Re-arm, reassure and spend big: how the Asia Pacific is responding to a new era under Trump

The Guardian

16-04-2025

Donald Trump's return to the White House has stoked fears over Washington's commitment to the security of its allies in the Asia Pacific at a time when tensions are running high in the region, home to several potential flashpoints.
Countries across the region are urgently considering their options in a new era where the US president has sided with Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, suggested 'cleaning out' Gaza in order to redevelop it, and unleashed punishing tariffs on allies and enemies alike.
Strategies range from seeking new security reassurances from the US to bolstering defence spending, and lifting the long taboo on the possible development of their own nuclear deterrents.
Most concern is focused on the Taiwan Strait, with its commercially and strategically vital shipping lanes, where China has been flexing its muscles in an attempt to intimidate the self-governed island.
Beijing is also embroiled in territorial disputes with south-east Asian nations and Japan, while North Korea continues to develop nuclear bombs and more sophisticated weaponry, emboldened by its alliance with Russia.
The government last month boasted of 'the most significant increase in defence spending in peacetime Australia since the end of the second world war', but there is no plan to approach the figure demanded by Trump of Nato allies – 5% – nor even his assumed compromise figure of 3.5%.
Australian defence spending was A$53.3bn (US$32.1bn) in 2023–24, 2% of the country's GDP. The Treasury forecasts it will reach 2.4% of GDP by 2027–28.
For Australia, 3.5% of GDP would be more than A$90bn ($54.3), about 75% more than the actual defence budget.
Much of Australia's focus is on long-range deterrence, particularly submarines and missile defences.
Since 1951, Australia and the US have been enjoined by the Anzus treaty (along with New Zealand), an agreement often discussed in terms akin to the Nato alliance – but which is, in reality, much weaker.
There is no equivalent to Nato's Article V in the Anzus agreement – it commits parties only to 'consult together' whenever the security of one is 'threatened in the Pacific'.
Increased co-operation – and 'interoperability' – between the US and Australian militaries is a common refrain from ministers on both sides of the alliance. Its most significant manifestation is the Aukus agreement (forecast to cost Australia up to A$368bn ($221.9) by the mid-2050s), under which the US is proposing to sell between three and five nuclear powered submarines to Australia early next decade, before a specifically built Aukus submarine will be in the water by the early 2040s.
Australia has long been regarded as an unswerving US ally, 'with us even in our less-advisable wars', as senior Pentagon nominee Elbridge Colby told the Senate in March. But Australia has flagged one potential point of departure: while not ruling out involvement, deputy prime minister Richard Marles has said Australia has 'absolutely not' given the US any guarantees of assistance in a war between America and China over the status of Taiwan.
The chaos of Trump is either a dangerous precipice or a golden opportunity for China. It could well be both.
The US's decision to impose tariffs on China's neighbours makes it harder for Chinese companies to circumvent the duties by offshoring their supply chains. But it also could have the unintended effect of undermining the US's attempts to galvanise the region to unite against China's military buildup.
In March, US defence secretary Pete Hegseth conducted a multi-stop tour across Asia, promising to shift US focus to the Indo-Pacific in 'in the face of Communist China's aggression in the region'. Hegseth made his comments in the Philippines, a key US security ally. He also described Japan as a 'warrior country' that is 'indispensable' to tackling China. But shortly after his trip, the US announced tariffs of 17% on imports from the Philippines and 24% on Japan.
China reacted angrily to Hegseth's comments on Japan, accusing the US of 'instigating ideological antagonism'.
But rhetoric aside, China is using the retreat of the US as a stable economic partner as an opportunity to bolster its relations with its neighbours. It has eased trade restrictions on Japan and sought agreements with India over the disputed border territory of Ladakh.
This diplomatic push will make it harder for the US to lean on allies in Asia to unite against China. In the meantime, China's rapid military buildup continues apace. This year it will increase defence spending by 7.2%, continuing its trend of increasing defence spending faster than GDP growth, which last year was 5%. The US defence department estimates that China's true military spending is 40-90% more than its public budget.
The rising threat posed by China is felt more deeply in Taiwan than anywhere else. Xi's overhaul and revamp of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) is primarily geared towards being able to annex Taiwan by force if Beijing can't bully it into accepting Chinese rule. Resources and leadership have shifted eastward, favouring the navy, and joint operations now include the increasingly militarised Coast Guard, and China's paramilitary fleet of maritime militia fishing boats.
Taiwan, which can't hope to match the PLA militarily, has been preparing. But it has also had to respond to Trump's second term, which has demonstrated something of a souring on Taiwan: the US is Taiwan's most significant security partner, bound by law to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself.
But during his campaign and since taking office, Trump has questioned the worth of US support for Taiwan, and suggested it pay for protection. His administration has also called for major increases in Taiwan's defence spending from the current rate of below 3% to as much as 10% of GDP. Taiwan's government says that's impossible, and would involve spending almost as much as the central government's entire annual operating budget of NT$3tn ($92bn).
Instead, Taiwan's president, Lai Ching-te, has pledged an increase in overall defence spending to more than 3% of GDP – as long as it can get past a highly obstructionist, opposition-controlled legislature. He has also noted that Taiwan's GDP has grown in the past eight years, so while the percentage remained low, in real terms Taiwan's national defence budget increased by 80%.
