The first was Taiwan. Shortly before Coons arrived, China launched a military drill near the island nation, which the head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command called a “rehearsal” of an invasion.

The second was to the Philippines, whose vessels face harassment from the Chinese Coast Guard on a regular basis in areas around the South China Sea that both countries claim as their own territory.

These issues were major topics of discussion at Coons’ last stop — the Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia’s largest defense conference.

The first night of the summit, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said that if China’s military activities killed a Filipino citizen, his government would likely consider it an act of war, which could draw the U.S. into the conflict given it is allied with the archipelago nation.

Two days later, Chinese Defense Minister Adm. Dong Jun spent much of his remarks decrying perceived “separatism” from Taiwan, an island nation that China considers a rogue province and has threated to take back by force. Dong warned that the odds of “peaceful reunification” with the island were “eroding.”

The rhetoric at the Shangri-La Dialogue raised an important question about security in the Indo-Pacific region: Taiwan’s independence and disputed territory in the South China Sea have long been tense subjects, but which is more likely to lead to a conflict?

That’s a major part of Coons’ job. The Democrat from Delaware sits on the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, which will help steer $2 billion in new long-term military aid to the region.

The U.S. is already mapping out where that money will go, along with an additional $1.9 billion in short-term funding. Most of it will head to Taiwan, but how the government divides the entire amount will in part depend on where the threat seems most acute.

“There are a whole series of conversations underway between the United States and Taiwan, the United States and the Philippines, and a half dozen other regional actors,” Coons said in an interview. “Those conversations should then inform the final downselect in terms of how much for each and for what purpose.”

“The larger issue,” he added, “is to not let this take too long.”

Two threats

But how long is too long? Some in Washington have grown increasingly concerned about the chances of a short-term conflict over Taiwan, due in part to China’s large military buildup under its leader, Xi Jinping.

Equipment updates are part of China’s military modernization effort, but training also contributes to that. Its drills around Taiwan have become more aggressive in recent years, and it now regularly breaks the unspoken but once sacrosanct rule to not cross the median line of the Taiwan Strait. Some in Congress and the Pentagon worry the new status quo could make China’s real threat harder to assess.

Contrast that with the Second Thomas Shoal, a disputed reef in the South China Sea. Beijing claims sovereignty over the area, despite a 2016 ruling from the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which invalidated that approach.

Since last year, China has used Coast Guard ships and other vessels to fire water cannons at and ram Philippine ships, among other means of harassment. Some Philippine ships were damaged under the stress.

Observers wonder where the Philippines will draw a red line and invoke a mutual defense treaty that the U.S. says it is prepared to fulfill. Marcos didn’t say the death of a Filipino citizen would automatically trigger that deal, but he did say it would be “very close to what we define as an act of war.”

“A lot of folks agree that Taiwan remains the most important challenge because the escalation potential is so high,” said Greg Poling, an expert on Asian security at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank. “But the South China Sea can’t be ignored because it’s got the highest likelihood of escalation, even if it’s relatively low.”

In response to the different threats, both Taiwan and the Philippines have been upgrading their respective militaries. Many of Taiwan’s goals involve the purchase of American-made weapons through the Pentagons’ Foreign Military Sales program, although a large share of these are taking longer than either party wants.

Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said there were a total of 22 weapons systems he approved “going back to four years ago” in his position as chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. But those arms “have yet to go out of the country,” he noted during an interview at the Shangri-La Dialogue.

Meanwhile, the Philippines has modified its military modernization plan amid clashes with Chinese forces, and it also signed a deeper security deal with the U.S. last year. That cooperation has led to larger military exercises between the two countries, including one that finished a few weeks before the conference.

‘Two hot wars’

To further harden each country’s defenses, the U.S. passed a $95 billion security bill in April. It included about $4 billion in foreign military financing for longer-term arms sales and another $1.9 billion to replace stocks the U.S. sends from its own inventories.

Coons said he discussed this aid in his meetings with Taiwanese and Filipino officials, including the presidents of both countries.

The question of how to spend that money depends on several variables. Aside from the sense of urgency related to each threat, Coons said, the U.S. will assess how much equipment each military can absorb in any given point of time.

That will be harder to answer for the Philippines, which, unlike Taiwan, has received small amounts of American-made materiel in recent years, relatively speaking.

“Last year the number was $40 million” of financing, Coons said, chuckling as he added: “Somewhere between $40 [million] and $500 million is probably the right number.”

Another factor is how fast American defense companies can deliver — a topic McCaul raised multiple times, given the U.S. is also supplying two other partners. Arming Israel and Ukraine — the former is fighting a war against the militant group Hamas, and the latter is defending itself against a Russian invasion — has put a strain on the defense industry.

