• Hegseth meets Dong on Malaysia summit sidelines.
• Trump touts improved ties, tariff deal outline.
• Beijing urges policy-level dialogue to build trust.

US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Saturday that during talks with his Chinese counterpart, the two sides had agreed to reboot military-to-military links to “deconflict and deescalate”.

Hegseth met with China’s Defence Minister Dong Jun on the sidelines of a regional summit in Malaysia, a day after leaders Xi Jinping and Donald Trump held talks in South Korea.

“I just spoke to President Trump, and we agree — the relationship between the United States and China has never been better,” Hegseth said in a post on X, adding that he had spoken with Dong again since their face-to-face meeting.

“The Admiral and I agree that peace, stability, and good relations are the best path for our two great and strong countries,” he said, touting a path of “strength, mutual respect, and positive relations.”

The Pentagon chief said Dong and he “also agreed that we should set up military-to-military channels to deconflict and de-escalate any problems that arise.”

Such channels have existed for years but at times fallen out of use.

“We have more meetings on that coming soon,” Hegseth said without elaborating.

There was no immediate comment from Beijing.

According to a Chinese defence ministry readout of their meeting in Malaysia, Dong had told Hegseth the countries should “strengthen policy-level dialogue to enhance trust and dispel uncertainty”, and build a bilateral military relationship “characterised by equality, respect, peaceful coexistence and stable positive momentum.”

Last week, Trump said he had agreed to reduce tariffs on China to 47% in exchange for Beijing resuming US soybean purchases, keeping rare earths exports flowing and cracking down on the illicit trade of fentanyl.

His remarks came after face-to-face talks with Xi in the South Korean city of Busan, their first since 2019, marked the finale of Trump’s whirlwind Asia trip on which he also touted trade breakthroughs with South Korea, Japan and Southeast Asian nations.

Chinese President Xi Jinping gifted South Korea’s President Lee Jae Myung a pair of Xiaomi smartphones and jokingly urged him to “check if there’s a backdoor,” during a state visit on Saturday that capped the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum.

Lee hosted Xi at a state summit and dinner after the APEC leaders’ meeting in the South Korean city of Gyeongju, marking Xi’s first visit to the US ally in 11 years.

The choice of the gift — China-made Xiaomi devices brought to the home country of smartphone giant Samsung Electronics — underscored Xi’s technological ambitions, recently reinforced in China’s economic development plan for the next five years.

After Lee presented Xi with “the finest” wooden board for the ancient strategy game Go, the pair walked over to the smartphones wrapped in black boxes, and an official noted the displays on the devices were made in South Korea.

Lee lifted one of the boxes and looked at it. He then asked Xi: “How is the communication security?”, upon which Xi and other gathered officials erupted in laughter. Xi then pointed at the phones and responded: “You can check if there’s a backdoor.”

A backdoor risk refers to a hidden method of bypassing normal authentication or security controls.

Both leaders laughed and Lee clapped his hands as they proceeded with the presentation of gifts, which also included a traditional Korean mother-of-pearl inlay lacquered tray.

Xi’s comment harkened back to concerns expressed by China over a US proposal for advanced chips sold abroad to be equipped with tracking and positioning functions that prompted US chipmaker Nvidia to say its chips had no “backdoors”.

China’s foreign ministry and Xiaomi did not immediately respond to Reuters‘ requests for comment on the exchange. Lee’s office said it had no separate comment on Xi’s gifts.

At the summit, Lee sought Xi’s help in efforts to resume talks with nuclear-armed neighbour North Korea, while Xi told Lee he was willing to widen cooperation and jointly tackle the challenges they face.

In other recent off-the-cuff remarks by Xi, a hot mic caught the Chinese leader and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussing organ transplants and the possibility that humans could live to 150 years at a military parade in Beijing in September.

US President Donald Trump on Saturday warned that he could send the military into Nigeria if the killings of Christians by Islamist groups are not stopped.

In a social media post, Trump said he asked the Pentagon to map out a potential plan of attack and warned that any action would be “fast, vicious, and immediate.”

He stated, “If the Nigerian government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the U.S. will immediately halt all aid and may take direct military action against the Islamic terrorists committing these atrocities.”

Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth confirmed Trump’s statement, saying, “The Department of War is preparing for action. Either Nigeria protects Christians, or we will target the perpetrators.”

Trump had claimed on Friday, without evidence, that “thousands of Christians are being killed” and blamed “radical Islamists” for the attacks.

US politicians have also criticized the Nigerian government. In March, Congressman Chris Smith called for Nigeria to be designated a “Country of Particular Concern,” a move Trump announced Friday, citing an “existential threat” to Nigerian Christians.

Earlier in October, Senator Ted Cruz and Republican Riley Moore accused the Nigerian government of ignoring the “mass murder” of Christians.

Tolerance

Claims of Christian persecution have also been pushed by some in Nigeria, where ethnic, religious and regional divisions have flared with deadly consequences in the past and still shape the country’s modern politics.

Some US officials argue Christians in Nigeria are facing a “genocide” — a claim that Abuja denies.

“The characterisation of Nigeria as religiously intolerant does not reflect our national reality,” Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu said on social media Saturday after Trump made his CPC announcement.

“Religious freedom and tolerance have been a core tenet of our collective identity and shall always remain so,” Tinubu added.

Nigeria is almost evenly divided between a Muslim-majority north and a largely Christian south.

The country is consumed by security issues. Its northeastern region is at the epicenter of a Boko Haram jihadist insurgency, which has killed more than 40,000 people and displaced more than two million since 2009, according to the United Nations.

In central Nigeria, majority-Muslim herders have repeatedly clashed with majority-Christian farmers. The conflict is frequently portrayed as inter-religious but generally stems from competition over land access.