NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte warned that China is far outpacing the navies of the U.S. and its Western allies in the area of shipbuilding.

"By the way, when it comes to shipbuilding, and our navy, and particularly the U.S. Navy, I'm really worried," Rutte said at the IISS Prague Defence Summit on Thursday morning, September 4.

"Because China now has more ships sailing than the U.S., and shipbuilding in the U.S. is not at a rate that they can anywhere catch up on what China is doing at the moment."

He also said the European shipbuilding market is developing, "but we need much more if we collectively want to fill that gap."

Rutte said there is stronger cooperation between NATO and its partners in the Indo-Pacific—Japan, New Zealand, Australia, and South Korea—because their theater

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