Overview

• At the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth warned that China’s military buildup posed an imminent threat to Taiwan’s security and urged Indo-Pacific partners to increase defence budgets.
• Beijing’s foreign ministry denounced Hegseth’s speech as ‘Cold War mentality,’ accusing Washington of provoking division and vilifying China with defamatory allegations.
• Rather than sending its defence minister, China dispatched a lower-ranked delegation led by a vice-president of the People’s Liberation Army National Defence University.
• Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles supported the assessment, calling China’s expansion the largest conventional buildup since World War II while Prime Minister Anthony Albanese pledged an additional A$10 billion for defence.
• ASEAN defence chiefs, including the Philippines’ Gilberto Teodoro, asserted that smaller states will not be mere pawns in great-power rivalry and emphasized the importance of maintaining strategic agency.