By Raju Gopalakrishnan and Greg Torode
SINGAPORE, May 31 (Reuters) - Caught between China's rapid military rise and growing doubts about the U.S. focus on a region it has long dominated, Indo-Pacific nations
are racing to arm themselves, and each other.
At Asia's premier defence forum on Saturday, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth pressed regional partners to shoulder more of the security burden. Yet, he faced persistent concerns that U.S. priorities may be drifting, with conflict in Iran competing for attention.
"We can do two things at one time," Hegseth told the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, a free-wheeling gathering of global defence chiefs, military and intelligence officials.
His Japanese counterpart Shinjiro Koizumi said he believed the U.S. commitment was "unwavering", while acknowledging that some countries may still underestimate its resolve.
In interviews with Reuters on the sidelines of the annual gathering, regional defence chiefs and military officers made clear the push was on to do more with each other beyond the traditional U.S. umbrella.
"All the defence secretaries here present are unanimous in the need to make agile and speedy upscaling of their own individual defence capabilities," Philippines' Defence Secretary Gilberto Teodoro told Reuters.
He described it as "buttressing" the U.S.'s traditional role, with Manila deepening defence ties with partners such as Japan, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.
"The commitment of the United States becomes more solid when more actors, at least in the deterrence phase, come in, because there is a common threat."
Japan is positioning itself as a hub for that broader network.
Koizumi said Tokyo aims to act as a "connecting point" for closer regional cooperation beyond China.
In April, Japan unveiled its biggest overhaul of defence export rules in decades, scrapping restrictions on overseas arms sales and opening the way for exports of warships, missiles and other weapons.
"Japan will be even more proactive in defence equipment cooperation," Koizumi said at the forum. "Our aim is to ensure that each country has the capabilities it needs and to make them available when needed."
"INTENSE LEVEL"
Canada's Chief of Defence Staff General Jennie Carignan said her forces were expanding their presence in the region, co-operating with Japan and the Philippines on cybersecurity and maritime exercises while also helping Indonesian counterparts with English language training.
"There is a lot of work to do in the Indo-Pacific region. And I think this is why we are seeing probably an increase of partnership across the board," Carignan told Reuters.
New Zealand, meanwhile, is weighing closer ties and fresh hardware. Defence Minister Chris Penk confirmed Wellington is actively considering Japanese and British vessels to replace its ageing ANZAC-class frigates.
Penk dined with his colleagues from Singapore, Malaysia, Australia and Britain on the fringes of the dialogue as they mapped out growing interactions under their 54-year-old Five-Powered Defence Arrangement.
Penk, who took office in April, said there was scope for continuing the pact "at a more intense level".
"And so if we can find new ways to interact with others as well as maintaining those existing connections, then we'll look to do that at the same time," Penk said in an interview.
Although regional nations were deepening ties among themselves, Asian officials insisted that U.S. commitment to the Indo-Pacific remains undimmed by the Middle East conflict or President Donald Trump's "America First" policy.
"Our confidence is not swayed by reason of the involvement of the United States in Iran, for example, and in other areas," said the Philippines' Teodoro.
For Australia, Defence Minister Richard Marles described ties with Washington as "absolutely fundamental to our national security".
"For both of us, the Trump administration and the Albanese government in Australia, we see ourselves as stewards of a relationship which goes well beyond us," Marles told Reuters.
(Reporting By Greg Torode, Raju Gopalakrishnan in Singapore; additional reporting by Claire Fu, Yong Jun Yuan and Xinghui KokEditing by Shri Navaratnam)
