US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth arrives in Manila this week for the ASEAN Defense Ministers' Meeting-Plus carrying a straightforward assignment: convince a room full of defense ministers that Washington still cares about the Indo-Pacific. The task is harder than it sounds. A year of redirecting military assets from South Korea and Japan to the Middle East, mixed signals on Taiwan, and a delayed arms package to Taipei have left the region's security architecture looking like a house with furniture moved out. The meeting brings together the 11 ASEAN members plus eight dialogue partners — including China, Russia, India, South Korea, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. The Philippines chairs this year's summit, which guarantees the South China Sea sits at the center of the agenda. Manila wants ASEAN to finalize a code of conduct with Beijing on maritime disputes, a goal that has eluded the bloc for over two decades. At least eight close encounters between Chinese and Philippine vessels in the South China Sea and Luzon Strait this month alone underscore why. The temperature between Manila and Beijing is running high. Chinese Ambassador Jing Quan publicly stated Beijing could "easily win" a war with the Philippines, prompting a Philippine senator to call for his expulsion. Whether Chinese Defence Minister Dong Jun shows up in person remains unconfirmed, but analysts note he attended in both 2024 and 2025. Hegseth's presence may tip Beijing's calculation toward attendance — a potential Hegseth-Dong bilateral could lay groundwork for two scheduled Trump-Xi meetings later this year at APEC and the G20. The deeper tension, though, is structural. The US has spent the past year drawing down Indo-Pacific presence to fuel its Middle East operations. Trump has reportedly delayed a major Taiwan arms package ahead of the November Xi meeting, sending precisely the signal the region fears: that Taiwan is a bargaining chip, not a commitment. Elbridge Colby's recent comments about shifting from "empty gestures" to "substance" in the Asia-Pacific read differently depending on whether you're in Washington or Taipei. Myanmar's civil war rounds out the regional security docket but is unlikely to command the same bandwidth as the South China Sea. ASEAN's track record on Myanmar — years of ineffective engagement under the "ASEAN Way" of non-interference — makes it a standing agenda item rather than a site of progress. The real action at ADMM-Plus will be in the bilateral margins, where India, Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines each want private reassurance that American commitment extends beyond rhetoric. The US-China dynamic is the subplot that shapes everything. Both sides have spent the past year in a deliberate thaw, and Bonnie Glaser of the German Marshall Fund notes that Beijing has "repeatedly said it attaches importance to strengthening crisis communications" between the two militaries. A Hegseth-Dong handshake would be the most tangible output of the summit — a signal that the military-to-military channel remains open even as the South China Sea heats up. What Hegseth cannot do in two days is reverse the credibility deficit created by a year of asset reallocation and ambiguous Taiwan policy. The region's defense establishments run on capability commitments, not communiqués. As NUS political scientist Ja Ian Chong puts it, keeping a US advantage while calibrating these messages involves tradeoffs that are "not easy." The allies in the room already know that.
