Asia Defense Summit: Leaders Discuss Spending, Asia-Pacific, and Multilateralism

As Asia's premier defense summit wraps up, leaders have put forward perspectives on a range of topics in the defense realm.

Here are some of the most interesting quotes that CNBC has heard during the summit.

On defense spending

Allies who refuse to step up and carry their own weight for our collective defense will face a clear shift in how we do business.

— Pete Hegseth, U.S. Secretary of Defense

You have a choice, you're either on the menu or you're having a seat at the table, and if you don't step up with your defense spending, make sure that you are also delivering, then you will be on the menu, and I don't want the Dutch, the Netherlands be on the menu, I want to have a voice at the table.

— Dilan Yesilgoz-Zegerius, Netherlands Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister

The Philippines is dead set on building its own resilience by increased defense spending by gearing up for acquiring greater capabilities, more lethal deterrence capabilities, building deterrence, and at the same time broadening its alliances.

— Gilberto Teodoro, Philippines National Defence Secretary

The more powerful we are, the more effort we need to spend to reassure others, because ultimately in the defense sector people look at not just capabilities, people look at intention.

— Chan Chun Sing, Singapore Defence Minister

Defense is an important part of maintaining our sovereignty individually as countries, and having the ability to get together to complement each other's capabilities is incredibly important. No one country can do it all alone.

— General Jennie Carignan, Chief of the Defense Staff of Canada

On the Asia-Pacific region

The Asia-Pacific is an open space, and all countries with legitimate interests can have a role to play in contributing to its peace, stability, and development…What the region seeks is neither the mere presence nor absence of any major power. What it seeks is responsible commitment.

— To Lam, President of Vietnam

While a decent peace is our goal, make no mistake, America is a Pacific nation, and we insist that China respect our longstanding position in the region.

— Pete Hegseth, U.S. Defense Secretary

If the one-China principle is upheld, if [there is] no external interference into China's process of national reunification, then Chinese living on the two sides of Taiwan Strait, we would be fully capable of finding a solution and achieve national reunification, and if that comes, I can assure you any instability in the Taiwan Strait will be removed once and for all.

— Cui Tiankai, former Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, China

Some of you may have heard the term "neo-militarism," but nothing [is] further from the truth. Think about it. There is a country that has a huge arsenal of nuclear weapons and strategic bombers. Japan has neither of such weapons, and yet Japan is labeled "neo-militarist." Isn't it strange?

— Shinjiro Koizumi, Japan Defence Minister

[China is] unrepentant with their expansionism and unrelenting, and to deny that would be to be absolutely dishonest... China is not accountable at all, either to their own domestic people, because of the autocratic nature of their government, and they've been non-transparent and actually dishonest in their international engagements.

— Gilberto Teodoro, Philippines National Defence Secretary

On multilateralism

What we are about is seeing the maintenance of the global rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific, and for that matter, around the world… the global rules give a country like Australia, a middle power, agency in a way that a world ruled simply by power and might does not.

— Richard Marles, Australia Deputy Prime Minister

[The U.S. will] be able to do all sorts of things here, whether it's freedom of navigation or disaster response. I do think that there are some opportunities here, and it's nice to see some of our other partners step up in a very multilateral way.

— U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth, Democrat from Illinois

We were told that rules matter, commitments matter, and international norms would apply equally to all nations, regardless of size and power, but today treaties, humanitarian principles, and international commitments are being disregarded and selectively interpreted whenever these do not align with geopolitical interests.

— Mohamed Khaled bin Nordin, Malaysia Defence Minister

The current global security governance mechanisms urgently need reform. Developed countries are overrepresented, while developing countries are severely underrepresented. This does not conform to the trend of the times.

— Major General Meng Xiangqing, Professor, People's Liberation Army National Defence University, China

[China is] definitely losing a chance of dialogue, a chance of dialogue in a time which is contested, which is…dangerous. In my 42 years as a soldier, I've never experienced such dangerous times like we are living in the world as today.

— General Carsen Breuer, Germany Chief of Defence

[The Dialogue] is a great framework for getting together and having pretty decent discussions on security between what's still called the "collective West", but fragmented Asia, because there is no "collective Asia" here anymore.

— Pavlo Klimkin, former Ukrainian minister of foreign affairs