CEBU / MANILA - US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will attend a Southeast Asian defence meeting this week alongside his counterparts from India, South Korea and Japan, as Washington looks to solidify ties with the region after a year overshadowed by the fallout from the US-Israel war on Iran, Al Jazeera reported. The talks, known as the ASEAN Defense Ministers' Meeting-Plus (ADMM-Plus), run from Wednesday to Thursday in the Philippines and bring together defence officials from the 11-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) plus eight of the bloc's dialogue partners; Australia, New Zealand, Russia and China are also expected to send representatives.
Source: Al Jazeera, Oct 27, 2026 - Hegseth heads to Manila to shore up US ties with Asia-Pacific partners
Analysts say much of Hegseth's work will be reassuring the bloc and its partners that the US remains committed to the region amid its months-long conflict with Iran. The US has raised eyebrows in Asia over the past year by moving some of its military assets from South Korea and Japan to the Middle East, Al Jazeera reported, while President Donald Trump has sent mixed signals on Taiwan and has reportedly delayed a major arms package to Taiwan ahead of an upcoming meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the APEC summit in November. 'What Hegseth says and does will be interesting,' Ja Ian Chong, a political scientist at the National University of Singapore, told Al Jazeera.
Source: Al Jazeera, Oct 27, 2026 - Hegseth heads to Manila to shore up US ties with Asia-Pacific partners
William Yang, senior analyst for Northeast Asia at the International Crisis Group, told Al Jazeera the focus will be on regional security concerns such as Myanmar's civil war and maritime disputes between ASEAN states and neighbouring China. 'The South China Sea dispute is going to be front and centre because the Philippines is the chair of this year's summit,' Yang said, adding that he expects Manila to push for ASEAN to finalise a code of conduct with China. The Philippines, China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan all have overlapping claims in the South China Sea, and tensions escalated this month with at least 'eight close encounters' in the sea and the nearby Luzon Strait, according to the US Naval Institute, Al Jazeera reported.
Source: Al Jazeera, Oct 27, 2026 - Hegseth heads to Manila to shore up US ties with Asia-Pacific partners
On the sidelines, South Korean Defence Minister Kang Shin-chul and Hegseth will hold their first bilateral talks in Cebu on Wednesday, a day ahead of the ADMM-Plus plenary, Yonhap reported via the Korea JoongAng Daily. Wartime operational control (Opcon) transfer is high on the agenda: Seoul wants to finalise the second phase of a three-stage 'conditions-based' Opcon transition plan and announce a target year for the handover at the annual Security Consultative Meeting in Washington in December, while Washington has expressed reservations about a rushed handover driven by political timelines rather than military readiness, the report said. At the plenary, Kang will also highlight what Seoul calls North Korea's recent land mine provocation near the inter-Korean border - a September 21 blast that injured three South Korean troops, two of them severely, according to the source cited by Yonhap - and call for dialogue to resume.
China's representation is itself a signal. South Korean and Philippine reporting said Beijing announced on Tuesday that the defence attache from the Chinese Embassy in the Philippines would represent China at the ADMM-Plus session in Cebu instead of its defence minister - a notable downgrade from the ministerial level China sent in 2024 and 2025, the Aju Business Daily reported. Al Jazeera, in its earlier reporting, said Beijing had yet to confirm whether Defence Minister Dong Jun would attend in person, and Bonnie Glaser of the German Marshall Fund told the outlet a Hegseth-Dong meeting was still possible and could lay groundwork for later meetings between Trump and Xi. India, for its part, is among the dialogue partners that will hold bilateral meetings on the sidelines to 'review the ongoing defence ties and explore ways to further strengthen strategic partnerships', according to state media cited by Al Jazeera.
The Philippines chairs ASEAN this year and hosts the talks in Cebu while its maritime dispute with China is at its sharpest in years. Washington arrives needing to prove its Asia focus survived a year of war in the Middle East; Beijing arrives at attache level. What Hegseth says - and who he meets - will be read in every capital from New Delhi to Tokyo.