Archive | Blog Posts

02 June 2021

PRC Researcher on President Biden’s China Experts (中国通)

David Cowhig, “PRC Researcher on President Biden’s China Experts 中国通,” 高大伟 David Cowhig’s Translation Blog, 29 May 2021.
Reposted with permission. For a cornucopia of fascinating and timely insights, fully accessible in natively-nuanced English, check out David’s many other great translations here!

About 高大伟 David Cowhig
After retirement David Cowhig translated, with his wife Jessie, Liao Yiwu’s 2019 “Bullets […]

Continue Reading

27 May 2021

On the Great Wall with Joe Biden: A Retrospective

On the Great Wall with Joe Biden: A Retrospective
Andrew S. Erickson
As a summer intern at U.S. Embassy Beijing in 2001, I spent a day with then-Senator Biden on the Great Wall and in a nearby village. This afforded an unusual opportunity for extended conversation with him and observation of him interacting with others, particularly Chinese […]

Continue Reading

27 May 2021

Illuminating China Brief Article by Joel Wuthnow: “What I Learned From the PLA’s Latest Strategy Textbook”

Joel Wuthnow, “What I Learned From the PLA’s Latest Strategy Textbook,” Jamestown China Brief 21.11 (25 May 2021).
A must-read! Joel Wuthnow’s analysis of the new (2020) edition of PLA NDU’s Science of Military Strategy, a key PLA textbook. It contains a number of updates in response to PLA reforms, but also suggests a revision to the military strategic […]

Continue Reading

19 May 2021

Official Music Video: 三沙海上民兵之歌 “The Song of the Sansha Maritime Militia”

Open source intelligence pro tip #1: if you’re trying to lurk in the shadows of deniability—however implausible—don’t record and release an official music video!
Zachary Haver just published a blockbuster expose on the Sansha Maritime Militia. Among many revealing details, he mentioned that this vanguard unit of China’s Armed Forces has its own music video.
Immediately below […]

Continue Reading

18 May 2021

In-Depth Multimedia Exposé by Zachary Haver, Radio Free Asia: “Unmasking China’s Maritime Militia”

Zachary Haver, “Unmasking China’s Maritime Militia,” Benar News, 17 May 2021.

China has long denied that it uses maritime militia forces to assert its maritime and territorial claims in the South China Sea, often describing the Chinese vessels clustered around disputed reefs and islets as just fishing boats.
But the paper trail left by the Chinese bureaucracy […]

Continue Reading

17 May 2021

No Ordinary Boats: Cracking the Code on China’s Spratly Maritime Militias

China tends to be much more transparent in Chinese. And careful analysis of open sources can reveal important patterns and insights. Looks like my colleague Ryan Martinson just made an revealing discovery indeed!
Ryan D. Martinson, “No Ordinary Boats: Cracking the Code on China’s Spratly Maritime Militias,” Center for International Maritime Security (CIMSEC), 17 May 2021.

A […]

Continue Reading

08 May 2021

China Is Building Entire Villages in Another Country’s Territory

It’s not often that a single article opens up a major window into a vital, under-studied area. This must-read piece does all that, and more… Be sure to read the fascinating details and view the informative maps and revealing photos—many of which show immediately why there were no substantial “settlements” in the contested but climatically […]

Continue Reading

12 March 2021

U.S. Territories: The Frontlines of Global Competition with China

Must-read analysis by two former officials with top-level experience and expertise!
Alexander B. Gray and Douglas W. Domenech, “U.S. Territories: The Frontlines of Global Competition with China,” RealClearDefense, 11 March 2021.
Alexander B. Gray, a Senior Fellow in National Security Affairs at the American Foreign Policy Council, served on the staff of the National Security Council from 2018 to […]

Continue Reading

24 February 2021

Xinjiang Production & Construction Corps: Key Policy Tool from Mao to Now, Under Xi

People of conscience worldwide recoil in horror at the tragic repression continuing across Xinjiang. Policy-makers of conviction, in the Biden Administration and around the world, are weighing options to respond. To help inform these vital efforts, it is important to revisit just how much Chinese Communist Party’s efforts in Xinjiang have been militarized, securitized, and […]

Continue Reading

10 January 2021

Inspiration in This Time

Never doubt the ability of a heroic individual to make a difference when answering the call of duty.