Taiwan buys billions of dollars in weapons from the US. Among its efforts to appease Trump's trade imbalance rhetoric, Taiwan has pledged to buy more.
President Lai has ramped up security measures to counter China, and launched a major program to boost Taiwan's social and defensive resilience, bringing government and public sector groups together to boost protections of Taiwan's energy, communication and other critical infrastructure, and to better prepare its 24 million people for a crisis.
Under President Ferdinand Marcos Jr, the Philippines has taken a tougher stance against China, and moved closer to the US, with which it has a mutual defence treaty. The US has been granted expanded access to Philippine military bases, and the two countries have also agreed to increase the sharing of intelligence and technology to allow the sale of weaponry by the US to the Philippines.
Washington itself has highlighted the mutual defence treaty with Manila. Last month, Hegseth met Marcos in Manila, and stated the two countries must stand 'shoulder to shoulder' in the face of the threat represented by China.
The Philippines is modernising its armed forces – earmarking $35bn this year alone – and strengthening partnerships with allies as it struggles against Chinese assertiveness in the region, particularly in the disputed South China Sea.
Later this month the US and Philippines will conduct annual military drills known as the Balikatan exercise. Troops from Australia – as well as observers from Japan and, for the first time, Poland and the Czech Republic – will also participate.
Vietnam, like many countries in south-east Asia, has always tried to avoid taking sides in the rivalry between the US and China. As tensions have soared under the new Trump administration, which recently announced a punishing 46% tariff on Vietnam, this balancing act has become especially challenging.
When China's president, Xi Jinping, visited Hanoi shortly after the tariff announcement, Trump suggested the two sides were discussing how to 'screw' the US. His comments underline the juggling act that Hanoi is trying to maintain.
Vietnam is seeking to appease Washington to reduce its tariff. It is reportedly preparing to crack down on Chinese goods shipped from its territory and tighten controls on sensitive exports to China. It is also promising to buy more US goods, including in defence and security products.
Vietnam counts both the US and China as important economic partners. Washington is also a helpful counterbalance to Beijing's assertiveness in the South China Sea, where China's claims overlap with those of Vietnam.
Last year was a record year for island building by Vietnam in the South China Sea. In February, China's foreign ministry criticised construction work by Vietnam to build an airstrip on the Barque Canada Reef, in the Spratly chain. Beijing claims the islands are 'illegally occupied' by Vietnam.
As it completes such landfill activities, the defence capabilities it plans to build on the reclaimed land will become clear – and likely antagonise China.
Vietnam is also seeking to strengthen its military capacity, including by developing its own defence industry.
Trump's language on his return to the White House triggered a sense of déjà vu in Japan and South Korea, the US's two main allies in north-east Asia. Echoing his criticisms during his first term, Trump recently complained that the US-Japan security treaty was 'so one-sided' – a reference, in Trump's view, to the cost borne by Washington of stationing about 50,000 troops in Japan.
Japan contributes $2bn towards the cost of hosting US troops, who under the treaty's terms are committed to come to Japan's defence if it is attacked.
Under hawkish prime minister – and Trump ally – Shinzo Abe, Japan began beefing up its defence posture in 2022, including promises to buy more weapons from the US. Subsequent prime ministers have followed suit, vowing to double defence spending by 2027 so that it accounts for 2% of GDP.
Defence spending by Japan is expected to reach ¥9.9tn ($70bn) in the year to March 2026, according to the defence ministry, equivalent to 1.8% of gross domestic product.
The defence minister, Gen Nakatani, recently referenced growing pressure from Washington to shoulder more of the cost of their defence and hosting US troops. The latest spending projection 'show that our efforts to strengthen our defence capabilities are steadily progressing', he said. But Tokyo's arms build-up may still not be enough. Elbridge Colby, Trump's Pentagon policy chief, recently demanded that Japan raise military spending to 3% of GDP.
Higher spending has been matched by stronger capabilities, including plans to deploy long-range missiles capable of striking China and North Korea, and the adoption of a position that would allow Japan to strike enemy bases first if it believed an attack was imminent – a posture critics say violates the country's purely defensive 'pacifist' constitution.
The domestic political turmoil of the past five months has caused alarm in the US and Japan over South Korea's commitments to regional security. The impeachment of Yoon Suk Yeol means the country will elect a new leader on 10 June, with polls suggesting that Lee Jae-myung, a liberal, is favourite to replace Yoon, a pro-US conservative.
While it attempts to overcome the trauma of Yoon's impeachment trial, there is little indication of how far a new president would go in resisting Washington's demands to spend more on its defence and the deployment of about 28,000 troops.
The US military presence in the South has long been vital to Seoul's ability to deter a potential attack by nuclear-armed North Korea.
Tensions between the two Koreas grew under Yoon. . As Trump focuses on the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, there is concern that the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, could feel empowered to behave more provocatively.
Some lawmakers were disturbed by Trump's dismissive treatment of the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in the Oval Office in February. That has sown seeds of doubt in Seoul about the strength of Washington's commitment to South Korea's security – a bedrock of bilateral ties since the end of the 1950-53 Korean war.
While the North continues to develop weapons of mass destruction, its neighbour is also broaching the sensitive subject of having its own nuclear deterrent, independent of the US nuclear umbrella. Once the preserve of conservative hawks, now progressive commentators are calling on the South to have the capacity to turn fissile material into nuclear weapons.