Canada’s Top Soldier Says the West Faces Being Outmatched in Military Defence by China

(Globe&Mail) Canada’s Acting chief of the defence staff Lieutenant-General Wayne Eyre says China’s investments in defence capabilities means the Western military alliance faces the prospect of being technologically outgunned for the first time since the early years of the Second World War.
“This is something of grave concern to me. China is making massive investments into its military capabilities, including new technologies such as hypersonics, such as artificial intelligence, such as quantum computing,” he said in reply to a question from Senator Yonah Martin.
Eyre was asked about China’s expanding military capabilities in the Pacific and whether he was concerned the West was not keeping pace.
“And I would say for the first time since the early 1940s, we, the Western alliance, face a military capability overmatch both in terms of quality and quantity of the type of military capabilities that China is investing in.”
In military terms, an “overmatch” is when the capability of an adversary exceeds its rival’s.
David Perry, vice-president of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, said he does not believe the U.S. military is broadly outgunned by China’s. He said, however, technological spending by Beijing means China is developing capability that outmatches the U.S. in certain areas.