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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Giles Snyder.
China is denouncing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's speech this weekend to an international defense forum in which he warned of threats posed by China.
NPR's Anthony Kuhn reports from Singapore where Hegseth called on allies and partners to increase defense spending.
In a statement on its website,
China's foreign ministry said Hegseth's speech was provocative,
smeared China, and peddled a Cold War vision of confrontation between opposing camps.
In his speech to the annual Shangri-La Dialogue,
Hegseth said, the U.S. is strengthening its deterrence of China by,
for example, deploying anti-ship missiles to the Luzon Strait near Taiwan in April.
China's foreign ministry said the U.S. is turning the Asia-Pacific region into a powder keg,
ignoring the wishes of Asian nations for peace and development.
The ministry says it lodged diplomatic representations with the U.S. over Hegseth's speech.
Anthony Kuhn, NPR News, Singapore.
Three-judge appeals court panel has ruled the Trump administration cannot continue its doge-fueled cuts to the federal government.