‘China’s unprecedented military buildup and its aggressive military actions speak for themselves,’ the Secretary of War said.
U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth issued a fresh warning about the rising threats that China’s military capabilities pose to the region during his trip to Asia and underscored the urgency of dealing with them while there is still time.
Hegseth held a meeting on Wednesday with his Japanese counterpart, Shinjiro Koizumi, at the Japanese Defense Ministry in the Ichigaya district of Shinjuku Ward, Tokyo, and told reporters at a press conference following the meeting that the security situation around the region remains “severe.”
“The threats we face are real, and they are urgent. China’s unprecedented military buildup and its aggressive military actions speak for themselves,” Hegseth said.
Pete Hegseth Comments On Alliance With Japan To Tackle ‘China’s Military Buildup’
Praising Japan’s commitment to increase its defense spending, Hegseth said: “We’re going to invest now and invest quickly while we still have time. We’re going to act with urgency, and we must act with speed.”
Hegseth issued the warning a day after President Donald Trump and newly elected Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi spoke about the U.S.–Japan alliance aboard the aircraft carrier USS George Washington stationed at the U.S. naval base in Yokosuka on Tuesday.
Takaichi, the first woman to lead Japan and a conservative with a hardline stance opposing China, pledged on Oct. 21 in her first major speech since taking office to expedite an increase in Japan’s defense spending to 2 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) by March 2026. Japan had formerly planned to raise its defense spending from 1 percent of GDP to 2 percent by 2027 under former Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
The plan to increase defense spending is seen as a response to the rising threat that China poses to the region.
Hegseth at the press conference said: “We don’t have to stand here and tell Japan what it needs to do because we both look out at the world and see the threat of a Chinese military buildup.
“To strengthen the alliance, we need to continue building strong, lethal, combat-credible forces that are ready to deter war, and if necessary, fight and fight to win.”
China’s military modernization has rapidly led to the production of an advanced military arsenal that challenges U.S. air, land, and naval capabilities and poses a threat to the U.S. and its allies in the Indo-Pacific.
Robert Peters, a senior research fellow for Strategic Deterrence at the Heritage Foundation’s Allison Center for National Security, said, “The Chinese military is a significant threat to the United States, given that it has the largest navy in the world, [and] the largest concentration of ballistic and cruise missiles.”
He told the Epoch Times that China’s military is also “building a highly capable fleet of fifth-generation fighter aircraft and is the fastest growing nuclear power on the planet.”
Peters said, “For these reasons, in any confrontation with the United States, China would be a highly capable adversary, particularly given that they are able to marshal and focus their forces within the region, while the U.S. military is deployed globally.”
China has approximately 400 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), according to a 2024 Pentagon report assessing China’s military capabilities.
Its stockpile of nuclear warheads has grown by about 100 warheads every year since 2023, when it had 400, increasing to approximately 600 this year, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute stated in a report issued in June. The U.S. Department of War projects China will have over 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030.
Trump ordered the resumption of nuclear testing ahead of a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday in South Korea’s southern port city of Busan. He said via his Truth Social network that the process of testing “will begin immediately” to be “on equal basis” with other countries that have “testing programs.”
China’s rapid naval buildup has produced a massive quantity of vessels, outpacing the number of U.S. ships. The Pentagon’s 2024 report on China’s military says, “Numerically the PRC has the largest navy in the world.” The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is China’s official name.
The report states that China’s navy has “a battle force over 370 platforms, including major surface combatants, submarines, ocean-going amphibious ships, mine warfare ships, aircraft carriers, and fleet auxiliaries.” The Pentagon expects the number will grow to 395 ships by 2025 and 435 ships by 2030.
By comparison, the U.S. Navy had 296 battle force ships as of January, according to the Congress Research Service’s March report. The United States plans to increase the number of vessels to 390 by 2054, the Congressional Budget Office said in January.
By Christy Lee
