China close to matching US spending on ‘new way of war’, Republican senator warns

The United States is lulling itself into a “sense of false security” over its military rivalry with China, according to a Republican senator who called for more spending on modern warfare systems and closer cooperation with allies.

Speaking at the Hudson Institute after a recent trip to Japan and South Korea, Dave McCormick, a Pennsylvania senator and West Point graduate, claimed up to 90 per cent of US defence spending funded decades-old equipment and technologies.

“We convince ourselves; we lull ourselves into a sense of false security,” he said.

Although China’s total defence budget was significantly lower than the US one, McCormick said China’s spending “on the new way of war … is much more comparable”.