Singapore: American allies stressed the need for unity at a top defence conference Sunday, saying that as threats increasingly transcend regions, cooperation is more important than ever, even as Washington has become more critical of its traditional friends.
U.S. President Donald Trump has been extremely harsh about NATO, and the comments at the Shangri-La conference came the day after U.S. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth again chided Western European allies at the forum for not devoting enough resources to defence.
Japanese Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi praised Hegseth for his commitment to the Indo-Pacific, but at the same time stressed the continued need for strong coalitions globally.
"Division weakens deterrence, unity strengthens deterrence," he told the conference, hosted by the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
"If gaps emerge among the United States, Europe, and allies and like-minded countries, forces which take it as an opportunity will surely come in," he said. "We must prevent such a situation. We must keep our cooperation going on. Now is the time to make our cooperation even stronger."
As China has been rapidly expanding and modernising its military, Japan has been scrapped a ban on lethal weapons exports, a major change in its postwar pacifist policy.
China criticised the change, with Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun saying China would "resolutely resist Japan's reckless moves toward a new type of militarism."
Japan's Koizumi scoffed at that accusation as ironic, coming from China.
"Think about it, there is a country that has a huge arsenal of nuclear weapons and strategic bombers," he said, speaking in English. "Japan has neither of such weapons, and yet Japan is labeled new militarism. Isn't it strange?"
He said that transparency comes from "discussion and dialogue" and lamented that China had not sent its defence minister to the conference.