“We’ve got two hot wars, and we’re in a hot zone right here,” he said.

In addition, while both McCaul and Coons agreed most of the funding will go toward Taiwan, and to a lesser extent the Philippines, there are other countries in the region with needs. The U.S. now has money to help them, but it’s a limited amount.

“My view is that we should principally focus on Taiwan and the Philippines right now,” Coons said. “But look, even $20 [million] or $40 million in [foreign military financing] for some of our partners out here would be significant.”

Austin announced the change in a statement, crediting her for “every initiative I have launched to defend our nation,” which includes work in the three areas of the world that now consume the Pentagon’s attention: the Indo-Pacific region, Europe and the Middle East.

Magsamen’s last week has been an illustration of that split. She joined Austin for the Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia’s largest defense conference, where he met with world leaders and in particular China’s new defense minister. Then she joined him for trips to Cambodia — where she sat beside him in meetings with the country’s leadership — and Paris, where Austin is staying during the 80th anniversary ceremony of D-Day.

Another defining part of her time in office was when Austin was hospitalized earlier this year after complications from a surgery to treat prostate cancer. Magsamen did not inform others in the Pentagon nor the U.S. government — including the president. The Pentagon has since explained the delay by saying she was also sick, and Austin took the blame for the delay, sitting for a grilling in front of the House Armed Services Committee in February.

A review of the incident ordered by Austin recommended protocol changes but didn’t result in staff discipline.

Magsamen has worked across Washington’s national security institutions, including previous stints at the State Department and the National Security Council.

“Kelly’s leadership, counsel, and selfless service made our nation safer, made the lives of our people better and more rewarding, and rendered the heavy burden of this office of mine a good bit lighter,” Austin said in the statement.

Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh didn’t say where Magsamen is headed, only that the chief of staff is “taking time off before she pursues other opportunities.”

Caroline Zier, Magsamen’s deputy, will serve as acting chief of staff after Magsamen steps down, according to Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder, the department’s press secretary.

One officer who attended the U.S. Naval Academy joked about the annual Army-Navy football game. Austin, a former Army general, laughed.

“As secretary, I want everybody to win,” he said.

This is a new tactic in America’s relationship with Cambodia: a charm offensive. Austin’s visit marks the first time a U.S. defense secretary has traveled to the country just to meet with its leaders on defense issues. And it’s coming at a critical time.

Just before, Austin had attended the Shangri-La Dialogue, the region’s top defense summit. His speech outlined a partnership of Indo-Pacific states who share values like respect and sovereignty. The subtext, later shown in sharp questioning of Austin’s Chinese counterpart, was that those values are different than China’s.

But Cambodia is an exception. Phnom Penh has deepened its military ties with Beijing in recent years, and could soon host China’s second foreign military site.

Hence the visit. American defense officials framed it as a reset in ties with Cambodia, which has a new prime minister. A hallmark of foreign policy for many countries in Southeast Asia is that they want to keep their options open and not pick between two competing great powers. Still, it’s not clear whether the U.S. can convince Cambodia that Washington is an open option.

This may be a chance “for us to sit down and talk about how our relationship might have a more positive and optimistic path,” said a senior defense official, briefing reporters before the trip on the condition of anonymity.

‘Leaps and bounds’

All hope aside, the official acknowledged a host of challenges surrounding the visit.

For years, the U.S. has warned Cambodia against allowing China to build a permanent military site on Ream Naval Base, which sits in the south near the Gulf of Thailand.

The Center for Strategic and international Studies, which monitors satellite images of the site, said in April that Chinese military ships have docked at Ream for several months.

“Construction in the rest of Ream Naval Base has progressed by leaps and bounds” since the think tank last studied it, the report said.

The facility would help China, whose coast sits behind U.S.-aligned island nations like Taiwan and Japan, project its navy farther beyond its shores and into a critical waterway for world trade.

According to the Pentagon’s annual report on the Chinese military, Cambodia’s defense minister claimed in 2021 that China would be allowed to “modernize and expand Ream” but not be the only country with access to the site. The next summer the two countries opened the Chinese renovations, which now include warehouses, a fresh pier and a dry dock for maintenance.

Since then, the relationship with the U.S. has soured. Last year, Washington sanctioned the country for holding rigged elections. In a statement, the State Department said the ruling party had a chance “to improve the country’s international standing” by permitting real opposition parties and restoring democracy.

The red carpet

Such tension wasn’t on display in Phnom Penh.

Austin held a day of meetings with military and political leaders in the country. The defense ministry flew American and Cambodian flags alongside each other. At the country’s ornate senate building and ministry of defense, Austin walked on a literal red carpet.

