Hegseth wins praise but Asia still has strong doubts about Trump

The Star

2 days ago

SINGAPORE (Bloomberg): After US military allies in Europe were torched by Vice President JD Vance in March over military spending, free speech and the war in Ukraine, America's partners in Asia warily awaited Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth's arrival at a security conference in Singapore.
Turns out there was little reason to worry, apart from the perpetual anxiety over President Donald Trump's social media feed.
While Hegseth delivered Trump's demands for higher security spending on par with Europe, he couched it as necessary to prepare for a potentially "imminent' Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
The US wouldn't be pushed out the region, he said, nor let allies and partners "be subordinated and intimidated' - a commitment lauded by many in attendance.
But in the hallways of the Shangri-La Hotel, Hegseth couldn't dispel concerns about the erratic policymaking of his boss. Many of the generals, defense ministers and intelligence officers from Asia and Europe - who are key to helping the US counter China - were still reeling from the shock of Trump's sectoral levies and "reciprocal' tariffs.
Hegseth "offered a needed level of reassurance to allies and partners that the United States will remain present in the Indo-Pacific and committed to countering China's coercive threats,' said Rory Medcalf, head of the National Security College at the Australian National University. "But this message will remain discounted by the dysfunction we are seeing in Washington.'
On his second trip to Asia since March, the Pentagon chief displayed some diplomatic nuance that surprised some officials who expected more grandstanding from the former television personality. Hegseth was also able to capitalize on a huge absence at the annual gathering: China didn't send a defense minister for the first time since 2019, putting Beijing's lower-level officials on the back foot.
That void gave US officials space to set the tone and work the room, vowing greater cooperation with countries like Cambodia, Thailand and Indonesia. And it gave America's traditional partners even more room to criticize Beijing, despite their dependence on trade with China.
Yet even if Hegseth was more reassuring than Vance, it still wasn't enough to overcome the uncertainty created by Trump's trade policies. That's particularly the case in Southeast Asia, which was among the hardest hit by Trump's tariffs in April.
"Trade is not a soft power indulgence - it is part of our strategic architecture,' Malaysia Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said, referring to Southeast Asia. "It must be protected, not from competition but from the onslaught of arbitrary imposition of trade restrictions.'
Trump's barrage of tariffs and general volatility - he announced a doubling of steel and aluminum tariffs over the weekend - was the subject of much of the chatter on the sidelines of the annual conference, according to several officials who asked not to be identified, citing private discussions.
The officials said they were unsure whether the US president would stand by their side in a moment of need and that any deal reached with him could unravel moments later in a social media post.
That uncertainty appeared to be pushing Indo-Pacific nations and Europe toward each other in a stronger sense of shared security and free-trade opportunities based on longstanding global rules. It also sparked pushback against what several nations saw as efforts to establish "spheres of influence' where the US or China can dominate.
"Our shared responsibility is to ensure with others that our countries are not collateral victims of the imbalances linked to the choices made by the superpowers,' French President Emmanuel Macron said at the conference's opening on Friday.
Macron's words about "strategic autonomy' and his call for Europe and Asia to join forces to "de-risk' supply chains struck a chord with many attendees. Several countries in the region are already having similar debates in their own capitals, some of the officials said.
Many governments in the region rely on China economically and on the US for security, and are keen to not antagonize either. However, there's also a desire to be more autonomous and less dependent on either of the world's two-biggest economies, opening up new space for middle powers in Europe and Asia to join hands.
Kaja Kallas, the European Union's top diplomat, made that pitch to Asian nations throughout the weekend.
"If you reject unilateralism, bullying and aggression, and instead choose cooperation, shared prosperity and common security, the European Union will always be by your side,' she said.
Amid the US-China turbulence, smaller nations sought to build ties. Japan's defense minister, Gen Nakatani, touted efforts to build closer relations with India and the Philippines. Lithuanian Defense Minister Dovile Sakaliene said on Sunday that her country was working with partners in the region to counter Russian and Chinese cyber threats, as well as Beijing's dominance of drone manufacturing and ship building.
Even one of America's closest partners in the region, Australia, signaled some independence from its ally.
Hegseth's outreach to the region "is deeply welcome,' Australia's Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles said. But he quickly added that "liberal trade has been the lifeblood of the Asian region, and the shock and disruption to trade from high tariffs has been costly and destabilizing.'
During his remarks, Hegseth was pressed on the trade concerns and whether there was a contradiction in the Trump administration's message. He sidestepped the question with a smile, saying he was "in the business of tanks, not trade.'
Last year, China's delegation surprised observers by repeatedly calling unscheduled press briefings. This year they surprised delegates by barely appearing at all. When they did engage, China's representatives pushed back at Hegseth's accusation that Beijing was destabilizing Asia and sparred with other speakers more broadly.
The Pentagon chief aimed to "provoke, divide, instigate confrontations, stir up the region,' said Rear Admiral Hu Gangfeng, vice president of China's National Defense University. Another official, Senior Colonel Lu Yin, decried the atmosphere at the forum, saying that "labeling China, blaming China, verbally attacking China are politically right here.'
In one of the sharpest exchanges of the weekend, Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro had a testy exchange with two senior colonels in the People's Liberation Army, receiving applause after he thanked them for "propaganda spiels disguised as questions.' Referring to China, Teodoro said he couldn't trust a country that "represses its own people.'
Yet although China's presence was diminished, most countries still wanted to balance ties between Beijing and Washington.
"If we have to choose sides, may we choose the side of principles,' Singapore Defense Minister Chan Chun Sing said on Sunday at the final panel of the weekend. "Principles that uphold a global order, where we do not descend into the law of the jungle, where the mighty do what they wish and the weak suffer what they must.'
--With assistance from Alastair Gale, Courtney McBride and Alfred Cang.
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