Why Washington's call for Asia to buy more American arms falls flat

Straits Times

4 hours ago

A US Air Force F-35 fifth-generation jet fighter flies over Leeuwarden Air Base on April 8. The US hopes to sell more of this military equipment to Asia. PHOTO: AFP
SINGAPORE/TOKYO/JAKARTA - US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth's rousing call in Singapore recently for Indo-Pacific countries to ramp up their defence spending and, if one reads his lips correctly, buy more American weapons, is likely to fall on deaf ears across much of Asia.
While US allies such as Japan and Australia are natural candidates to heed the call, they have been coy so far in their responses, emphasising instead that defence spending decisions should be based on their own needs assessment.
Most South-east Asia countries are unlikely to be spooked into action by Mr Hegseth's assertion on May 31 at the security forum the Shangri-La Dialogue that a security threat from 'Communist China' is imminent.
This is not least because their spending priority continues to be butter, not guns.
The United States is by far the largest global supplier of arms, exporting almost as much as the next eight largest exporters combined.
Data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) shows that its share of total global arms exports was 43 per cent in the period of 2020 to 2024, up from 35 per cent in the previous five years. This rise was largely fuelled by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which resulted in a spike in US sales or transfers of arms to Ukraine and other European countries.
The US's largest customer in the Asia-Pacific region is Japan. Tokyo relies on the US, its sole security ally, for 97 per cent of its arms imports, such as F-15 and F-35 fighter jets and Tomahawk guided cruise missiles.
A close second-largest buyer of US arms in the Indo-Pacific is Australia, which buys 87 per cent of its arms imports from the US, including a deal to buy nuclear-powered submarines.
Although Taiwan is similarly reliant on the US for arms, with 98 per cent of its arms imports coming from the US, its absolute volume of arms imports is only about one-sixth of Japan's and Australia's. Self-ruled Taiwan's primary security threat stems from China's refusal to rule out the use of force to bring the island under its control.
Elsewhere in the region, the picture is more mixed. The share of US weapons in Asian countries' arms imports ranges from 86 per cent in South Korea, to 32 per cent in Singapore, to zero in Myanmar.
So why aren't Asian countries buying more US arms?
One reason that Asian countries are cool to Mr Hegseth's sales pitch is that spending on defence simply isn't a top priority.
In 2024, South-east Asian countries on average spent around 1.5 per cent of their gross domestic product (GDP) on defence, a level that has been consistent over the last decade, according to a recent survey by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). The global average is 2.5 per cent.
Mr Hegseth at the Shangri-La Dialogue urged countries in the region to take a leaf from the Europeans and pledge defence budgets of 5 per cent of GDP.
'His suggestion is tone deaf and not in line with the realities on the ground,' Dr Collin Koh, a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) in Singapore, told The Straits Times.
Emerging economies in South-east Asia are already stretching their limited fiscal resources to meet urgent needs in infrastructure, healthcare and education. Most do not feel they have the luxury to splurge on defence, he noted.
'Most countries in the region would rather spend on socio-economic priorities, because that's what wins votes,' said Dr Koh.
Another reason South-east Asian countries are not motivated to significantly boost defence spending is that, unlike in Europe where the Ukraine war rages on, Asia is largely peaceful, except for skirmishes between China and the Philippines in the South China Sea, and the occasional border clashes between Cambodia and Thailand and Cambodia and Vietnam.
Faced with growing tensions with China, the Philippines has in recent years shifted its defence focus from internal to external security.
It was keen to buy F-16 fighter jets from the US. However, because its Air Force has not operated jet fighters since the 1990s, it has instead purchased lightweight jet fighters from South Korea, which are cheaper, to ease its transition to more advanced US weapon systems.
Mr Hegseth might have tried to create a sense of urgency to buy arms by saying a China attack on Taiwan is imminent. But most countries in the region that are not US allies don't expect to be dragged into a hot war over Taiwan.
'The argument is not valid because practically all the countries in the region have cooperation and relatively open communication with China,' Jakarta-based military analyst Mufti Makarim told ST.
'If Indonesia were a proxy country of the US, Indonesia would automatically follow the US' lead, but Indonesia is not,' he said.
Even close allies Japan and Australia are not near the 5 per cent mark.
Japan's defence spending will hit 1.8 per cent of its GDP in the fiscal year ending March 2026, according to budget estimates. This is already a hike from the 1 per cent cap in spending that was in effect between 1976 and 2022.
There is , however, debate about whether Japan should pledge to buy more US arms as a bargaining chip for lower tariffs for its exports to the US.
Washington in April imposed tariffs of 10 per cent to 50 per cent on trading partners, later suspended for 90 days.
Japan faces a 24 per cent tariff rate starting in July unless it can negotiate a deal with the US. It also hopes Washington can exempt its automakers from a 25 per cent tariff on automobiles, Japan's biggest industry.
Still, Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and Defence Minister Gen Nakatani have both rejected the idea of setting defence spending targets at the behest of another country, reiterating that Japan will determine its own budget independently.
But Japan's chief tariff negotiator, Mr Ryosei Akazawa, who was in Washington on June 5-8 for a fifth round of talks, have suggested leaving that option open.
Amid perceptions that the US commitment to its security alliance with Japan was wavering, senior fellow Ippeita Nishida of the Tokyo-based Sasakawa Peace Foundation think-tank told ST that Japan would likely raise its defence spending beyond 2 per cent. This was a figure that Mr Ishiba himself has previously said might not be enough to defend the country.
In the case of Australia, when Mr Hegseth met his Australian counterpart on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue, he told the Pacific nation to boost its defence spending to 3.5 per cent of its GDP 'as soon as possible'.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese responded by saying his country would spend based on its defence needs. His government has previously set a defence budget goal of 2.3 per cent of GDP by 2033-2034.
Mr Albanese had won a general election in May, in which the message of standing up for Australia against America proved popular among voters.
Mr Hegseth's sales pitch for Asian nations to spend more on US arms may sound compelling to the hawks in Washington.
But in the diverse political and economic landscape of the Indo-Pacific, his message risks being dismissed as out of touch. National interests here are shaped less by ideological rivalry and more by domestic imperatives and long-term pragmatism.
For many countries in the region, development still trumps deterrence.
Yew Lun Tian is a senior foreign correspondent who covers China for The Straits Times.
Walter Sim is Japan correspondent at The Straits Times. Based in Tokyo, he writes about political, economic and socio-cultural issues.
Wahyudi Soeriaatmadja has been Indonesia correspondent at The Straits Times since 2008, and is based in Jakarta.
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