French President Emmanuel Macron and US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth are among the world leaders, diplomats and top defense officials who are in Singapore this weekend for a security forum that is to focus on China’s growing assertiveness, the global impact of Russia’s war on Ukraine and the flare-up of conflicts in Asia.
Macron was to open the conference with a keynote address yesterday night, touching on all of those issues, as well as the pressure the hefty tariffs announced by US President Donald Trump’s administration is putting on Asian allies.
Hegseth said that Washington’s policies were meant to deter a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“We seek no conflict with anybody, including the Communist Chinese,” he said. “We will stay strong for our interests. And that’s a big part of what this trip is all about.”
China, which usually sends its minister of defense to the forum, sent a much lower level delegation instead, represented by Major General Hu Gangfeng (胡鋼鋒), the vice president of the People’s Liberation Army National Defense University.
The delegation was expected to speak today on a panel on “cooperative maritime security” alongside representatives from Japan, Vietnam, Chile and the UK.
Photo: AFP
Officials traveling with Hegseth, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, because they were not authorized to speak to the media, called the absence of a higher-level Chinese delegation an opportunity for the US to make inroads.
Hegseth had visited the Philippines in March, which brought a degree of relief over growing concerns from the Philippines and others in the region about US support from a president who has taken more of a transactional approach to diplomacy and seems wary of foreign engagements.
The US has been pursuing a “free and open Indo-Pacific” policy, which includes regularly sailing warships through the Taiwan Strait and in the South China Sea.
Several European nations have also taken part in freedom of navigation exercises in the region, including France, which sent a carrier strike group on a five-month mission through the Indo-Pacific that concluded last month.
In its published Indo-Pacific region strategy, France has underscored the need to “preserve a rules-based international order” in the face of “China’s increasing power and territorial claims” and its global competition with the US.
Following a meeting yesterday with Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), Macron told reporters there was room in the region for more than just the two superpowers.
“We are neither China nor the US, we don’t want to depend on any of them,” he said. “We want to cooperate with both as far as we can, and we can cooperate for growth and prosperity and stability for our people and the world order, and I think this is exactly the same view of a lot of countries and a lot of people of this region.”
Wong underscored Macron’s point, saying that Singapore and the greater region were not looking for exclusive arrangements with any single power.
“We want to embrace comprehensive engagement with all parties and embrace win-win arrangements rather than zero-sum competition,” he said.
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