Andrew S. Erickson

Here are some of my recent thoughts on Chinese dredging and island-manufacturing activities in the South China Sea (SCS):
While countries other than China have also been involved in dredging and island-construction in the SCS, China has far surpassed its neighbors—combined—in both construction to date and future potential. It has deployed one of the world’s largest dredging […]

Click here for English-language version.
Click here for Chinese-language version.
Click here for some preliminary text analysis.
Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered a policy speech on China-US ties Tuesday night, at a welcome banquet jointly hosted by Washington State government and friendly communities in Seattle, the United States. Xi arrived in this east Pacific coast city on Tuesday […]

Fascinating analysis at a critical time in U.S.-China relations and the two nations’ respective societal dynamics and domestic politics!
Alastair Iain Johnston and Mingming Shen, eds., Perception and Misperception in American and Chinese Views of the Other (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 22 September 2015).
The underlying beliefs that people in the United States and […]

Camerashy: Closing the Aperture on China’s Unit 78020 (ThreatConnect Inc. and Defense Group Inc., 2015).
Read an overview of the report in the Wall Street Journal.
ThreatConnect Inc. and Defense Group Inc. (DGI) have partnered to share threat intelligence
pertaining to the Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) group commonly known as “Naikon” within the information security industry. Our partnership […]

Presented by the National Bureau of Asian Research
NEW CONTENT DAILY
On September 22, President Xi Jinping will arrive in Seattle for a series of private meetings with top U.S. business leaders and his only public address. This will be his first stop in his state visit to the United States, which will also take him to […]

Paul Lewandowski, “Does China’s New Missile Threaten US Power in the Pacific?” Parallax World, 16 September 2015.
The DF-21D Anti-Ship Ballistic Missile was unveiled publicly at the Chinese Victory Day parade, raising questions about the US carrier fleet’s vulnerability in the Pacific. …
The Global Times… declared that, after nearly a decade of the weapon’s development, the DF-21D’s coming-out […]

This excellent book examining possible PLA futures has only become more important in light of Xi Jinping’s recently-announced military restructuring! It was an honor for me to serve as a discussant at the conference at which this book’s chapters were originally presented as draft papers, and I can attest that this volume is a worthy […]

Andrew Erickson and Kevin Bond, “Essay: China’s Island Building Campaign Could Hint toward Further Expansions in Indian Ocean,” USNI News, 17 September 2015.
China’s creation of military-relevant facilities on its newly-created islands in the South China Sea is a cause for concern for countries in Southeast Asia, and several of its investments in the Indian Ocean […]

Victor Robert Lee, “South China Sea: Satellite Imagery Shows China’s Buildup on Fiery Cross Reef,” The Diplomat, 16 September 2015.
New capabilities of Chinese installations in the Spratlys may include sophisticated over-the-horizon radar
Reposted with author’s explicit written permission.
Recent satellite imagery of Fiery Cross in the Spratly Islands reveals that China’s construction of facilities on the reef […]

Eric Heginbotham, Michael Nixon, Forrest E. Morgan, Jacob Heim, Jeff Hagen, Sheng Li, Jeffrey G. Engstrom, Martin C. Libicki, Paul DeLuca, David A. Shlapak, David R. Frelinger, Burgess Laird, Kyle Brady, and Lyle J. Morris, The U.S.-China Military Scorecard: Forces, Geography, and the Evolving Balance of Power, 1996-2017 (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, September 2015).
Over the […]

You simply can’t afford to miss the timely treatment of important subjects offered here:
Decoding China’s Maritime Decision-making
  This issue of AMTI explores China’s maritime policymaking process by breaking down the organizational structure of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), and the State, and attempting to shed light on how decisions are reached. […]

Check out this related sequence of amazing island building photos!
Steven Mufson, “Chinese Activity in South China Sea Poses Complications for Obama,” Washington Post, 11 September 2015.
China appears to be taking new steps to lay down airfields on two reefs in a disputed area of the South China Sea on the eve of Chinese President Xi […]

A welcome addition to The Ryan Martinson Bookshelf, this may well be his most important article yet. And that’s saying a lot…
It’s worth noting that Dr. Shi Yinhong (时殷弘) is a leading Chinese international relations expert who has advised China’s government on important matters.
Ryan Martinson, “China’s Great Balancing Act Unfolds: Enforcing Maritime Rights vs. Stability,” The […]

CFTNI Job Posting: Senior Fellow, U.S.-China Relations
The Center for the National Interest seeks to hire a Senior Fellow to lead projects on U.S.-China relations and U.S. policy toward China. As the Center’s principal full-time professional staff member focused on Asia, the Senior Fellow will play a key part in shaping this program and will be […]

Timely treatment of a tremendously important topic by some of the leading experts in the field!
Phillip C. Saunders and Andrew Scobell, eds., PLA Influence on China’s National Security Policymaking (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2015).
SUMMARY FROM PUBLISHER
In recent years there have been reports of actions purportedly taken by People’s Liberation Army (PLA) units without civilian […]

Andrew S. Erickson and Conor M. Kennedy, “Directing China’s ‘Little Blue Men’: Uncovering the Maritime Militia Command Structure,” Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, Center for Strategic and International Studies, 9 September 2015.

Republished as Andrew S. Erickson and Conor M. Kennedy, “Beware of China’s ‘Little Blue Men’ in the South China Sea,” The National Interest, 15 September 2015.

While Russia has employed […]

Victor Robert Lee, “South China Sea: Satellite Imagery Makes Clear China’s Runway Work at Subi Reef,” The Diplomat, 8 September 2015.
Reposted with author’s explicit written permission.
Satellite imagery of Subi Reef in the South China Sea taken 3 September 2015 clearly shows subgrading for a runway. At a width of approximately 60 meters, the subgrading could […]

So now it’s finally official, after all these years… The DF-21D “assassin’s mace” (东风-21丁) anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM) debuted at China’s V-Day military parade on 3 September 2015. Click here to read the most comprehensive unclassified study to date on this unique Chinese missile, the DF-21D ASBM. Also at the parade, the DF-26 was described as a new intermediate-range […]

Obviously, the report and accompanying materials were published five months ago. But since the relevant ONI web links continue to be inoperable, I wanted to make sure that everyone had access to cached copies of the report and all its sub-components, as well as to related analysis. It’s all available here:
The PLA Navy: New Capabilities […]