China's rapid development is reshaping the world in all dimensions. Chinese language open sources offer insights into these critical trends. While such materials are increasing constantly in number, diversity, and sophistication, only a fraction is available in English. The analyses available here, many based on sources not previously considered outside China, are designed to help bridge that gap--and thereby increase understanding of the most dynamic great power in the international system today.
Henry Philippens, “The Shi Lang, A Vehicle for Regional Change?” Defense & Security Analysis, 28.2 (2012): 176-84.
In a succession of disclosures over the summer of 2011, the People’s Republic of China acknowledged the near completion of its first aircraft carrier and the initiation of a carrier building program. These revelations have come at a time […]
Taylor Marvin, “PRC Area-Denial Capabilities and American Power Projection, Part 2,” Prospect Blog, 12 June 2012.
Anti-access/area-denial capabilities are the core strategic challenge facing the United States. Proliferating weapons technologies have democratized lethal force, giving unsophisticated opponents the ability to deny superior opponents the ability to project power. The Pentagon’s challenge is to overcome anti-access/area-denial systems […]
Taylor Marvin, “PRC Area-Denial Capabilities and American Power Projection, Part 1,” Prospect Blog, 8 June 2012.
China’s development of powerful asymmetric capabilities is the greatest challenge to US power projection since the Second World War. Continued advances in anti-access/area-denial weapons and strategies are likely to shift the most important determinant of military victory from force superiority […]
Andrew S. Erickson, “Microsatellites: A Bellwether of Chinese Aerospace Progress?” in Lisa Parks and James Schwoch, eds., Down to Earth: Satellite Technologies, Industries, and Cultures (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2012), 254-79.
Central to China’s rise in space–no less important than its becoming the third nation to test an anti-satellite weapon (on January 11, 2007) […]
Gabriel B. Collins and Andrew S. Erickson, “Like it or Not: State Oil Company Becomes ‘Flag’ in South China Sea,” China Real Time Report (中国事实报), Wall Street Journal, 7 June 2012.
Update: “Long Tao” is apparently a pseudonym, most likely for Dai Xu. Dai is a People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) colonel (not a senior colonel) […]
Joan Johnson-Freese, “Space Code Key to Protecting U.S. Space Interests,” World Politics Review, 4 June 2012.
… As far back as 1998, I wrote a book titled, “The Chinese Space Program: A Mystery Within a Maze.” The title referred to the difficulty in deciphering the intentions of a dual-use technology program shrouded in opaque decision-making processes […]
Another great primer by Owen Coté on the latest trends in undersea warfare and the physics behind them.
Owen R. Cote Jr., MIT Security Studies Program, “How Will New Submarine Sensors and Payloads Influence Naval Warfare in the 21st Century?” Information Dissemination, 4 June 2012.
Since the beginning of the 20st century, a series of new submarine […]
Information Dissemination Marks 5th Anniversary with “Virtual Conference: Celebrating Seapower Online”
…To celebrate five years of online discussion related to Maritime Strategy and Strategic Communications, for the month of June Information Dissemination will be hosting a Virtual Conference sponsored by the United States Naval Institute. Sixteen leading voices in the maritime discussion with careers in the […]
Gabe Collins offers his personal perspective concerning the latest annual Pentagon report on China’s military.
Gabe Collins, “12 Things Missing from China Report,” The Diplomat, 1 June 2012.
The latest version of the Pentagon’s report on China’s military rise was disappointing. There’s plenty that has been missed out.
The progressive neutering of the annual Pentagon China military power […]
Keith Bradsher, “After Barreling Ahead in Recession, China Finally Slows,” New York Times, 24 May 2012.
XI’AN, China — A nationwide real estate downturn, stalling exports and declining consumer confidence have produced what a Chinese cabinet adviser, quoted on the official government Web site on Thursday, characterized as a “sharp slowdown in the economy.”
Though the Chinese […]
Trefor Moss, “5 Things the Pentagon Isn’t Telling Us About the Chinese Military,” Foreign Policy, 23 May 2012.