Still the U.S. defense official speaking before the trip tried to manage expectations.

“This isn’t a visit that is about significant deliverables,” the official said.

According to a Pentagon statement, Austin discussed restarting military cooperation on issues like disaster relief and de-mining — a legacy from decades-old wars in Southeast Asia.

The topics alone are a sign of U.S. strategy: to smart small and try to grow their partnership over time.

Another bet is that America may now have a better partner. The new prime minister, Hun Manet entered office last summer after his father, a longtime authoritarian, officially stepped down. Hun is a former general, and in the 1990s he attended West Point — Austin’s alma mater, as the secretary’s social media account mentioned in a video of the two.

That said, Hun has done little to make Cambodia more democratic. The government represses opposition parties and polices dissent. It’s not clear whether his time in office represents continuity or change.

U.S. officials often say that there is no substitute for person-to-person meetings and list Austin’s travels to the Indo-Pacific — this is number 10 — like a scorecard. The meetings in Cambodia may test that argument.

Without officially confirming whether Austin discussed the naval site in his meetings, a Pentagon spokesperson was coy.

“There are no doubts about where our concerns are,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

The senior defense official speaking before the trip previewed that approach.

“We’ll be very direct and articulate about how we see U.S. interests,” the official said. “But nonetheless that’s no reason we can’t sit down and talk together.”

“That activity continues, but it’s slowed a bit,” he said.

Defense officials in the West had expected the attack for weeks before it arrived on May 10. That day, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a think tank that maps the front lines, Russia made “tactically significant gains.” In the fighting that followed, Moscow broke through Ukrainian defenses outside the city, which sits little more than two dozen miles from the border.

Since then the offensive has lost momentum for two reasons, Austin argued.

The first is that Russia is hitting firmer Ukrainian lines, which Kyiv rushed to prepare while awaiting the attack.

And the second is a recent policy change from the administration. To this point in the war, the U.S. hasn’t allowed Ukraine to fire American-provided weapons into Russia, fearing escalation. That recently changed, in large part because Russia was using the policy to its advantage and stationing its forces just outside Ukrainian reach.

Ukraine can now hit Russian positions preparing to attack across the border and use American kit to do so.

”If someone’s shooting at you, then certainly this gives them the opportunity to counter-fire,” Austin said.

The rules haven’t totally changed. Ukraine only has permission to shoot across the border around Kharkiv and can’t use longer range weapons to hit inside Russia.

“Our policy with respect to long-range strike into Russia has not changed,” Austin said.

His comments came at a press conference after the Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia’s largest defense summit. While there, Austin met with Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy, who addressed the crowd and later discussed the policy change in front of reporters.

“Is that sufficient, no,” Zelenskyy said.

While thankful for the change, he argued that there are still too many airfields in Russia that can safely launch attacks into Ukraine. To wit, Moscow has been pounding Kharkiv and other cities with glide bombs, or dumb bombs tweaked to be more precise. These are notoriously difficult to intercept, and many are dropped from aircraft based farther into Russia than the Kharkiv region.

Still, speaking with Defense News earlier in the conference, Estonia’s Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur said he doubted Russia will be able to take the city.

But that’s little comfort to Ukraine, Pevkur said. The new offensive has pinned more Ukrainian soldiers to one part of a sprawling 600-mile front.

“The end goal, from the Ukrainian point of view, is the same,” Pevkur said.

Standing near the press, Adm. Dong Jun smiled. And to a member of the American delegation, he described the best place in China, in his opinion, to go see pandas. It was diplomacy in action.

Two days later, Dong had a different tone.

He gave a stern, at times strident, speech on the last day of the Shangri-La Dialogue, a defense summit in Singapore that draws officials from across the region. Dong warned that those who support independence for Taiwan — a rogue province in the eyes of China’s leaders — will face “self-destruction.”

At another point, he said that the odds of “peaceful reunification” with the island nation are “eroding.”

These two points in time were representative of China’s goals for the summit — and by extension the reputation it may be seeking in the region. It appears China came to reassure other countries it is acting responsibly; after all, it did resume top military talks with the U.S..

But at the same time, it sent a message of enforcement — specifically regarding its interests in Taiwan and the South China Sea. After facing criticism from regional neighbors during the summit, Dong’s speech showed China’s hardened position on sensitive topics.

“That was the most consistently intimidating speech we’ve heard from China at a Shangri-La Dialogue,” Rory Medcalf, head of the National Security College at Australian National University, wrote on X.

‘Greater scrutiny’

A U.S. official agreed with the post, calling the speech “tone deaf.”

“Countries across the region and around the world continue to have serious concerns about coercive [Chinese] activities in the East and South China seas, in the Taiwan Strait, and beyond,” the official said on the condition of anonymity, due to the sensitivity of the topic.

