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Orange Wang

Germany’s defence chief has called on the US to honour its security commitments to the Indo-Pacific and signalled that Berlin will keep raising its military presence in the region.
During his visit to Australia this week, German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius shared concerns about “dangerous activities” in the South China Sea and sounded an alarm over Beijing’s “close” monitoring of Washington and its allies’ management of the Iran and Ukraine conflicts.
“To me, one thing is crystal clear. Without a strong US presence, the Indo-Pacific would be less safe for us and for our allies,” he said in a speech at the National Press Club in Canberra on Thursday.


Pistorius also said that “a truly comprehensive European security approach must comprise Indo-Pacific security as well”.
“Germany will send a maritime patrol aircraft and parts of a sea battalion to the Indo-Pacific in 2027 and 2028,” he said.
Pistorius said his country would again take part this year in the Rim of the Pacific Exercise (Rimpac), the world’s largest biennial international maritime war games.
And Germany will send nine Eurofighters to take part in the Pitch Black 2026 exercise in Australia, which is scheduled for July 20 to August 7.
The German minister expected that those deployments would help “strengthen our relations with a crucial player in the region, the United States”.
His remarks came as US President Donald Trump shifts American foreign policy priorities, elevating the western hemisphere to his main geographic focus and raising anxiety among Washington’s allies about the future of US security commitments elsewhere.
Alongside their European counterparts, capitals from Tokyo to Canberra have been increasingly uneasy with a White House that appears ready to leverage trade tariffs against them and demand steep increases in defence burden-sharing.
On Wednesday, Stephen Biegun, who was US deputy secretary of state from 2019 to 2021, argued that for US allies in Asia, the main concern should not be the policies of Washington but rather the timetable of China’s potential moves in the region.
Speaking at an event hosted by the Lowy Institute think tank in Melbourne, Beigun said he expected that although the Trump administration had found itself “in an inherited proxy war in Europe and with a new war raging in the Middle East” in the short term, those conflicts might in the long run create an “even stronger impetus” for the White House to finally pivot the US away from other theatres to focus on Asia.
“There is no question coming out of the war with Iran, the United States military will have significantly depleted the very capabilities necessary to deter,” he said.
“And if deterrence fails to defend our allies in this region, especially from China, as such, it may be that this current expenditure of America’s capabilities will only add urgency to exiting commitments in Europe and the Middle East.”
Pistorius characterised security in Europe and the Indo-Pacific region as “two sides of the same coin”, arguing that failure to address the challenges in the latter would “undermine the credibility of the international order”.
He noted that Beijing had taken a “cautious but strategic” position towards the conflicts in Ukraine and Iran.
“China is careful not to be directly involved in these wars but it certainly draws conclusions from them for its own ambition and aspirations,” he said. “It is paying very close attention to how the United States and its allies respond to these conflicts, especially to Russia’s war against Ukraine.
“The question to support or not to support Ukraine can also have an impact on Taiwan and the security situation in the Indo-Pacific.”
Germany started its Indo-Pacific deployment in 2021, when for the first time in almost in two decades it sent a warship – the frigate Bayern – to sail through the disputed South China Sea.
In 2024, Berlin dispatched two navy ships to traverse the Taiwan Strait. Pistorius described those moves as showing Germany’s support for “freedom of navigation” and the “rules-based international order”.
According to a joint statement issued on Thursday after Pistorius’ meeting with his Australian counterpart Richard Marles, the two ministers “shared concerns about increasing tensions and the intensification of destabilising and dangerous activities in the South China Sea that endanger lives and risk escalation”.
They also “underscored the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and reaffirmed their shared opposition to any unilateral action to change the status quo”.
Beijing sees Taiwan as part of China to be reunited by force if necessary. Most countries, including the US, Germany and Australia, do not recognise Taiwan as an independent state, but Washington is opposed to any attempt to take the self-governed island by force and is committed to supplying it with weapons.


Pistorius and Marles also spoke about risks in space posed by Beijing and Moscow.
“China and Russia are our direct neighbours – they have enhanced their offensive capabilities in space, they are able to jam, blind or deploy kinetic energy weapons or to destroy satellites. This means we need to be aware of what is going on up there,” Pistorius said.
Australia was the final leg of Pistorius’s nine-day tour to Asia-Pacific. He also visited Japan and Singapore.


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‘To support or not to support Ukraine can also have an impact on Taiwan and the security situation in the Indo-Pacific’: Pistorius


‘To support or not to support Ukraine can also have an impact on Taiwan and the security situation in the Indo-Pacific’: Pistorius.


German defence minister urges strong US presence in Indo-Pacific amid China concerns

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}‘To support or not to support Ukraine can also have an impact on Taiwan and the security situation in the Indo-Pacific’: Pistorius

‘To support or not to support Ukraine can also have an impact on Taiwan and the security situation in the Indo-Pacific’: Pistorius