On June 29, 2011, for the first time in a decade, a People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force (PLAAF) J-11 crossed the center line of the Taiwan Strait in an attempted intercept of a U.S. Air Force (USAF) U-2 reconnaissance aircraft conducting a monitoring mission... MORE

The world caught a rare glimpse of Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping during U.S. Vice President Joe Biden’s five-day visit to China last month. Xi is due to succeed Hu Jintao as General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) at its 18th Congress in... MORE

In mid-July, Taiwan published the 2011 edition of its defense white paper (“National Defense Report”). This was actually the third such document released in the last 38 months—the Ministry of National Defense (MND) having published a white paper in the final days of the Chen... MORE

Remarks made by Major General Jin Yi’nan of China’s National Defense University at a conference earlier this year provide new insights into Beijing’s reaction to foreign espionage, which Jin believes showed moral degeneracy within China. Jin’s lengthy speech originally appeared on and was later removed... MORE

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit at Astana on June 15, 2011 signalled Asia’s regional security order is slowly shifting as Afghanistan appears to be angling to become a new observer member in this decade-old Central Asian body (Ria Novosti, May 16). The Sino-Afghan relationship... MORE

Observers of politics in the Arab world and the broader Middle East continue to scrutinize China’s place in the region.  Dissecting the nuances of Chinese diplomacy and foreign policy towards such a large swath of energy-rich territory that is so deeply ensconced in a U.S.-led... MORE

China’s plans to construct more nuclear power plants in coming years than any other country have to surmount a major obstacle: China lacks sufficient domestic uranium to power them. China’ s cadre of scientists and engineers are busy seeking to develop alternative nuclear fuel cycles... MORE

While the July 23 bullet train crash in the east China city of Wenzhou has damaged the credibility of the country’s high-speed railway program, Beijing’s apparent failure to prescribe effective remedial measures such as restructuring the Ministry of Railways (MOR) has cast doubt on the... MORE

The theme for this year’s annual People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Day press was civil-military integration (军民融合) for national defense. If Defense Minister Liang Guanglie’s article “Persevere in Civil-Military Integration with Chinese Characteristics” headlining the Central Party School’s journal Qiushi did not provide enough emphasis, official... MORE

Observers of China’s naval development generally accept that Chinese anti-submarine warfare (ASW) remains an Achilles’ Heel of the otherwise highly methodical and quite remarkable evolution of Chinese maritime power.  While Beijing will soon be able to boast about its first aircraft carrier and continues to... MORE