The reference was to China’s military activities around the Second Thomas Shoal, a reef in the South China Sea on which the Philippines has an outpost. China and the Philippines are among several nations asserting sovereignty over local geographic features.

Chinese Coast Guard vessels have spent months harassing Philippine vessels during resupply missions — at times firing water cannons and disabling ships.

Two days before Dong spoke, Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. warned he would consider the death of any Filipino due to such behavior an act of war. That decision could pull the U.S., which has a mutual defense treaty with Manila, into a conflict.

But Marcos wasn’t the only speaker with harsh words for China at the conference. Austin repeated Pentagon talking points that conflict isn’t “imminent or unavoidable.”

And Australia’s defense minister, Richard Marles, said: “As China steps up to a larger role, it must accept, like all great powers, that there will be much greater scrutiny on the way it uses its strength.”

Two years ago, after then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., visited Taiwan, China ended military talks with the U.S. The break worried some attending last year’s Shangri-La Dialogue, when China’s defense minister at the time had declined an offer to meet with American defense officials.

Those talks restarted after a summit with U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping in November, and Dong spoke at length about the value of communication during his remarks.

“The Chinese military never acts from the position of strength in his relations with foreign militaries,” Dong said. “At the same time, others should not expect to impose their will on us.”

Words and actions

But as one audience member pointed out to Dong during a Q&A session, those signals often don’t match China’s actions.

The week before the conference, China launched a series of military drills around Taiwan, responding to a speech from the island nation’s new president, who some in Beijing view as a pro-independence official. China labeled these exercises a “punishment.”

In his speech, Dong cited “external interfering forces,” a euphemism for the U.S. and other allied countries, for tension in the South China Sea and Taiwan.

After his speech, the minister wouldn’t address questions about China’s role in the Russia-Ukraine war nor the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip. He did, however, speak for more than 10 minutes straight about those he claimed are seeking Taiwanese independence “incrementally.”

“They keep testing China’s red lines,” he said, referencing arms sales and “official engagements,” likely a reference to the members of Congress who recently visited the island.

When the moderator at the conference took several critical questions from the crowd, Dong tried a quick joke.

“I can feel the charm of the Shangri-La Dialogue,” he said.

Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy entered to this welcome of cameras and cell phones, wearing his usual T-shirt and fatigue-style pants. The next day, he gave the summit’s final address, casting Ukraine as a global country and Russia’s full-scale invasion as a war of global concern.

“We found ourselves in a war that affects everyone,” he said.

Zelenskyy’s surprise arrival marked the second year of a trend. The Shangri-La Dialogue is Asia’s top defense summit, but since 2022, it’s become more European as officials from the continent see Russia’s war as an omen.

“Europe has woken up about the fact that despite the great geographical distance of the Taiwan Strait to Europe, that the impact [of a war] on Europe’s economy would be enormous,” said Bonnie Glaser, an expert on China at the German Marshall Fund.

And yet, despite this concern, it’s not clear that many Asian officials see the same warning — or that Ukraine is even the war they care about the most right now. Israel’s campaign against the terrorist group Hamas in Gaza matters more to some countries in the region calling for a ceasefire.

There lies the tension with Zelenskyy’s visit. U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin the day before described a “new convergence” of countries in the Indo-Pacific that share a set of ideals, such as respect and sovereignty. European officials visiting Singapore share many of those values and are growing more attentive to the region. But the two region’s security concerns are still far from converging.

‘An interest in this region’

Austin himself made this connection in his speech the day before Zelenskyy’s.

The U.S. calls China its top challenge and Austin’s speech reiterated that hierarchy. And yet, while answering questions after his address, Austin pointed to the many European officials in the crowd.

“They’re not in the room because I invited him,” he said. “They’re in the room because they have an interest in this region.”

Countries such as the Netherlands and Germany have temporarily deployed ships to the Indo-Pacific, with a Dutch frigate transiting the Taiwan Strait just before the conference began. Britain also has a more enduring commitment to the region now as part of the AUKUS defense pact, an agreement with the U.S. on nuclear-powered submarines and advanced technology.

Zelenskyy’s arrival was like a crescendo atop these different notes.

Austin met with him and a group of Ukrainian defense officials on the sidelines of the conference. According to a Pentagon readout, they discussed U.S. assistance and pledged to stay at Ukraine’s side. Zelenskyy later wrote on the social media app X that the two discussed air defense and the delivery of F-16 fighter jets, among other issues.

Meanwhile, Austin and others at the conference had already been linking Asian and European interests in reference to China, where companies have supported Russia’s defense industry throughout the war. In a meeting with Chinese Minister of National Defense Adm. Dong Jun, Austin warned that there would be consequences if Chinese companies continued that support.