Officer Eugene Goodman, U.S. Capitol, 6 January 2021

Continue Reading

07 January 2021

Washington, DC Metropolitan Police Department—Persons of Interest in Unrest-Related Offenses on January 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol Grounds

May 2020-January 2021 Unrest-Related Arrests and Persons of Interest
There are peaceful demonstrations in the District of Columbia on a daily basis. The same rules apply for all demonstrations in DC and we welcome anyone to our city who wants to come to exercise their First Amendment rights peacefully. The Metropolitan Police Department will work with […]

Continue Reading

07 January 2021

FBI Seeking Information Related to Violent Activity at the U.S Capitol Building

FBI Seeking Information Related to Violent Activity
at the U.S Capitol Building
https://tips.fbi.gov/digitalmedia/aad18481a3e8f02
The FBI is seeking information that will assist in identifying individuals who are actively instigating violence in Washington, DC. The FBI is accepting tips and digital media depicting rioting and violence in the U.S. Capitol Building and surrounding area in Washington, DC, on January 6, […]

Continue Reading

19 December 2020

Regional Responses to U.S.-China Competition in the Indo-Pacific: Australia and New Zealand

Michael S. Chase and Jennifer D. P. Moroney, Regional Responses to U.S.-China Competition in the Indo-Pacific: Australia and New Zealand RR-4412/1-AF (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2020). 
This report on Australia and New Zealand is part of a project examining the perspectives of U.S. allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific as they formulate and implement their responses to […]

Continue Reading

17 December 2020

The Challenges in Resetting U.S.–Southeast Asia Relations

Ja Ian Chong, “The Challenges in Resetting U.S.–Southeast Asia Relations,” East Asia Forum, 10 December 2020.
Ja Ian Chong is Associate Professor of Political Science at the National University of Singapore.
The incoming Biden administration needs to be ready for a Southeast Asia that is more skeptical of US commitment and careful about Beijing’s reactions. Southeast Asian […]

Continue Reading

20 September 2020

The Joseph Gavin Aerospace Engineering Bookshelf: Centennial Edition

On the centenary of his birth (18 September 1920), I would like to offer a compilation of background research and personal perspectives on one of the space age’s pioneers, Joseph Gleason Gavin, Jr. His life and career interconnected with a bold new era that saw humans transcend their earthly bounds and set foot on another […]

Continue Reading

17 September 2020

Toxic Politics: China’s Environmental Health Crisis and its Challenge to the Chinese State

Yanzhong Huang, Toxic Politics: China’s Environmental Health Crisis and its Challenge to the Chinese State (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2020).
Summary: China’s deepening health crisis reveals the fragility of the party-state and undercuts China’s ability to project influence internationally.
Watch for further information and related events at the Council on Foreign Relations!

Book description
Environmental degradation in China has […]

Continue Reading

13 September 2020

China’s Grand Strategy: Trends, Trajectories, and Long-Term Competition

Andrew Scobell, Edmund J. Burke, Cortez A. Cooper III, Sale Lilly, Chad J. R. Ohlandt, Eric Warner, and J.D. Williams, China’s Grand Strategy: Trends, Trajectories, and Long-Term Competition (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2020).
Click here to read a press release.

To explore what extended competition between the United States and China might entail out to 2050, the authors identified and characterized China’s grand strategy, […]

Continue Reading

26 August 2020

“Warning to the United States!” China Fires DF-26B & DF-21D Anti-Ship Ballistic Missile (ASBM) “Aircraft-Carrier Killer” into South China Sea

Kristin Huang, “Chinese Military Fires ‘Aircraft-Carrier Killer’ Missile into South China Sea in ‘Warning to the United States’,” South China Morning Post, 26 August 2020.

Weapon one of two sent over disputed waters a day after American spy plane reportedly nears Chinese naval drill, source says
PLA flexes muscle in response to continued US testing of Beijing’s […]

Continue Reading

20 August 2020

The Definitive History: International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) Symposia on the History of Rocketry & Astronautics

Ingemar Skoog and R. Cargill Hall, “Fifty Years of IAA History Symposia (1967–2016),” Acta Astronautica, Volume 134, (May 2017): 368-84.
a International Academy of Astronautics, Immenstaad, FRG
b International Academy of Astronautics, Arlington, TX, USA

The International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) Symposia on the History of Rocketry and Astronautics have been held annually at the International Astronautical Congresses since […]

Continue Reading