Andrew S. Erickson

China Youth Daily occasionally has in-depth articles not available elsewhere that detail otherwise-obscure aspects of Chinese development of major weapons systems. On pp. 32-33 of my book on China’s anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM) development, for instance, I quote extensively from a fascinating article, published on China Youth Daily’s online portal in 2006 and subsequently removed, […]

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Andrew S. Erickson, “Necessity, Reality: Maintaining Freedom and Peace at Sea,” S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) Commentary CO15235, South China Sea Series, 5 November 2015.
RSIS Commentary is a platform to provide timely and, where appropriate, policy-relevant commentary and analysis of topical and contemporary issues. The authors’ views are their own and do not […]

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Andrew S. Erickson and Austin M. Strange, “Towards ‘Competitive Coexistence’: Building Operational Trust through Maritime Confidence Building Measures and Non-Traditional Security Cooperation,” China International Strategy Review 2015, 115–38.          ONLINE VERSION
［美］安德鲁·埃里克森 ［美］奥斯丁·斯特兰奇 [Andrew S. Erickson and Austin M. Strange], “迈向‘竞争性共存’: 通过海上建立信任措施–与非传统安全合作构建行动互信” [Towards “Competitive Coexistence”: Building Operational Trust through Maritime Confidence Building Measures […]

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Ronald O’Rourke, China Naval Modernization: Implications for U.S. Navy Capabilities—Background and Issues for Congress (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 23 November 2015), RL33153.
Summary
China is building a modern and regionally powerful navy with a limited but growing capability for conducting operations beyond China’s near-seas region. Observers of Chinese and U.S. military forces view China’s improving naval capabilities as posing a potential […]

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Andrew S. Erickson, “Three Military Chapters,” presented at Asan Book Launch: “Assessing China’s Power” Asan Institute at Stimson Center, Washington, DC, 3 December 2015.

Click here to watch on YouTube.
 
edited by Jae Ho CHUNG, Professor of International Relations and Director of the Program on U.S.-China Relations, Seoul National University
 hosted by The Asan Institute for Policy Studies
Date / Time: Thursday, December 3, […]

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“Correspondence: Looking for Asia’s Security Dilemma,” International Security 40.2 (2015), 181-204; Ronan Tse-min Fu, David James Gill, and Eric Hundman respond to Adam P. Liff and G. John Ikenberry’s fall 2014 article, “Racing toward Tragedy? China’s Rise, Military Competition in the Asia Pacific, and the Security Dilemma.”
Ronan Tse-min Fu
Ronan Tse-min Fu is a doctoral candidate […]

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Djibouti… it’s finally official!
U.S. African Command (AFRICOM) Commander General David Rodriguez, U.S. Army, has just confirmed that China has signed a 10-year contract for a military logistics hub in Djibouti. This makes the African desert nation home to Beijing’s first-ever overseas military facility, however modest, or “base” in common parlance. “They are going to build a […]

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Andrew S. Erickson, “Managing U.S.-China Relations? Challenging. Picking a Good Guidebook? Easy: The China Challenge,” The National Interest, 23 November 2015.
If you have trouble viewing the piece, please click here.
Book Review: A unique window into the U.S.-China relationship that should not be missed.
Rigorous, measured, readable scholarship is always in insufficient supply generally. It is particularly […]

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Click here to read the press release accompanying the report’s roll out.
The full text of the report is available here.
Click here to view individual sections of the report.
 
2015 Annual Report to Congress of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, One Hundred Fourteenth Congress, First Session (Washington, DC: USCC, 17 November 2015).
 
Report PDFs: 
2015 Annual Report […]

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Timothy Heath and Andrew S. Erickson, “China’s Turn Toward Regional Restructuring, Counter-Intervention: A Review of Authoritative Sources,” Jamestown China Brief 15.22 (16 November 2015): 3-8.
Note: This piece is based on a longer article published in The Washington Quarterly (Fall 2015, available here).
Beginning after the global financial crisis in 2008, and transforming further with Xi Jinping’s ascent to power in […]

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CAPT (SC) Harry Switzer, USNR (Ret.) and Andrew S. Erickson, “China Maritime Studies Institute,” The Bridge: The Magazine of the Naval War College Foundation 19 (Fall 2015): 9, 32.
In recent years, China’s navy has been launching new ships like dumping dumplings into the broth.” This phrase has circulated widely in Chinese media sources and websites.
To […]

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Since I couldn’t find a single-source location on the Internet, I decided to make my own. Now you can download PDFs of the Department of Defense’s China reports directly by year:
 
2015
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009
2008
2007
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
 
Additionally, here are some highlights from, and analysis of, several of the most recent reports:
2015
Andrew S. Erickson, “What Does the Pentagon Think about China’s Rising […]

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Timothy Heath and Andrew S. Erickson, “Is China Pursuing Counter-Intervention?” The Washington Quarterly 38.3 (fall 2015): 143–56.
The term “counter-invention” has become burdened with conflated meanings and thus controversial in describing aspects of Chinese national and military strategy. Yet, the term should be retained although refined in two ways to help U.S. policymakers and planners devise […]

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Andrew S. Erickson and Conor M. Kennedy, “China’s Daring Vanguard: Introducing Sanya City’s Maritime Militia,” Center for International Maritime Security (CIMSEC), 5 November 2015.

Selected as one of six 2015-16 top-vote-receiving Center for International Maritime Security (CIMSEC) articles from pool chosen by the think tank’s leadership, 24 March 2016.

The following is the first in a five-part series meant to […]

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Christopher P. Cavas, “China’s ‘Little Blue Men’ Take Navy’s Place in Disputes,” Defense News, 2 November 2015.
China using maritime militia to carry out its dirty work in seagoing confrontations
WASHINGTON — When the US destroyer Lassen passed near a newly-built artificial island on Subi Reef in the South China Sea’s Spratly Islands Oct. 27, it was already being […]

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Andrew S. Erickson and Conor M. Kennedy, “Irregular Forces at Sea: ‘Not Merely Fishermen—Shedding Light on China’s Maritime Militia’,” Center for International Maritime Security (CIMSEC), 2 November 2015.

Republished as Andrew S. Erickson and Conor M. Kennedy, “Shedding Light on China’s Maritime Militia,” The Maritime Executive, 3 November 2015.

Maritime militia, dead ahead! In a just-published Defense News article, […]

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Among a growing torrent of writings on U.S. Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPS) in the South China Sea, here are two of the most insightful pieces. Authored by Naval War College China Maritime Studies Institute Director Prof. Peter Dutton and CDR Jonathan Odom of the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies—both of whom have deep knowledge […]

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In a just-published Defense News article, Chris Cavas has made an important contribution to our understanding of the operations and applications of China’s too-long-understudied irregular maritime forces. The forces he describes are almost certainly neither ordinary merchant ship operators nor random fishermen, but rather Chinese Maritime Militia operating in pre-planned roles in conjunction with USS Lassen’s recent FONOP. Coincidence? […]

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What next? How to manage? I suggest the next steps: as China challenges, the United States must keep calm and press on.
Challenging China’s newly assertive behavior in the South China Sea, this week the U.S. Navy sailed some of its biggest ships inside the nine-dash line, exercising its claim to freedom of movement in international […]

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