In its annual appraisal of the Chinese military published last week, the U.S. Department of Defense seems to be describing an object it finds both familiar and mysterious. The report certainly answers many of the important issues concerning China’s […]
Eddie Walsh, “How Denmark Sees Asia,” The Diplomat, 21 May 2012.
…Pacific Forum CSIS non-resident fellow Eddie Walsh talks with Danish Ambassador H.E. Peter Taksøe-Jensen, whose country currently holds the presidency of the Council of the European Union. Their conversation centers on the opportunities and challenges Europe faces as a result of the rise of Asia. […]
Michael Turton, “Military Deliveries Continue: Minesweepers,” The View from Taiwan, 23 May 2012.
Andrew Erickson, Lyle Goldstein, and William Murray — all names you should know from reading this blog — cover China’s minelaying capabilities in this long and detailed essay. As they note in the opening pages, mines are an important component of Chinese naval thinking, […]
Download full text of report here: http://www.defense.gov/pubs/pdfs/2012_CMPR_Final.pdf
Presenter: Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (East Asia) David Helvey
May 18, 2012
Press Briefing on 2012 DOD Report to Congress on “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China”
DIRECTOR OF PRESS OPERATIONS CAPT JANE CAMPBELL: Good morning. I want to welcome you […]
Download full text of report here: http://www.defense.gov/pubs/pdfs/2012_CMPR_Final.pdf
Report Depicts China’s Military Progress, Strategic Thinking
By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, May 18, 2012 – The Defense Department’s 2012 Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China report details China’s growing military capabilities, and points to areas of cooperation between the United States and China, a senior […]
Brad Hicks, George Galdorisi, and Scott C. Truver, “The Aegis BMD Global Enterprise: A ‘High End’ Maritime Partnership,” Naval War College Review, 65.3 (Summer 2012): 65-80.
For more than three decades, beginning soon after the end of World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union faced off against each other. The concept of “mutual […]
Daniel J. Kostecka, “China’s Aerospace Power Trajectory in the Near Seas,” Naval War College Review, 65.3 (Summer 2012): 105-21.
Air and aerospace power has been fundamental for defending China’s “near seas”—encompassing the Bohai Gulf, the Yellow Sea, and the East and South China Seas—since the founding of the People’s Republic. While air and naval operations did […]
George J. Gilboy and Eric Heginbotham, Chinese and Indian Strategic Behavior: Growing Power and Alarm (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012).
This book offers an empirical comparison of Chinese and Indian international strategic behavior. It is the first study of its kind, filling an important gap in the literature on rising Indian and Chinese power and […]
John Reed, “Closing the Tech Gap: China’s Spaceplane,” DefenseTech, 14 May 2012.
That’s right, the rumors appear to be true. Beijing is joining the United States as the only nations with reusable spaceplane designs that are actually conducting test flights. Beijing reportedly sent its Divine Dragon — or Shenlong — space plane aloft for a successful […]
Chinese Undersea Warfare: Development, Capabilities, Trends
Maritime Gray Zone Operations: Challenges and Countermeasures in the Indo-Pacific
Oxford Bibliography: “The People’s Liberation Army (PLA)”
China’s Climate Cooperation Smokescreen: A Roadmap for Seeing Through the Trap and Countering with Competition
Large-Scale Amphibious Warfare in Chinese Military Strategy
Rebalancing U.S. Forces: Basing and Forward Presence in the Asia-Pacific
China’s Near Seas Combat Capabilities
Chinese Anti-Ship Ballistic Missile (ASBM) Development: Drivers, Trajectories and Strategic Implications
Asia’s Rising Energy and Resource Nationalism: Implications for the United States, China, and the Asia-Pacific Region
Chinese Aerospace Power: Evolving Maritime Roles
China’s S-Curve Trajectory: Structural Factors Will Likely Slow the Growth of China’s Economy and Comprehensive National Power
China, the United States, and 21st-Century Sea Power: Defining a Maritime Security Partnership
China Goes to Sea: Maritime Transformation in Comparative Historical Perspective
China’s Energy Strategy: The Impact on Bejing’s Maritime Policies
China’s Future Nuclear Submarine Force
Chinese Mine Warfare: A PLA Navy 'Assassin’s Mace' Capability
China’s Nuclear Force Modernization
