June 1 (UPI) — China criticized the United States on Sunday for having a “Cold War mentality” after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth described Beijing as a threat the Indo-Pacific region in a speech Saturday.
“Hegseth deliberately ignored the call for peace and development by countries in the region, and instead touted the Cold War mentality for bloc confrontation, vilified China with defamatory allegations, and falsely called China a ‘threat,'” a spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
“The remarks were filled with provocations and intended to sow discord. China deplores and firmly opposes them and has protested strongly to the U.S.”
Hegseth had delivered his remarks during the International Institute for Strategic Studies Shangri-La Dialogue event in Singapore. He said the Indo-Pacific region is the United States’ “priority theater” and won’t allow China to push it and its allies out of the region.
China retorted Sunday that “no country in the world deserves to be called a hegemonic power other than the U.S. itself.”
“To perpetuate its hegemony and advance the so-called ‘Indo-Pacific strategy,’ the U.S. has deployed offensive weaponry in the South China Sea and kept stoking flames and creating tensions in the Asia-Pacific, which are turning the region into a powder keg and making countries in the region deeply concerned,” the Foreign Ministry spokesperson said.
Hegseth had also said that China was “preparing to use military force” to alter the balance of power in the region and said that the United States and its allies must be prepared for armed conflict, citing “great progress” in the region toward “achieving peace through strength.”
“If deterrence fails — and if called upon by [the] commander in chief — we are prepared to do what the Department of Defense does best: to fight and win, decisively,” Hegseth said.
Mainland China and the island of Taiwan, among other islands, were ruled by the Republic of China before the ROC lost the Chinese Civil War in the early 20th century to the Chinese Communist Party, which established the new government of the People’s Republic of China in October 1949.
The ROC in turn established a temporary capital in Taipei on the island of Taiwan, a former Japanese territory, in December 1949 that served as the seat for China at the United Nations until it was replaced by the People’s Republic of China in 1971 when foreign countries switched their diplomatic relations.
China views self-governed Taiwan and its 23 million residents as a wayward province and has vowed to retake it by force, if necessary. Many supporters of Taiwan have since argued that it is already an independent sovereign state separate from mainland China, which has never controlled Taiwan.
Tensions between the United States and China started to grow during the administration of President Joe Biden in 2022 when then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan, sparking a military response from the Chinese government and increased drills in the Taiwan Strait. In 2022, a four-star general predicted that the U.S. and China could be at war by the end of this year.
After returning for his second term, President Donald Trump‘s administration has escalated tensions with China, particularly related to trade tariffs that appear now to be expanding into broader military and diplomatic arenas.
For example, the Pentagon has increased naval patrols in contested areas of the South China Sea and bolstered military partnerships with allies including Japan, Australia, and the Philippines.
“The Taiwan question is entirely China’s internal affair. No country is in a position to interfere. The U.S. should never imagine it could use the Taiwan question as leverage against China,” the Foreign Ministry spokesperson said. “The U.S. must never play with fire on this question.”