U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has urged Asian allies to increase military spending, warning of growing concern over China’s rapid military expansion and wider activities in the region.
Speaking at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore on Saturday, Hegseth said Washington wanted stronger and more self-reliant alliances to help deter aggression and maintain the balance of power in the Asia-Pacific.
“There is rightful alarm regarding China’s historic military buildup and the expansion of its military activities in the region and beyond,” he said.
Hegseth warned that no country, including China, should be allowed to dominate the Pacific or threaten the security and prosperity of the United States and its allies.
The Pentagon chief said the U.S. expects its Asian allies and partners to raise defence spending to 3.5% of GDP, while Washington plans to invest $1.5 trillion in its own military.
“Less Shangri-La, more ships, more subs,” he said, arguing that the region needed stronger defence capabilities rather than only security conferences.
Hegseth also repeated President Donald Trump’s call for allies to take on a greater share of their own defence costs.
“The era of the United States subsidising the defence of wealthy nations is over,” he said, adding that Washington needed “partners, not protectorates”.
Despite his warning over China, Hegseth said U.S.-China relations were better than they had been in many years, pointing to more frequent military-to-military communication.
China’s defence minister skipped the Shangri-La Dialogue for a second consecutive year, sending a lower-level delegation instead. Beijing accused Hegseth last year of making “vilifying” remarks about China.
On Taiwan, Hegseth said any decision on future U.S. arms sales would rest with Trump, but added that there had been no change in Washington’s position.
Taiwan has been waiting for the U.S. to approve a possible arms sale reportedly worth up to $14 billion.
Hegseth also said the United States was ready to resume strikes on Iran if diplomacy failed, while insisting that the Middle East conflict would not distract Washington from its Asia-Pacific priorities.
“We can do two things at one time,” he said.
U.S. Donald Trump has said he has cancelled planned strikes on Iranian oil and gas ports announced earlier on Thursday. Trump said he made the decisio...
Britain's Defence Minister, John Healey, and Armed Forces Minister, Al Carns, have resigned from UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government over a...
Spanish football club Real Madrid has appointed José Mourinho as its new manager. The 63-year-old nicknamed “the special one” returns to the hel...
Pakistan says it has killed 26 militants in strikes on terrorist hideouts along the Afghan border, marking the most significant escalation between the...
Canada’s Privacy Commissioner has found that xAI’s Grok chatbot and its parent company X Corp. violated federal privacy law by launching an AI ima...
When Donald Trump boarded Air Force One for Beijing on Tuesday, he brought two cabinet members whose presence in China would have seemed unlikely a year ago, highlighting an unusual moment in U.S.–China relations.
A federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday declined to block the Pentagon’s national security blacklisting of Anthropic for now, handing a win to the Trump administration after a separate appeals court reached the opposite conclusion.
International law experts from across the U.S., including Harvard, Yale and Stanford, have signed an open letter saying the strikes on Iran may amount to war crimes. America and Israel began airstrikes on 28 February on Iran's capital, Tehran.
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says the United States is making gains in its conflict with Iran after a key Iranian naval target was destroyed, confirming that the strike was carried out by a U.S. submarine off the coast of Sri Lanka. Rescue efforts are now under way for the ship’s crew.
Mexico and South Africa meet in Thursday’s World Cup opener in Mexico City, with both teams approaching the match from very different positions but facing their own pressures.
Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry says 19 citizens have been repatriated following a deadly drone attack on two cargo ships in the Sea of Azov on 5 June.
The Pakistani city of Karachi is struggling under severe heat and humidity as the country enters a prolonged heatwave period. The Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) has warned of above-normal temperatures across much of the country between 7 and 12 June.
Ukraine's military said it struck a Russian "shadow fleet" tanker in the Black Sea as part of ongoing efforts to disrupt Moscow's energy and logistics networks. The move underscores Kyiv's focus on targeting maritime assets it says are used to bypass sanctions on Russian oil exports.
U.S. forces say they have completed strikes on Iranian military sites near the Strait of Hormuz. Iran responded with missile attacks on an American base in Jordan, marking a sharp escalation in tensions between the two sides.
More than a third of Belgium’s population now has a foreign background, according to new figures released by the national statistics office, Statbel. The data show that around 4.34 million of the country’s nearly 11.7 million residents do not have an entirely Belgian background.
Fuel stations across the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula ran dry on Thursday as Ukraine stepped up attacks on supply routes to the region.
Britain's Defence Minister, John Healey, and Armed Forces Minister, Al Carns, have resigned from UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government over a disagreement about defence spending.
Spanish football club Real Madrid has appointed José Mourinho as its new manager. The 63-year-old nicknamed “the special one” returns to the helm of Spain’s most successful football club, more than a decade since his last stint as the team's manager.
Pakistan says it has killed 26 militants in strikes on terrorist hideouts along the Afghan border, marking the most significant escalation between the neighbouring countries since a China-brokered diplomatic effort helped ease tensions earlier this year.
You can download the AnewZ application from Play Store and the App Store.
What is your opinion on this topic?
Leave the first comment