US-China rivalry the biggest threat to global security, Macron warns
French President Emmanuel Macron has warned the intensifying rivalry between the United States and China poses the greatest threat to global security, as he urged Europe and Asia to forge stronger ties to reject bullying, uphold trade norms, and protect countries' sovereignty.
In a frank speech before an audience of top defence officials from across the Indo-Pacific region, including US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, Macron said the two superpowers were charting a dangerous course to split global alliances into two competing camps.
'The instruction given to all the others [is] you have to choose your side. If we do so, we will kill the global order, and we will destroy methodically, all the institutions we created after the Second World War in order to preserve peace,' said Macron said in a speech to the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, Asia's leading security conference.
His rallying call for Europe and Asia to build new coalitions to ensure they were not 'collateral victims' to the 'choices made by the superpowers' is an appeal that will resonate across the Indo-Pacific region, which feels increasingly wedged between China and America.
Macron's keynote speech kicks off two days of security talks and bilateral meetings between countries, against the backdrop of uncertainty about the US's commitment to the region as China steps up its presence, while the Trump administration's trade war upends supply chains and shakes alliances.
Hegseth will address the conference on Saturday outlining America's 'new ambitions for Indo-Pacific security'. It will be keenly watched by the region's political leaders in light of the US's threat to impose steep tariffs on many Asia countries and the dismantling of US foreign aid programs that experts have warned will create a soft-power vacuum for China to fill.
In a thinly veiled swipe at the Trump administration's weakened interest in defending Ukraine, Macron denounced the view that the war was a solely European conflict, and one that was sapping resources from other arenas, saying Ukraine's fall to Russia would undermine US attempts to deter China from seizing Taiwan.
'Allow me to say this is a total mistake,' Macron said. 'Because if we consider that Russia could be allowed to take a part of the territory of Ukraine without any restriction, without any constraint, without any reaction of the global order...what could happen in Taiwan? What will you do the day something happens in the Philippines?'
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Addressing Asia's top security summit in Singapore on Saturday, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called on his nation's allies in the region to share the burden of deterrence by upgrading their own defences. "There's no reason to sugar coat it," he told the Shangri-La Dialogue. "The threat China poses is real, and it could be imminent." Responding to the remarks, Mr Albanese pointed to extra defence spending his government has already committed to. "We'll determine our defence policy, and we've invested just across (the next four years) an additional $10 billion in defence," he told reporters in Hobart on Sunday. "What we'll do is continue to provide for investing in our capability but also investing in our relationships in the region." Defence spending will rise to about 2.3 per cent of GDP within the decade, from the two per cent it currently hovers at. 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