“He said quite clearly that if China’s support for Russia’s defense sector continues, then the United States with our allies will have to take further measures,” a senior American defense official told reporters afterward, declining to elaborate further.

A linkage?

Several countries in the region also see their interests in Europe.

Japan, Australia and South Korea are among the countries that have supported Ukraine during the war, whether through aid, sanctions or equipment. Taiwan sees Russia’s invasion as a potential harbinger of a potential attack from China, which considers the island a rogue breakaway province.

“This was a topic of conversation in all of our meetings in Taiwan, whether or not we stand by Ukraine,” said Sen. Chris Coons, D-De., who co-chaired a congressional delegation to the island and then Singapore, in an interview.

But not all countries in the region agree with this linkage.

“Taiwan is not Ukraine and neither is China Russia,” said Singapore defense Minister Ng Eng Hen in a speech just before Zelenskyy’s.

And while many of the speakers referenced Ukraine, the war in Gaza also loomed over the conference. The president-elect of Indonesia, which has a large Muslim population, said his country was ready to send a peacekeeping force to the strip to maintain a ceasefire. The first question Zelenskyy got after his speech was about Ukraine’s stance on Israel.

Notwithstanding, Zelenskyy continued to argue that the audience should care about Russia’s war. His speech described the conflict as global, discussing partners supporting Kyiv from outside NATO and also the effects of Russia’s aggression elsewhere, such as the food scarcity it created for northern Africa.

“We need the support of Asian countries,” Zelenskyy argued.

That doesn’t mean he expects more countries to send Ukraine weapons. In a Q&A after his speech, he mentioned a “peace summit” Ukraine is holding in Switzerland later in June as an example of non-military ways to contribute. That said, he didn’t seem to be taking it for granted.

Ending his speech, he thanked Singapore for the invitation to the conference, and then he addressed the crowd.

“Thank you for your attention,” Zelenskyy said.

The comment came in reference to a question about Second Thomas Shoal, a reef in the South China Sea where the Philippines have an outpost. Despite a 2016 UN ruling to the contrary, Beijing claims ownership over the territory and has harassed Filipino vessels resupplying the base each month. That harassment has included the firing of water cannons and ramming of a Filipino vessel.

But were that aggression to result in the death of a Filipino citizen, Marcos said, it would be “very, very close to what we define as an act of war.”

That’s more than semantics.

The Philippines and America have a mutual defense treaty, dating back to the 1950s. Partly for that reason, China’s behavior around the reef has been in the “gray zone,” or activity that falls short of full conflict. Beijing uses its Coast Guard rather than its Navy to intercept Filipino vessels. And while those forces have injured Filipinos, they haven’t killed anyone.

The question then is what Manila defines as an act of war instead of harassment — and hence what could spark a war between the U.S. and China.

“Almost certainly, it’s going to be a red line,” Marcos said of a situation in which Chinese forces kill a Filipino citizen.

Asked after his speech later in the weekend whether the U.S. would also consider that an act of war, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said he wouldn’t speculate on hypothetical situations.

“I will continue to emphasize that our commitment to the mutual defense treaty is ironclad,” Austin said.

The keynote address was a high platform for Marcos, and the Philippines more broadly. Manila is playing a larger role in the region’s security as it deepens its security ties with Washington and other like-minded countries, such as Japan and Australia.

There’s no more unifying issue for that coalition than the South China Sea, said Greg Poling, an expert on Southeast Asia at the Center for International and Strategic Studies.

“The South China Sea, in one way or another, resonates with pretty much all U.S. allies and partners — even those outside the region — because it’s a question overall law,” Poling said. “Everyone agrees that China’s in the wrong.”

This story has been updated with comments from Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.

Signing the agreement on the U.S. side was Doug Beck, head of the Defense Innovation Unit, which helps the Defense Department adopt commercial-style technology.

In line with that mission, the new memorandum of understanding commits the two countries to cooperate on adopting tech that has both commercial and military uses. The main areas of focus for this work will be on maritime security and counter-drone systems, according to a Defense Department statement.

Part of the agreement will include “joint challenges” for counter-drone tech launched from ships, while another portion focuses on making systems resilient to jamming and other electronic warfare capabilities. The challenges are a way to kick-start the two countries’ work, Beck said in an interview.

The dates for each challenge aren’t set, but Beck said the goal is to start them both in about a month. The U.S. and Singapore will agree on the specific goals and criteria, and then allow companies from either country to apply. From there, the U.S. and Singapore will decide what kind of contracting tool they want to use to buy the offerings.

“That’ll yield winners that will then go into each of our systems,” he said.

