obligations to ensure that, say, Iran doesn’t get a nuclear weapon”.

Separately, a dialogue participant raised the question of the US’s ability to fulfil arms deals with its partners after suspending a $14bn (£10bn) package to Taiwan in order to conserve munitions for the war in Iran.

Hegseth said he would “very much decouple the two” issues, insisting the US was in a “very good place… very strong position” in terms of its overall munitions stockpile and ability to produce more if needed.

In his speech, Hegseth emphasised the US’s “strong, quiet and clear” approach to the region – its capacity to wield a “big stick” but “speak softly”.

Central to this approach was more weapons, he insisted, instead of “empty globalist rhetoric about the rules-based international order”.

“Rules are great, but if you can’t back them up with hard power, the rules are not worth the paper they are written on,” he said. “We don’t need more conferences, we need more combat power… less Shangri-La Dialogue, more ships and more subs.”

His comments came hours after Vietnam’s President To Lam called for more dialogue to resolve tensions in the region, in the defence summit’s keynote speech.

Reiterating a demand he made in last year’s speech, Hegseth called on Asian allies to spend more on defence, setting 3.5% of their GDP as a target.

He praised countries who had increased military spending and co-operation with the US in recent months, namechecking allies such as South Korea, Japan, Australia and the Philippines, among others.

Hegseth also criticised “freeloaders”, categorising New Zealand as such in response to a later question, while warning that “Europe and Nato have some big decisions to make”.

In an interview with the BBC afterward, New Zealand’s defence minister said his country was “not a freeloader” and that it was increasing from a “historic under-investment” to up to 2% of their GDP.

Speaking weeks after the Xi-Trump summit, in which Xi had warned that Taiwan was the biggest issue between the two countries, Hegseth was notably softer in tone on China and did not mention Taiwan except in answer to a question.

It stood in contrast to his speech at last year’s conference, in which he accused Beijing of posing an “imminent threat” to Taiwan.

This year, Hegseth said that while there is “rightful alarm regarding China’s historic military buildup”, the US also understood that its allies in Asia “do not seek constant escalation” and instead wanted a balance of power “in which no state, including China, can impose its hegemony”.

The US wanted “a genuinely stable equilibrium” and wanted to “preserve the conditions that have long underwritten peace and prosperity in this region”, he added.

“We do not approach this challenge with needless confrontation but with the posture of measured and deliberate strength.”

The forum, organised by the International Institute for Strategic Studies think tank, has traditionally been anchored by the US and China. It is seen as a key mechanism for Asian countries to hold direct defence and security talks with the superpowers.

But this is the second year in a row that China has declined to send its defence minister, instead choosing to send a lower-level delegation.

Some have interpreted that as a snub of the forum, while others see it as China avoiding publicly pitting itself against the US, as the two rival powers jostle for influence in the region.

Muhammad Faizal Bin Abdul Rahman, an expert on regional security, told the BBC it would be “uncertain if [Hegseth’s] language of war will resonate well with Asian countries” that favour peace and neutrality.

Hegseth’s point that “the US must maintain military dominance in the region… suggests power must always be in US advantage”, said the research fellow with Singapore’s S Rajaratnam School of International Studies.

“This works in the past but not today when a rising power, China, is a near peer,” he also said, adding that the threat of US-China competition turning into confrontation would “sustain Asian countries’ worries”.