China is becoming a bigger threat to the U.S. as it boosts military spending by billions.
"The military is using its influence to get a larger and larger share of the resources of the Chinese regime," Gatestone Institute Senior Fellow Gordon Chang told host Maria Bartiromo on "Mornings with Maria" Monday.
"The fact is that China is a surveillance state. It's like a 1984 state, totally dictatorial," former Senator Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., also chimed in. "And unfortunately, that's made it more difficult for us to deal with the Chinese."
Lieberman made the reference to George Orwell’s social dystopian novel about the "Big Brother" surveillance state as China prepares to boost military spending by 7.2% this year, up nearly $16 billion from 2022.
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Despite its military growth, China's Ministry of Finance set its growth target to 5% on Sunday, marking the lowest expectation in more than 25 years, The Wall Street Journal reported. The modest target reflects China coming to grips with reality after falling well short of its 5.5% growth target in 2022, with the country only reaching 3%.
"We're seeing really a change in investment attitudes, and part of it is because [of] China's poor economic performance. They reported 3.0% GDP growth last year, but because they were fooling with the inflation numbers, it was more like -3%," Gordon explained.
"The 7.2% increase contrasts with the growth target of only around 5%," the "The Great U.S.-China Tech War" author continued, "but people in China know that they're not going to really grow 5%. So that shows the increasing importance of the Chinese military in the political system."
That military involvement and control, Lieberman argued, pushes China’s progress toward democracy and human rights on a downward trend.
"During the '90s, we entered into trade agreements with China, which were beneficial to both countries," the former senator recalled, "Xi Jinping, the current president, has totally turned that around. The Chinese Communist Party is increasingly dominant in all sections of the society in China, including the economic section… the fact is that China is a surveillance state."
Lieberman suggested geopolitically breaking China away from their own allied interests with Russia and Iran.
"They're strong enough to challenge us, but our goal should be to manage this relationship so we don't let them take advantage of us, but also that we don't get into a war with them that we can avoid," he said. "That would be bad for us and bad for them."
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China has reserved to a "primitive" stage of its history, the senator further pointed out, making it nearly impossible to have an "honest, productive" relationship with one of America’s top adversaries.
"We're in for a period of real challenge and, therefore, we have to continue to keep our militaries strong, not let them take advantage of us economically and try to bring them back to some sort of peaceful relationship with us if not a real harmony and an alliance," Lieberman said.
FOX Business’ Anders Hagstrom contributed to this report.
