United States Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says his country and Japan share a “warrior ethos” in tackling Chinese aggression across the Taiwan Strait.

In a meeting in Tokyo on Sunday with his Japanese counterpart, Gen Nakatani, Hegseth said Japan was their “indispensable partner in deterring communist Chinese military aggression”.

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“America is committed to sustaining robust, ready and credible deterrence in the Indo-Pacific, including across the Taiwan Strait,” Hegseth said.

In the past few years, China has increased its military presence around Taiwan, including near-daily air incursions, and has not ruled out using force to bring Taiwan under its control.

Last year, former President Joe Biden’s administration announced that the US military in Japan would be revamped to increase coordination with Tokyo’s forces in what the two countries described as Beijing being their “greatest strategic challenge”.

However, as President Donald Trump has pushed for an “America first” policy, analysts warn that US security commitments in the region could be affected.

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Japan currently hosts 50,000 US military personnel and squadrons of fighter jets stationed mainly in Okinawa on the east of Taiwan.

Earlier in March, Trump criticised the US-Japan security alliance and said while the US protects them, they do not protect Washington.

“I actually ask, who makes these deals?” he said.

Military spending

Hegseth blamed the Biden administration for creating a “vacuum, a perception that America was not strong and wasn’t prepared to deter conflicts from starting”.

He said Washington would “build an alliance so robust that both the reality and the perception of deterrence is real and ongoing, so that the Communist Chinese don’t take the aggressive actions that some have contemplated they will”.

Alongside Hegseth’s visit, there are expectations that Trump will push the US allies in Asia to increase military spending and improve their defence capabilities.

Hegseth and Nakatani agreed to accelerate a plan to jointly produce beyond-visual-range air-to-air AMRAAM missiles and to consider collaborating on the production of SM-6 surface-to-air defence missiles to help ease a shortage of munitions, Nakatani said.

Hegseth said Washington was “confident Japan will make the correct determination of what capabilities are needed inside our alliance to make sure we are standing shoulder to shoulder”.

However, the push to increase spending comes at the same time that Tokyo is reeling from Trump’s decision to impose a 25 percent tariff on auto imports that will take effect on April 3.

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