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‘Clear-eyed’ on China: the takeaways from Pete Hegseth’s Shangri-La speech

US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth addressed the annual Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore on Saturday morning, just two weeks after a summit between the presidents of…

By Samantha Johnson / May 30, 2026

The speech was expected to be a barometer of the summit’s outcomes between President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Donald Trump.

Here are some of the main points from Hegseth’s address.

Tough on China, but less confrontational

Hegseth referred to China’s “historic military build-up” and reaffirmed that the US’ strategy in the Pacific centred on “deterrence by denial” along the first island chain.

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This is widely seen as intended to counter the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in a potential conflict in the Taiwan Strait.

But the tone of Hegseth’s speech was markedly milder than last year, when he said the China threat was real and it could be imminent and that the PLA was rehearsing for the “real deal”.

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On Saturday, he said US-China relations were “better than they have been in many years” and praised the Xi-Trump talks in Beijing last month as “historic”.

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