U.S. Is Positioning Military Assets Around Asia to Counter China, Esper Says

WASHINGTON—The U.S. is equipping and positioning its forces across Asia for a possible confrontation with China, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Tuesday in remarks outlining the military component of the Trump administration’s hardening stance toward Beijing.

Speaking from the Pentagon virtually to the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, Mr. Esper said the U.S. military would continue to send Navy ships into the region to counter China’s expansionary policies, and to sell arms to Taiwan, over which…