Archive | Blog Posts

19 August 2020

Which Way the Dragon? Sharpening Allied Perceptions of China’s Strategic Trajectory

This well-written, pathbreaking analysis is unrivaled in its timeliness, relevance, and quality! Strongly suggest reading the full report with your full attention if you possibly can. At very least, don’t miss the key excerpts below…
Ross Babbage, Jack Bianchi, Julian Snelder, Toshi Yoshihara, Aaron Friedberg and Nadège Rolland, Which Way the Dragon? Sharpening Allied Perceptions of China’s Strategic Trajectory, Future […]

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18 August 2020

“South China Sea Military Capabilities Series”—Unique, Penetrating Insights from J. Michael Dahm, former Assistant U.S. Naval Attaché in Beijing

J. Michael Dahm, South China Sea Military Capabilities Series: A Survey of Technologies and Capabilities on China’s Military Outposts in the South China Sea (Laurel, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, 2020).
In the information age, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) believe that success in combat will be realized by winning a struggle for information […]

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16 August 2020

Lessons from ‘Tales of the South Pacific’ for Today

Charles Edel, “Lessons from ‘Tales of the South Pacific’ for Today,” Made by History Perspective, Washington Post, 15 August 2020.
The war in the Pacific holds the keys to addressing our problems today.
Today marks the 75th anniversary of Japan’s surrender to American forces in World War II. According to the novelist James Michener in his 1948 […]

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13 July 2020

Washington Post: Trump “administration plans to say the U.S. now regards virtually all Chinese maritime claims outside its internationally recognized waters to be illegitimate”

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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29 June 2020

The Hong Kong Watch Floor

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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16 June 2020

Why the Compacts of Free Association Matter to Washington

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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09 June 2020

Tension High, Altitude Higher: Logistical and Physiological Constraints on the Indo-Chinese Border

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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25 May 2020

The Hong Kong Watch Floor

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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15 April 2020

Apollo 13’s Lifeboat Fifty Years On: Remembering Grumman’s Lunar Module and Program Director Joe Gavin

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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11 March 2020

Breaking News: WHO Finally Declares Coronavirus (COVID-19 via SARS-CoV-2) Pandemic

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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15 February 2020

SECDEF Esper at Munich Security Conference: “If the PRC will not change its ways, then defending [the global] system must be our collective priority”

“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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16 November 2019

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

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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26 October 2019

Commemorating 50th Anniversary of Moon Landing at International Astronautical Congress—Papers & Presentations on LM Program Director Joe Gavin

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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01 October 2019

China’s Massive 70th Anniversary Military (Missile) Parade: Here’s My Take

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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26 March 2019

Honoring the Many Contributions of Andrew Marshall, An Early Supporter and Sponsor of CMSI

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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22 March 2019

Strategic Strong Points and Chinese Naval Strategy

Conor M. Kennedy, “Strategic Strong Points and Chinese Naval Strategy,” Jamestown China Brief 19.6 (22 March 2019).

Introduction
On August 1, 2017, China opened its first overseas military base, in the East African nation of Djibouti. This was a landmark event that raised a whole host of questions for Indo-Pacific states: Is Djibouti the first of other […]

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19 March 2019

In Loving Memory: A Tribute to CMSI Founding Supporter Kyrill Korolenko

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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04 March 2019

China’s 2019 Defense Spending to Rise 7.5% to 1.19 Trillion Yuan (~177.61 Billion U.S. Dollars)

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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24 February 2019

Open Source Research on China’s Maritime Law Enforcement Force Structure Development: Methodology & References

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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