The government has protested to the United States against “vilifying” remarks made by Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, the foreign ministry said, while accusing it of deliberately ignoring calls for peace from regional nations.
China has objected to Hegseth calling it a threat in the Indo-Pacific, the ministry added, describing his comments at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore on Saturday as “deplorable” and “intended to sow division”.
“Hegseth deliberately ignored the call for peace and development by countries in the region and instead touted the Cold War mentality for bloc confrontation, vilified China with defamatory allegations, and falsely called China a ‘threat’,” the ministry said on its website yesterday.
“The United States has deployed offensive weaponry in the South China Sea and kept stoking flames and creating tensions in the Asia-Pacific, which are turning the region into a powder keg,” it added in the statement.
Hegseth had urged allies in the Indo-Pacific region, including key security partner Australia, to spend more on defence after warning of the “real and potentially imminent” threat from China.
Asked about the call to boost defence spending, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said his government had pledged an extra A$10bil (RM27.3bil) to defence.
“What we’ll do is we’ll determine our defence policy,” Albanese told reporters yesterday, a transcript of his remarks showed.
As part of Washington’s long-standing defence ties with the Philippines, the US military this year deployed Typhon launchers that can fire missiles to hit targets in both China and Russia from the island of Luzon.
China’s delegation at the forum said “external intervention” was the biggest risk for stability in the South China Sea, saying the country had shown “goodwill and restraint” through talks on the issue.
“Some foreign powers have sent warplanes and warships to the South China Sea for so-called ‘freedom of navigation’,” the state-backed Global Times newspaper cited Senior Col Zhang Chi from the PLA National Defence University as saying.
Such actions infringed China’s territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests, he added.
The United States, Australia, Japan and the Philippines have conducted joint maritime operations in the busy waterway. — Reuters
