Andrew S. Erickson

Matthew Lee and Lolita C. Baldor, “US to Reject Nearly all Chinese claims in South China Sea,” Washington Post, 13 July 2020.
U.S. officials say the Trump administration is poised to… [reject] outright nearly all of Beijing’s significant maritime claims in the South China Sea.
In a move the officials say is expected as early as Monday… […]

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An unclear, but clearly worrisome, future has arrived. Now that Beijing has adopted, and will be implementing, a popularly-opposed National Security Law that effectively invalidates core One Country, Two Systems-promised protections, risks are mounting for Hong Kongers. Under assault: some of their most cherished values and freedoms, and Hong Kong’s much-touted status as Asia’s World City.
Hong […]

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A timely treatment of a vital American interest, one that the Trump Administration has rightly prioritized.
Grant Wyeth, “Why the Compacts of Free Association Matter to Washington,” The Diplomat, 9 June 2020.
With its eyes on China, the United States seeks to reaffirm its presence in the western Pacific.
Last week, virtual meetings were held between officials from the U.S. […]

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The Sino-Indian border dispute is a significant subject with broad ramifications. It is likely to become even more so as the world’s two most populous great powers face growing domestic challenges amid enduring issues of bilateral contention. All too often, however, emerging new data are granular, unclear, and difficult for outside observers to verify. MIT […]

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The clock is ticking toward an unclear, but clearly worrisome, future. As Beijing prepares to implement a popularly-opposed National Security Law that effectively invalidates core One Country, Two Systems-promised protections, risks are mounting for Hong Kongers. Under assault: some of their most cherished values and freedoms, and Hong Kong’s much-touted status as Asia’s World City.
Hong Kong’s […]

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I saw the movie Apollo 13 with him. Now let me tell you the forgotten story of how he and his team helped rescue the astronauts while the world watched and waited…
Andrew S. Erickson, “Apollo 13’s Lifeboat Fifty Years On: Remembering Grumman’s Lunar Module and Program Director Joe Gavin,” China Analysis from Original Sources 以第一手资料研究中国, 15 […]

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In the past two weeks, the number of cases of COVID-19 outside China has increased 13-fold, and the number of affected countries has tripled.  
There are now more than 118,000 cases in 114 countries, and 4,291 people have lost their lives. 
Thousands more are fighting for their lives in hospitals.
In the days and weeks ahead, we […]

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“Remarks by Secretary of Defense Mark T. Esper at the Munich Security Conference,” U.S. Department of Defense, 15 February 2020.
Good morning, it’s a pleasure to be with you today.
I want to thank the Munich Security Conference for inviting me to speak today.
I can see that the event has grown considerably in size and scope since […]

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The pathbreaking exposé of Xinjiang policy under Xi just published by Austin Ramzy and Chris Buckley in The New York Times contains the following reference to a decades-old organization that continues to undergird PRC development and control of the long-repressed region:
“In the 2014 speeches, Mr. Xi had singled out southern Xinjiang as the front line […]

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People often ask how I ended up pursuing the extremely fulfilling, and somewhat esoteric, career that I’m so fortunate to enjoy now. The two-word answer is: “Joe Gavin.” Best known as the Program Director for the Apollo Lunar Module that landed the first—and thus far only—twelve men on the moon, he also happened to be my grandfather. Hearing […]

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China’s Massive 70th Anniversary Military (Missile) Parade: Here’s My Take
Andrew S. Erickson
Paramount leader Xi Jinping just presided over the largest, most impressive military parade in the history of the world. The occasion: to commemorate the seventieth anniversary of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), which just exceeded the Soviet Union’s lifespan by one year. The […]

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Andrew Marshall was a great visionary who inspired and generously supported the research of many others. This included my own early efforts in Chinese-language open source analysis as a Office of Net Assessment-sponsored research fellow at the Naval War College in 2005-06 while completing my Ph.D. on leave from Princeton; and, more importantly, those of […]

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Kyrill “Ky” Korolekno completed his extraordinary life on Saturday 16 March 2019 in Newport, Rhode Island. Those who knew him personally lost a wonderful husband, father, grandfather, friend, and colleague. The U.S. Navy lost a national treasure: a widely patented electrical engineer who over a five-decade career was one of its great innovators in undersea […]

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It’s official! In 2019 China will raise defense spending by 7.5% to 1.19 trillion yuan (about 177.61 billion U.S. dollars). That’s a large increase off an enormous baseline. The official figures were released today at Beijing’s biggest political meetings of the year—the “Two Sessions,” back-to-back meetings of two major PRC political bodies: the nearly-3,000-delegate National People’s […]

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The following publications regarding the People’s Republic of China (PRC)’s rapid development of the world’s largest maritime law enforcement (“Coast Guard”) fleet and key dynamics concerning its force structure are based on far more extensive open source research than can be reflected in the space available for citations within them:

Joshua Hickey, Andrew S. Erickson, and […]

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For analysis of Chinese maritime policy and China Coast Guard development, it simply doesn’t get any better than this. Enjoy this fully updated one-stop library of my colleague Ryan Martinson’s work. It’s well worth reading all 20 of these superb publications!
Ryan D. Martinson, “China’s Far Seas Naval Operations, From the Year of the Snake to […]

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Looking for substantive maritime geostrategic analysis by a top Chinese scholar? Read on!
Zhengyu Wu, “Towards Naval Normalcy: ‘Open Seas Protection’ and Sino-US Maritime Relations,” The Pacific Review (Published online: 14 February 2019).
ABSTRACT
On May 26th, 2015, China published its 10th Defense White Paper which integrated ‘open seas protection’, along with ’offshore waters defense’, into its naval […]

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Never thought I’d have to help build awareness regarding Coast Guard service members’ irreplaceable work, but here we are…
The Coast Guard is a U.S. Armed Service whose uniformed personnel safeguard America’s long sea border and enormous exclusive economic zone, both of which are among the world’s very greatest.
Coastguardsmen have served in every American military […]

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What a difference a decade makes! When the definitive histories of how China became a great sea power in the 21st century are written, an important chapter will surely be devoted to a development that reached the ten-year mark today: China’s deployment of 31-and-counting naval task forces to the Gulf of Aden since 26 December 2008.
A […]

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