“There is no reason to sugarcoat it. The threat China poses is real. And it could be imminent,” Hegseth said in a speech to the Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia’s premier defense forum, in Singapore. “Beijing is credibly preparing potentially to use military force to alter the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific,” with People’s Liberation Army (PLA) forces training daily to take military action against Taiwan, Hegseth said.
He noted that Chinese leader Xi Jinping has ordered his military to be prepared by 2027 to invade Taiwan, the democratic island of 23 million people that the Chinese Communist Party claims as its sovereign territory despite having never ruled it.
