×
Filter Results
Filter Results
Issue Brief
On May 26th, the Chinese government released its 10th defense white paper (DWP), entitled “China’s Military Strategy.” DWPs—China’s most authoritative statements on national security—are published by the State Council Information Office and approved by the Central Military Commission, Ministry of National Defense, and State Council. Beijing primarily uses these documents as a public relations tool to help ease deepening international concern over China’s military modernization and answer calls for greater transparency. The new DWP tracks closely with the 2012 DWP and contains no major revelations about China’s military strategy or modernization; however, it includes some new guidance and emphasizes or clarifies certain aspects of its existing strategy, providing insights into China’s perceptions of its own security and its evolving defense priorities.
Issue Brief
Key Findings: China has created a regional bank among its Asian neighbors, in a move opposed by the Obama Administration; U.S. allies have sided with China despite Washington’s concerns that China might be using the bank to circumvent more established international banks, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, long dominated by the United States and Europe; China’s supporters in the effort contend that their participation in the new bank will ensure greater transparency while avoiding China’s tendency to loan money without protecting the environment, local populations, and clean governance.
Staff Paper
This report seeks to quantify changes in the bilateral relationship between China and North Korea by examining hundreds of discrete exchanges between Chinese and North Korean officials as reported by the Director of National Intelligence Open Source Center from January 2009 to December 2014. The authors categorized these exchanges by type and by seniority of the participants and evaluated trends in these categories over time. Finally, this report assesses trends in China-North Korea exchanges in the context of overall China-North Korea bilateral relations.
Staff Paper
This paper assesses China’s relative significance for individual ASEAN economies. It starts with an overview of China’s trade and investment relations with ASEAN as a whole. The paper then provides descriptive statistics on each ASEAN country’s composition of foreign trade by product and top trade partner, as well as foreign direct investment (FDI) flows. It also provides a brief analysis of commercial disputes and bilateral cooperation with China.
Contracted Research
Report prepared for the Commission by Kevin Pollpeter, Eric Anderson, Jordan Wilson, and Fan Yang of the University of California’s Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation. The report examines China’s space programs and how they advance China’s national security, economic, and diplomatic interests. According to the report, China’s goal is to become a space power on par with the United States.
Contracted Research
China’s Incomplete Military Transformation: Assessing the Weaknesses of the People’s Liberation Army
This report examines many of the weaknesses in the PLA’s human capital and organization realms, its combat capabilities across various domains, and China’s defense research and industrial complex. Furthermore, the report analyzes how these weaknesses affect the PLA’s performance of missions tasked by Beijing.
Staff Paper
As the United States weighs options for responding to the widely publicized cyber attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment in November 2014, for which it has attributed responsibility to North Korea, the perspectives and potential reactions of China are of particular interest. This report analyzes four questions regarding China's position: whether it was involved in the attack, prospects for cooperation with the U.S. response, likely reactions to a U.S. counterstrike in cyberspace, and potential for future deterrence based on U.S. actions.
Staff Paper
This staff report provides an overview of areas of tension and cooperation in China-India relations. It also assesses the implications for the United States of the 2014 election of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in India, India’s evolving strategic calculations, and the growing Indian economy and role in global energy markets. Finally, it discusses areas of potential U.S.-India cooperation in the security and economic realms.
Staff Paper
China’s land reclamation activities at Fiery Cross Reef likely will result in its first airstrip in the disputed Spratly Islands, which would allow the People’s Liberation Army to alleviate some of its logistical and power projection deficiencies in the South China Sea. This paper analyzes the latest publically-available imagery of Fiery Cross Reef and assesses China’s possible uses for an airstrip.
Staff Paper
This report examines the context and implications of satellite imagery of an IL-78/MIDAS air refueling tanker at a Chinese military airbase.