These challenges resemble one held earlier this year by the U.S., the U.K. and Australia as part of AUKUS, a defense pact focused on nuclear-powered submarines and other advanced technology. The AUKUS competition allows defense companies from all three countries to compete around a problem focused on electronic warfare.

Alongside Beck, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met with Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue, a security summit that draws officials across the Indo-Pacific. The event is hosted by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies think tank.

One of the U.S. government’s top messages at the conference — as it has been during President Joe Biden’s term — has been linking America’s defense industry with other countries.

In the last several years there have been multiple agreements to do so. General Electric agreed last year to manufacture fighter jet engines in India for the country’s Air Force. Japan and the U.S. agreed to work together on the development of glide-phase interceptors, which are meant to counter hypersonic missiles. And under AUKUS, American and Australian defense companies are working closely together.

Such co-development has become a higher priority amid the war in Ukraine, which has highlighted issues in America’s own ability to surge production of key weapons as well as innovate against the latest challenges, including electronic warfare.

Beck said the first time he spoke with partners in Singapore was last fall, shortly after he took his current job. He cited this agreement, seven months later, as evidence of how fast the partnership could move.

“We said let’s make something happen,” Beck said.

According to a Pentagon readout of the meeting, Austin and Chinese Defense Minister Adm. Dong Jun discussed Chinese military activities around Taiwan, U.S. operations in the region, North Korea, and China’s stance on Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Senior U.S. defense officials, briefing reporters after the conversation, said Austin also discussed China’s “strategic capabilities” in regard to space and cyberspace as well as nuclear weapons. In the last several years, Beijing has grown its nuclear arsenal, more than doubling the number of warheads since the start of the decade, according to the Pentagon’s analysis.

Top American officials have been warning China for months that continued support for Russia’s defense industry — one of the main reasons Moscow has been able to quickly reconstitute its military — is unacceptable to Washington.

That message appeared again in this meeting, one of the American officials said.

“He [Austin] said quite clearly that if China’s support for Russia’s defense sector continues, then the United States with our allies will have to take further measures,” according to the official, who didn’t explain what those consequences would be.

Austin and Dong spoke on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue, a defense summit in Singapore that draws officials from across Asia. Austin has attended the event each year in his current role — except for a yearlong pause during the coronavirus pandemic — while the U.S. tries to work with more countries in the region, and do so more closely.

The Pentagon’s approach to the Indo-Pacific under the Biden administration has been defined by this kind of team building. The department has expanded defense agreements with Australia, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea and India, among other nations. It has also been able to convince existing allies, in particular Japan and South Korea, to improve their cooperation.

China’s military activities in the region are partly driving these efforts.

China has repeatedly harassed Philippine vessels trying to resupply an outpost on the Second Thomas Shoal — a reef in the South China Sea that China claims ownership over, despite a 2016 United Nations ruling stating otherwise. China and the Philippines are among several nations asserting sovereignty over local geographic features.

China has also grown more aggressive around Taiwan, running a large military exercise around the island weeks before the conference here. China’s government considers Taiwan a rogue province and has threatened to take it back by force.

Until late last year, China’s military was conducting what the Pentagon called a series of “unsafe and unprofessional” intercepts of U.S. and allied forces. That stopped late last year after President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping met in California.

Will Austin’s meeting make a difference?

Austin’s meeting with Dong is meant to help improve what some in the region consider an overly tense relationship. Beijing severed military communication with the United States after then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., visited Taiwan in 2022. Since Biden and Xi spoke, the two countries have restarted such talks.

Austin and Dong spoke over the phone in April — the first time they talked. Dong is China’s third defense minister in as many years amid a purge of top military officials due to corruption in the People’s Liberation Army.

Last year at the same conference, China’s former defense minister declined an offer to meet with Austin, leading to a short handshake between the two. Even though communications have restarted, the lack of agreement between America and China overall often leaves little to talk about.

“I expect that very little will come out of it,” Bonnie Glaser, an expert on Sino-U.S. relations at the German Marshall Fund, said of the Austin-Dong summit. “I think it will be an exchange of talking points.”

Still, Glaser noted it’s good the two sides are engaging each other, a point echoed by the American officials traveling with Austin.

Per the readout, Austin and Dong discussed restarting communication between their two countries’ top military officers in the region — the head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command and China’s eastern and southern theater commanders.

The conversation also included mention of a Sino-U.S. “crisis-communications working group” that would convene by the end of the year.

A separate issue is candor, a second American official said, referencing China’s space, nuclear and cyber capabilities.

“It’s continuously been a challenge to engage on those issues,” the official noted.

