Albanese addresses Hegseth: Australia to set its own defense strategy

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Australia will determine its own defence policy in the face of mounting US pressure on countries in the Indo-Pacific to ramp up spending against what the superpower says is a real and imminent threat from China.

Addressing Asia’s top security summit in Singapore on Saturday, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called on his nation’s allies in the region to share the burden of deterrence by upgrading their own defences.

“There’s no reason to sugar coat it,” he told the Shangri-La Dialogue.

“The threat China poses is real, and it could be imminent.”

Responding to the remarks, Albanese pointed to extra defence spending his government has already committed to.

“We’ll determine our defence policy, and we’ve invested just across (the next four years) an additional $10 billion in defence,” he told reporters in Hobart on Sunday.

“What we’ll do is continue to provide for investing in our capability but also investing in our relationships in the region.”

Defence spending will rise to about 2.3 per cent of GDP within the decade, from the two per cent it currently hovers at.

A man in a suit sitting at a conference seat

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called on the US’s allies in Asia to share the burden of deterrence by upgrading their own defences. Source: AP / Anupam Nath/AP

In Singapore at the summit, Defence Minister Richard Marles said the lift represented the “single biggest peacetime increase in defence expenditure in Australia’s history”.

“So we are beginning this journey,” he said.

“We’ve got runs on the board.”

Hegseth said Beijing’s military action around Taiwan was “rehearsing for the real deal” in relation to an invasion of the island.

Albanese said Australia’s position on Taiwan was “very clear” and included a bipartisan stance to support the status quo.

China views Taiwan as its own territory, and slammed the US as the biggest “troublemaker for regional peace and stability”.

A graph showing the government's projected defence spending over the next five years.

China has protested to the United States over “vilifying” remarks made by Hegseth, the foreign ministry said on Sunday, 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”.

Four men in suits pose for a picture standing in a row

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth (left), Australia’s Minister for Defence Richard Marles (second from left) with Japan’s Minister of Defense Nakatani Gen, and Philippines Secretary of National Defense Gilberto Teodoro Jr on the sidelines of the International Institute for Strategic Studies forum in Singapore May 2025. Source: EPA / HOW HWEE YOUNG/EPA

“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.

“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,” the ministry added in the statement.