Pete Hegseth, the US defence secretary, told the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore on Saturday 30 May that the United States was "more than capable" of resuming strikes on Iran and that its munition stocks were "more than suited" to it1. The Shangri-La Dialogue is Asia's premier annual security summit, where defence ministers across the Indo-Pacific gather each year.
Hegseth tied Hormuz to Taiwan as linked Indo-Pacific concerns and said Trump was "being patient". His speech ran while Trump held the Situation Room meeting in Washington, and the timing read as a coordinated diplomacy-or-force message to allies.
China sent only scholars to the dialogue for the second year running, with no defence minister, and its delegation addressed multilateralism and Taiwan without mentioning Iran2. Beijing chose a visible non-alignment signal at the moment Washington named it the pacing threat and threatened renewed Iran strikes in the same hall.
That posture is consistent with Trump barring China as a custodian for Iran's enriched uranium on Wednesday 27 May, and with Chinese internet hardware now capping Iran's connectivity. Beijing keeps its economic leverage over Iran while declining the diplomatic exposure of defending it.
