US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth softened his tone towards China in his speech on Saturday to the Shangri-La defence forum compared with the previous year.
Speaking two weeks after the meeting between Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in Beijing, Hegseth also adopted a cautious stance on US arms sales to Taiwan when questioned about the highly sensitive issue and did not mention the island at all in his speech.
Although he still criticised China’s military build-up, unlike last year he did not repeatedly describe the country as the primary threat and added: “We do not approach this challenge with needless confrontation but with a posture of measured and deliberate strength.”
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But he went on to say that the US and the wider Pacific region “share a clear-eyed assessment of that security environment and a mutual understanding that a Pacific dominated by any hegemon would unravel the regional balance of power”.
He told the event that the US strategy “centres on deterrence by denial among the First Island Chain”, which forms a barrier between China and the Pacific Ocean.
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In his speech at the event last year, Hegseth said “the threat China poses is real”, adding that Xi had ordered that the People’s Liberation Army must be capable of attacking Taiwan by 2027.