Both Austin and Dong will speak at the conference over the weekend, a symbol of the relationship defining Indo-Pacific security. The International Institute for Strategic Studies, the think tank that hosts the Shangri-La Dialogue, released its annual report on the region ahead of the event. In it, experts warned of a “draining decade” marked by competition between the two superpowers that is spilling out beyond issues of security.

To that end, conversations only have so much value, the first American official noted. China “remains the Department of Defense’s pacing challenge, and no meeting will change that.”

The year before, Congress had for the first time allowed the Defense Department to ship its own stocks to the island nation — up to $1 billion each year. But lawmakers didn’t offer funding to replace those stocks. To some in the Pentagon, it was like being asked to donate to a food bank without a grocery budget.

So as lawmakers quizzed witnesses about how to better support Taiwan, officials repeated their request for funding.

“There is no money,” Ely Ratner, head of Pentagon policy for the Indo-Pacific region, said during the 2023 hearing.

But there is now: In April, Congress passed a $95 billion defense bill, with about $4 billion in potential Taiwan aid. Nearly half of that chunk is for replacing donated stocks.

The challenge now is for the Pentagon to deliver.

This week, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin flew to Singapore for the Shangri-La Dialogue, a security forum that draws leaders from across the region and beyond. His schedule includes a meeting with his counterpart in China, which recently ran large military exercises around Taiwan — a rogue breakaway province in the eyes of leadership in Beijing.

As Austin travels, the Pentagon’s system used for sending aid to Taiwan is working through another cycle. To accelerate that process, Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks had formed a senior integration group for the Asian nation in 2022. The secretive group, which gathers a cross-section of Pentagon leaders, met last week, according to a congressional aide.

Defense News spoke to sources in Congress, the Pentagon and think tanks, as well as former government officials, to understand the future of U.S. support to Taiwan. Many spoke on the condition of anonymity, either because they weren’t permitted to talk to the press or were discussing sensitive topics. Collectively, they described a moment of urgency for both sides — to harden Taiwan’s defenses and to prove that the Pentagon can quickly act when given the chance.

“The whole idea is for these guys [Taiwan] to … deter, and if deterrence is not an option, to be able to hold their own for a period of time,” a senior American defense official said. “Waiting until after the fact is not necessarily helpful.”

‘We have the authority’

Months before Ratner testified, Austin visited Capitol Hill for a different hearing. Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, asked the secretary about the Pentagon’s new ability to draw down stocks for Taiwan.

“We have the authority,” Austin said. “We’ll need the appropriations as well.”

Around the time Austin spoke, the Defense Department was using that authority to plan its first round of aid. The president signed this package — valued at $345 million — in the spring though it wasn’t announced until the summer, and the administration didn’t identify the weapons included.

This left $655 million worth of its own stocks that the U.S. could still send. For a time, the Pentagon considered providing more and started planning another package, congressional aides and former officials told Defense News.

But it never happened.

“As we started to build some of the options for subsequent drawdown tranches, it just got harder and harder institutionally,” one former defense official said. “There was a lot of friction because the bureaucracy felt they were being spun into a full cycle of work without any money.”

Most of this friction came from the services, according to this former official and a second congressional aide. In particular, the Navy and Air Force were concerned that sending more equipment would harm America’s own military readiness in the Pacific.

The U.S. government doesn’t recognize Taiwan as an independent country and won’t officially commit to its defense. Still, they share close ties and work together on a long list of arms Taiwan has ordered from American companies — including $19 billion in foreign military sales.

U.S. President Joe Biden said multiple times early on in office that America would aid Taiwan if the island comes under attack. Indeed, China has prepared for U.S. involvement during military exercises, as Ratner noted in his testimony last fall.

The concerns over readiness aren’t overwrought. Were China to attack Taiwan and the U.S. to join the fight, America would likely be short on many of the weapons that U.S. Indo-Pacific Command says it needs.

Later in the year, according to the first congressional aide and another source familiar with the discussions, Austin froze Taiwan packages amid a lack of replenishment money from Congress. The choice, according to multiple sources, went against the preference of the White House and some in the State Department, who preferred the U.S. send more packages.

‘A million different things’

Because drawing down stocks is the fastest way to arm U.S. partners, the moratorium halted short-term aid to Taiwan. The choice also belied the importance senior Pentagon leaders had given the issue.

In late 2022, according to multiple sources who cautioned they couldn’t recall the exact date, Hicks formed a senior integration group for Taiwan, known in the Defense Department as SIG-T.

Its purpose is to focus all the relevant leaders in the Pentagon on a single issue — in this case, support for the island nation. It includes membership from the services, Indo-Pacific Command, acquisition and sustainment offices, policy offices, and other entities in the Defense Department. They meet regularly and report to Hicks.

