Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth on Saturday took aim at Beijing over an increase in “destabilizing actions” in the South China Sea and committed to support Southeast Asian countries with technology to help them respond jointly to Chinese threats.
On a second day in Kuala Lumpur packed with meetings that included multilateral talks with allies Australia, Japan and the Philippines, Hegseth proposed to ASEAN defence ministers the building of shared maritime domain awareness and said China had shown a lack of respect and threatened their territorial sovereignty.
“You live it on the threats we all face from China’s aggression and course of actions in the South China Sea and elsewhere,” he said.
“We need to develop our joint capabilities to respond, and this includes being able to monitor maritime conduct and develop the tools that allow us to respond quickly ... ensuring that whoever is on the receiving end of aggression and provocation is then, therefore, by definition, not alone.”
“No one can innovate and scale like the United States of America, and we’re eager to share those capabilities with allies and partners,” Hegseth added.
