By Xiang Haoyu
"Sometimes with tough love, but love nonetheless." At the recent Shangri-La Dialogue, the US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth delivered a heartfelt message to allies, "NATO members are pledging to spend 5% of their GDP on defense. So it doesn't make sense for countries in Europe to do that while key allies in Asia spend less on defense in the face of an even more formidable threat." According to the Pentagon, Pete Hegseth explicitly called on Australia to increase its defense spending to 3.5% of GDP during his meeting with the Australian Minister for Defense. Reports also indicate that a written interview with Pete Hegseth published by Japanese media revealed that the US has raised its expectation for Japan's defense budget to 5% of GDP.
In reality, this demand is a mission impossible for Australia and Japan in the short term.
Japan's public debt has already reached 260% of its GDP, and the country is facing an unprecedented demographic crisis marked by a declining birth rate and an aging population. These challenges have severely strained its fiscal capacity. One-third of Japan's national budget is allocated to social security, and another quarter is used to repay interest and principal on national debt, leaving the government heavily reliant on borrowing to maintain fiscal balance. If Japan were to increase its defense spending from 2% to 3% of GDP, the resulting funding gap would amount to as much as 6 trillion yen. It would be an overwhelming burden on its economy and people's livelihoods and unlikely to gain public support. To raise the defense budget to 5% of GDP would mean spending over 200 billion US dollars, even based on the current low exchange rate of the yen. This would undoubtedly mark a complete departure from Japan's post-war path of pacifist development and raise serious concerns among the international community about a possible resurgence of militarism in the country.
Australia, vast in territory and surrounded by ocean, does not face any immediate external threats. In recent years, its military buildup has largely served to align with the US "Indo-Pacific Strategy" in a bid to elevate its role and influence in regional security affairs. From 32.4 billion Australian dollars in the 2015–2016 fiscal year to nearly 59 billion Australian dollars for 2025–2026, Australia's defense budget has nearly doubled in a decade. Yet in light of Washington's new demand for defense spending to reach 3.5% of GDP, such a target appears difficult for Australia to accept, whether from the standpoint of actual security needs or public opinions. On June 1, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese stated that Australia would fund the defence capability it needs. A poll conducted from late February to early March this year showed that only one-third of Australians supported an increase in defense spending. In fact, Australia's plan to build nuclear-powered submarines under the AUKUS framework has already imposed a heavy financial burden on the country.
The US government's demand for its allies to increase military spending, framed as "burden sharing", is in essence a strategy to offload as much of the cost of maintaining American global hegemony as possible onto its allies, all in service of its unilateral "America First" agenda. This approach disregards the financial pressures and strategic autonomy of its partners, revealing a self-serving nature driven by narrow calculations of national interest. What Pete Hegseth calls "tough love" is more akin to coercion disguised as affection, barely concealing the paternalistic mindset with which the US approaches its alliances. By instrumentalizing alliance relationships in this way, Washington not only risks exhausting the loyalty and trust of its partners but also undermines the prospects for genuine peace and stability in the region.
In his speech at the Shangri-La Dialogue, Pete Hegseth promoted the Trump administration's "peace through strength" vision for "Indo-Pacific". However, this policy trajectory rests on the military buildup of the US and its allies, which will only fuel a new round of arms race in the Asia-Pacific region. Once US allies such as Japan, Australia, the ROK, and the Philippines race to break through their original security policy frameworks, strategic stability in the Asia-Pacific will cease to exist. Mandatory bloc confrontation will replace dialogue and cooperation, plunging the region into an escalating security dilemma. By resorting to militarism to build so-called "deterrence," the US not only risks sacrificing the well-being of its allies and regional stability, but may also trigger unpredictable strategic consequences that spiral out of control.
(The author is a distinguished research fellow at the Department for Asia-Pacific Studies of China Institute of International Studies.)
Editor's Note: Originally published on huanqiu.com, this article is translated from Chinese into English and edited by the China Military Online. The information and opinions in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of eng.chinamil.com.cn.