When it was formed, there had only been two other such groups — one for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and another in response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. This was the first time the Pentagon used the model for a partner not at war.

The Defense Department has not publicly spoken about the group. However, Gen. CQ Brown mentioned it in written testimony provided last year during his hearing to become chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

In a statement to Defense News, a spokesman for Hicks didn’t acknowledge SIG-T and declined to discuss how the Pentagon coordinates support to Taiwan, except to say that it follows the government’s decades-long policy toward the island.

The benefits of the group are twofold: It brings the Pentagon’s offices responsible for Taiwan aid to the same table, and it ensures that table includes Hicks, who can overcome the sluggishness of bureaucracy.

But the second congressional aide said the group’s emphasis on material support has involved opportunity costs. Preparing Taiwan to defend itself is an enormous task, one that goes far beyond hardware. It would need to prepare stockpiles of medical equipment and food as well as fortify infrastructure. The aide argued that the group’s focus on drawdowns, which were eventually paused, meant losing time on these related problems.

“At the end of the day, with Taiwan, there’s a million different things that we should be doing at the same time,” the aide said.

Money moves

That criticism is less relevant now, given the $4 billion included in the national security supplemental passed in April.

Of the $1.9 billion funding for replenishment, the top priority is to replace stocks sent last year, multiple sources said. Because new equipment costs more — the markup is about 20% for weapons sent to Ukraine, per the Pentagon — the Defense Department has closer to $1.5 billion than $2 billion to send new kit.

This aid will likely move faster, since the Pentagon already has a set of priorities. Drawdown packages rely on homework done by Indo-Pacific Command, which has sent the Pentagon a list of what Taiwan needs the most.

The top goals in this list, unlike those on order via foreign military sales, are for smaller-end assistance, such as munitions, mines, drones, training and sustainment, according to multiple sources.

“It’s not really the level of spending that would allow you to purchase a lot of new major platforms,” said Randy Schriver, who led Pentagon policy for the Indo-Pacific region under the Trump administration and now runs the Project 2049 Institute think tank.

The other half, or $2 billion, included in the supplemental is for foreign military financing. This cash assistance helps Taiwan buy military equipment, but does not help speed up the slowly moving $19 billion worth of U.S. arms that Taiwan has already ordered — an invoice that mainly includes large platforms like F-16 fighter jets.

“It’s going to take a very long time for that [financing] to turn into actual capability,” said Zack Cooper, who studies the Indo-Pacific region at the American Enterprise Institute think tank.

Limitations

Last week, after a speech from Taiwan’s incoming president, China launched a bout of military drills around the island, calling them “punishment” exercises.

U.S. officials condemned the drills, which ended over the weekend. But the military activity was a reminder of how fast the situation around Taiwan can escalate as well as the challenges the U.S. government faces in regard to the island.

The first issue is logistical. Taiwan has a smaller military than that of the United States, and that limits how much aid it can absorb. Estimates vary on how much the island can usefully accept per year, but Cooper said the dollar value of this limit could be as low as $500 million.

Another issue is strategic. During the Trump administration, the government took a firmer approach to Taiwan’s defense planning, multiple sources told Defense News. In the past, the military preferred to buy large platforms, such as fighter jets and tanks, and the U.S. used to defer to those orders. But it doesn’t anymore.

Instead, Washington is now urging Taiwan to take an “asymmetric” approach, or one focused almost solely on denying China’s ability to invade. Some in Taiwan chafe at this strategy because it gives them fewer options when China uses tactics that fall short of an actual war — like scrambling fighter jets in the island’s airspace.

The other challenge is political.

Sino-U.S. relations suffered after then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., visited Taiwan in 2022. China severed military talks, and when Austin attended the Shangri-La Dialogue last year, his sole interaction with the Chinese defense minister was a handshake and brief exchange of words.

Since a summit between Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping last fall, the relationship has improved — or at least plateaued. But it’s still fragile.

Meanwhile, some in Washington have grown increasingly concerned about a short-term conflict with China and are calling for the U.S. to surge defense spending in the Pacific, including aid to partners like Taiwan.

“If you have a democracy that’s so critical to us and many of the other countries in the world that [are] facing an existential crisis in single-digit years, what more would you do?” said retired Rear Adm. Mike Studeman, former chief of the Office of Naval Intelligence.

The balance between hardening these defenses and reassuring China is a delicate one. But it’s not like America’s partner in question doesn’t have practice, said Rupert Hammond-Chambers, head of the US-Taiwan Business Council.

“They’ve been living with this threat for decades,” he said.

Correction: A previous version of this story erroneously described the Pentagon’s Foreign Military Financing program, which is essentially cash assistance.