U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was in Hawaii this week to meet regional leaders and preside over the ceremony that saw outgoing U.S. Indo-Pacific Command chief Adm. John “Lung” Aquilino hand over command to Adm. Samuel “Pappy” Paparo.

Austin’s meetings and Paparo’s assumption of command of U.S. forces in the Pacific come at a time when several potential geopolitical flashpoints loom large as rival militaries face off across the region from India, the South China Sea and the Korean Peninsula.

But across town at the U.S. federal courthouse, local tensions also were evident as a few dozen demonstrators denounced the ceremony, as a mass-action lawsuit brought by families affected by the Red Hill Water Crisis continued Friday. The crisis began in 2021 shortly after Paparo took command of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, and some families hold him responsible for the Navy’s failings in responding to the crisis.

On Thursday, Austin held a meeting with Australian Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles, who doubles as his country’s minister for defense; Japanese Minister of Defense Kihara Minoru; and Philippine Secretary of Defense Gilberto Teodoro. Austin also met separately with the presidents of the Pacific island nations of Palau and the Federated States of Micronesia, who attended the change-of-command ceremony.

“INDOPACOM is working with our regional allies and partners like never before,” Austin said during the Friday ceremony.

Tensions have simmered in the South China Sea, a critical waterway that more than a third of all international trade travels through. Beijing has claimed the entire sea as its exclusive maritime territory over the objections of neighboring countries. Those tensions lately have been boiling in disputed territories off the coast of the Philippines.

A 2016 international court ruling in favor of the Philippines found that China’s claims had “no legal basis,” but the Chinese military has since doubled down and built bases on disputed islands and reefs, and frequently harassed and attacked Filipino fishermen and maritime workers.

In recent months Chinese ships have escalated those efforts, attacking with water cannons and pushing farther into waters claimed by the Philippines. During the ceremony, Austin said that “the People’s Republic of China continues to engage in increasingly coercing behavior,” noting tensions across the Taiwan Strait, in the South China Sea, in Japan’s disputed Senkaku Islands — which China also claims and calls the Diaoyu Islands — and in the Himalayas, where Chinese and Indian troops have been in a standoff that involved deadly clashes in 2020.

“The PRC is the only country with both the will — and increasingly the capacity — to dominate the Indo-Pacific and to reshape the global order to suit its autocratic vision,” Austin said.

American and Chinese diplomats have worked to lower the temperature. During a webinar hosted in March by the East-West Center in Manoa, U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns expressed cautious optimism, saying, “I think 2023, especially the second half of 2023, led to a relatively more stable relationship between our government in the United States and the government of the People’s Republic of China.”

In April, Austin had his first conversation with China’s current defense minister, Adm. Dong Jun, in a phone call. In a readout after the call, the Pentagon said Austin “underscored the importance of respect for high seas freedom of navigation guaranteed under international law, especially in the South China Sea.” The Chinese Defense Ministry said Dong called for China and the U.S. to explore ways to “get along” and “gradually accumulate mutual trust.”

But during the change of command, Paparo said that “our world faces a complex problem in the troubling actions of the People’s Republic of China and its rapid buildup of forces. We must be ready to answer the PRC’s increasingly intrusive and expansionist claims in the Indo Pacific region. … We’ll strive for the peaceful resolution of any crisis or conflict, but make no mistake, as Lung said, we will be ready to fight any adversary that threatens the peace, security, stability and well- being of the nation and of our allies and partners.”

Aquilino, who at age 62 is the Navy’s “old goat” — the service’s currently longest-serving Naval Academy graduate — is known for his blunt way of speaking and lately has been outspoken about what he sees as serious threats in the region posed by China, North Korea and Russia. But on Friday he surprised many in the audience with the usually stoic figure talking much less than usual about the geopolitical landscape and delivering an unexpectedly emotional speech.

He reflected on the people he served with over the course of his life in the military who lost their lives, rattling off names before telling the audience they were lost “way too early, and that’s a burden that I’ll carry forever.” His voice cracked and he broke into tears as he spoke about “the feeling inside on a combat mission when it came over the radio that there were troops in (combat) who needed air power.”

Aquilino has been a fixture in the Pacific for years, having taken command of the Pacific Fleet in 2018 and succeeding Adm. Phil Davidson as INDOPACOM chief in 2021.

“Adm. Aquilino took command a year into the pandemic, and vaccines were just starting to become available,” said Austin, who noted that under his command the U.S. military delivered “130 million vaccines and other medical supplies from the Philippines to Fiji.” Austin added that “at home you’ve worked hard to keep faith with the people of Hawaii,” noting the defueling of the Navy’s underground Red Hill fuel storage facility.

The facility — which the Navy for years insisted was safe — sits just 100 feet above a critical aquifer most of Oahu relies on for drinking water. In November 2021 a jet fuel spill from the facility tainted the Navy’s water system, which serves 93,000 people. The Navy for months resisted an emergency order to drain the tanks, until in March 2022 Austin announced the facility would be defueled and permanently shuttered.

Aquilino recommended Vice Adm. John Wade, who had been serving as operations officer for INDOPACOM, to lead the defueling effort — which ultimately required extensive repairs to the crumbling World War II-era facility. That mission concluded in March, and the newly formed Navy Closure Task Force Red Hill is overseeing the rest of the shutdown.

The November 2021 spill was the result of a May 6, 2021, leak at the facility that entered its fire suppression system, which was then ruptured by a worker driving a cart — spilling fuel again which entered a water well that served the Navy waterline. Paparo took command of the Pacific Fleet just days before on May 4. After the November incident, Paparo ordered an investigation. The report concluded that “a culture of complacency, lack of critical thinking, and lack of timely communication contributed to those incidents.”

The investigation found that Navy officials who first responded to the November incident did not notify their superiors or state regulators. In the following days, as families reported getting sick and smelling gasoline in the water, the state Department of Health issued a drinking water advisory. Navy officials initially insisted the water was safe and asked the DOH to rescind the notice before acknowledging in December that the water was tainted.

In 2023, attorneys representing the families in the lawsuit attempted to depose Paparo, but a federal judge ruled that the attorneys had not demonstrated Paparo had information they couldn’t get elsewhere and did not have a compelling reason to force his testimony.