DON BRASH: MR HEGSETH, YOU HAVE TO BE JOKING!

In the last couple of days, Pete Hegseth, the United States Secretary of Defense, or Secretary of War as he prefers to be known, has made a quite astonishing speech.

Speaking at the Shangri-la Dialogue conference in Singapore – a major regional security forum – he urged countries in the region to spend not less than 3.5% of their GDP on defence in order to become real partners of the United States. This level of defence spending, he asserted, is the “new global norm”, and the United States will no longer tolerate “freeloading” by the countries which spend less than this.

He said there was “rightful alarm” in the region over China’s “historic military build-up”, and described China as “expansionist”.

And his most extraordinary statement: “We are willing to work with all of you to ensure a Pacific free of any hegemon”.

“Work to ensure a Pacific free of any hegemon”? How in hell’s name did he make such a statement with a straight face? There is a hegemon in the Pacific right now, and it ain’t China!

To the best of my knowledge, China has no military forces based outside its own borders with the exception of a small number of coast guard and naval forces on contested islands in the South China Sea. Oh, and yes, they have a single military base in Djibouti.

By contrast, the US has military forces in South Korea, Japan, Guam, Palau, the Philippines, and Australia – and of course in hundreds of other bases around the world. It has conned Australia into paying a fortune for eight nuclear-powered submarines which, when delivered, will be of limited use in the defence of Australia but of real value in prowling the seas off the coast of China in conjunction with the US Navy.

And of course the US behaves like a hegemon throughout most of the world. The official statement of current US foreign policy strategy, released by the Trump Administration late in 2025, made it clear that the entire Western Hemisphere was to remain an American sphere of influence. And to emphasise the point, in January the US kidnapped the President of Venezuela and his wife in breach of any concept of international law, while declaring that Venezuelan oil belongs to the United States.

At much the same time, and again in breach of any understanding of the rules-based system, President Trump placed an embargo on oil shipments to Cuba, warning any country supplying Cuba with oil would be hit with increased US tariffs on their exports. Reports suggest that life in Cuba has become almost intolerable, with limited electricity and very erratic public transport. The reason for American extreme sensitivity to what goes on in Cuba is said to be concern that Chinese or Russian governments could establish “listening posts” there, in close proximity to the American mainland. I wonder how the US would react if China applied the same logic towards Taiwan, a territory which is recognized by most of the world as part of China and which is slightly closer to the Chinese mainland than Cuba is to the United States.

And it’s hard to see American behaviour towards Iran as anything but that of a hegemon. America seems to be saying: “We have nuclear weapons, and lots of them, but any attempt by you to have them will cause us to bomb you back to the Stone Ages”.

So Hegseth has the extraordinary gall to demand that countries in Asia-Pacific step up their defence spending – in our case by more than threefold – if we want to be regarded as pulling our wait in America’s goal of ensuring “a Pacific free of any hegemon”!

Does China want American military forces off its front porch? I have little doubt that it does. The United States would not tolerate Chinese forces in Canada, or Mexico, or Cuba – or indeed, anywhere else in the western hemisphere. It would be surprising indeed if China was comfortable with American forces camped close to its coast.

But perhaps we should be conned into supporting America’s objective of continuing to pin down China because otherwise China might “break out” and threaten New Zealand? I admit that the years when, as Leader of the Opposition, I was kept informed of sensitive defence and intelligence issues is now 20 years in the past. But I read very extensively on international affairs and, while China clearly wants to expand its influence around the world – as the world’s largest economy (using a purchasing power parity exchange rate) this is hardly surprising – I see no evidence that China has a desire to expand its territorial reach beyond its explicit and openly acknowledged intention of re-uniting Taiwan to the mainland.

Yes, China wants to reunite Taiwan with the mainland, and as somebody who values democracy I would much prefer that that be done in a way which protects the democracy which Taiwan has built up in recent years.

But if finding some way of accommodating China’s determination to reunite Taiwan with the mainland is the price of avoiding World War III, we’d better find it. Taiwan itself would pay a huge price if the United States and China were to go to war over Taiwan, and that would be nothing compared with the price which the United States, China and the rest of the world would pay.

Should New Zealand increase its defence spending? That probably makes sense: we have a very large maritime area for which we have some responsibility and we certainly need some capacity to fend off drug runners and those who would steal our fisheries resources. But spending 3.5% of GDP on defence would be nuts in current circumstances – and even more inexcusable if doing so implied we wanted to be in a military alliance with the hegemon of the Pacific.

Don Brash

31 May 2026