US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on Saturday said he was traveling to Asia to boost military cooperation with US allies and foster “credible deterrence” against China.
Austin embarked on his first foreign visit as Pentagon chief via Hawaii, seat of the US military command for the Indo-Pacific region.
“This is all about alliances and partnerships,” Austin told reporters on the trip, which is to include meetings with key allies in Tokyo, New Delhi and Seoul.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“It’s also about enhancing capabilities,” he said, adding that while the US was focused on the anti-extremist struggle in the Middle East, China was modernizing its army at high speed.
“That competitive edge that we’ve had has eroded,” Austin said. “We still maintain that edge. We are going to increase that edge going forward.”
“Our goal is to make sure that we have the capabilities and the operational plans ... to be able to offer a credible deterrence to China or anybody else who would want to take on the US,” he added.
Austin is to be joined in Tokyo and Seoul by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
“One of the things that the secretary of state and I want to do is begin to strengthen those alliances,” he said. “This will be more about listening and learning, getting their point of view.”
The tour in Asia follows an unprecedented summit of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, an informal alliance born in the 2000s between Australia, India, Japan and the US to counterbalance a rising China.
Blinken is to join US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan in Anchorage, Alaska, on Thursday with Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) and Chinese Central Foreign Affairs Commission Director Yang Jiechi (楊潔篪).
The Alaska talks would be the first between the powers since Yang met Blinken’s hawkish predecessor, former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo, in June last year in Hawaii — a setting similarly far from the high-stakes glare of national capitals.
The administration of US President Joe Biden has generally backed the tougher approach to China initiated by former US president Donald Trump, but has also said that it can be more effective by shoring up alliances and seeking narrow ways to cooperate on priorities such as climate change.
Right-wing political scientist Laura Fernandez on Sunday won Costa Rica’s presidential election by a landslide, after promising to crack down on rising violence linked to the cocaine trade. Fernandez’s nearest rival, economist Alvaro Ramos, conceded defeat as results showed the ruling party far exceeding the threshold of 40 percent needed to avoid a runoff. With 94 percent of polling stations counted, the political heir of outgoing Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves had captured 48.3 percent of the vote compared with Ramos’ 33.4 percent, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal said. As soon as the first results were announced, members of Fernandez’s Sovereign People’s Party
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) plans to make advanced 3-nanometer chips in Japan, stepping up its semiconductor manufacturing roadmap in the country in a triumph for Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s technology ambitions. TSMC is to adopt cutting-edge technology for its second wafer fab in Kumamoto, company chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said yesterday. That is an upgrade from an original blueprint to produce 7-nanometer chips by late next year, people familiar with the matter said. TSMC began mass production at its first plant in Japan’s Kumamoto in late 2024. Its second fab, which is still under construction, was originally focused on
EMERGING FIELDS: The Chinese president said that the two countries would explore cooperation in green technology, the digital economy and artificial intelligence Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday called for an “equal and orderly multipolar world” in the face of “unilateral bullying,” in an apparent jab at the US. Xi was speaking during talks in Beijing with Uruguayan President Yamandu Orsi, the first South American leader to visit China since US special forces captured then-Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro last month — an operation that Beijing condemned as a violation of sovereignty. Orsi follows a slew of leaders to have visited China seeking to boost ties with the world’s second-largest economy to hedge against US President Donald Trump’s increasingly unpredictable administration. “The international situation is fraught
Opposition parties not passing defense funding harms Taiwan’s national security, two US senators said separately in rare public criticism. “I am disappointed to see Taiwan’s opposition parties in parliament [the legislature] slash President [William] Lai’s (賴清德) defense budget so dramatically,” Roger Wicker, a Republican who chairs the US Senate Armed Forces Committee, said on social media. “The original proposal funded urgently needed weapons systems. Taiwan’s parliament should reconsider — especially with rising Chinese threats,” he added. Wicker’s post linked to an article published by Bloomberg that said that the two opposition parties’ move was “potentially jeopardizing the purchases of billions of dollars of
RSS