Political and Military Analysis on China

China and Latin America


We estimate that since 2005, China has provided loan commitments upwards of $75 billion to Latin American countries. China’s loan commitments of $37 billion in 2010 were more than those of the World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, and United States Export-Import Bank combined for that year. After providing estimates of Chinese finance, we also examine the common claims that Chinese loans to Latin America have more favorable terms, impose no policy conditions, and have less stringent environmental guidelines than the loans of international financial institutions (IFIs) and Western governments...

From The Jamestown Foundation


* Zhou Yongkang and the Tarnished Reputation of China's Police
* Beijing’s Post-Bo Xilai Loyalty Drive Could Blunt Calls for Reform
* Politics and the PLA: Securing Social Stability
* Taiwan Navy Sailing Ahead with Indigenous Submarine Program
* Exploring Unmanned Drones as an Option for China’s First Carrier

China Naval Modernization: Implications for U.S. Navy Capabilities


The question of how the United States should respond to China’s military modernization effort, including its naval modernization effort, has emerged as a key issue in U.S. defense planning. The question is of particular importance to the U.S. Navy, because many U.S. military programs for countering improved Chinese military forces would fall within the Navy’s budget.

An Anti-Access Approximation: The PLA’s Active Strategic Counterattacks on Exterior Lines


In recent years, the majority of American scholarship on Chinese military strategy has focused on the People’s Liberation Army (PLA)’s Anti-Access / Area Denial (A2/AD) efforts. Under the mainstream paradigm, most US military analysts assume China is organizing its defense around the concept of denying access to its near seas (broadly defined) during a time of conflict. The capabilities and ranges of various weapons developed by the PLA have been cited as evidence of concrete implementation of this strategy. It is worth noting, however, that the term is a Western construct that has rarely been used to describe PLA strategy within China’s open-source strategic literature.[1] Though A2/AD may be a realistic synthesis of the strategy China is constructing, there are also indigenous Chinese strategic conceptions that closely mirror A2/AD. An analysis of these conceptions further informs the discussion regarding the specifics of China’s defense strategy.

The PLA at Home and Abroad: Assessing the Operational Capabilities of China's Military


The chapters presented in this volume have demonstrated first, Chinese and PLA leaders have a strong sense of mission and concern for China’s security and well-being. Second, the PLA is committed to the transformation in military affairs with Chinese characteristics. Third, the PLA is eager to learn from the U.S. military to expand and improve its operational capabilities. Finally, the PLA has made progress in its transformation and operational capabilities. For a long time, American leaders have been surprised with the PLA’s advances. This volume (and many of the previous volumes from past PLA conferences) show that these advances did not come out of the blue. Although much of the learning and many of the improvements are still far from what is desired (from Chinese expectations and American critiques), and some of the learning has even created contradictions for the PLA, these persistent and diligent learning practices will eventually bring the PLA to a higher level of proficiency in its capabilities. The emergence of a much more sophisticated PLA in the coming years should not be a surprise.

China’s Search for Assured Retaliation


On October 16, 1964, China exploded its first nuclear weapon at the Lop Nor test facility in Xinjiang. China’s subsequent development of its nuclear strategy and force structure presents a puzzle for scholars and policymakers alike. Following its initial development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missile capabilities, China built a small, unsophisticated, and, arguably, highly vulnerable nuclear force. In addition, for more than three decades, the pace of China’s nuclear modernization efforts was slow and gradual despite the continued vulnerability of its force.

CHINA’S NUCLEAR FORCES: OPERATIONS, TRAINING, DOCTRINE COMMAND, CONTROL, AND CAMPAIGN PLANNING


The major insights in this monograph come from exploiting sections of a doctrinal text published for People’s Liberation Army (PLA) institutions of higher military education by the Chinese National Defense University, A Guide to the Study of Campaign Theory (Zhanyi Lilun Xuexi Zhinan). This book is an unclassified “study guide” for PLA officers on how to understand and apply doctrine in a restricted PLA book on campaign doctrine in warfare, The Science of Campaigns. Other recent books by PLA or Chinese government controlled publishing houses validate the insights in the monograph and demonstrate how the PLA is going about achieving its vision for modern
war fighting.

This is from the guy who said china's Underground Great Wall could hide as many as 3000 nuclear weapons.

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There has been a lot of prominent discussion lately (in the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal, among other places) about the size of China's nuclear arsenal, based on a study by Georgetown University professor Phillip Karber, "Strategic Implications of China's Underground Great Wall." The study considers the question of why China has built a vast network of tunnels -- often called China's "underground great wall" -- that stretch for some 3,000 miles. Karber's report PDF suggests that the tunnels could hide as many as 3,000 nuclear weapons.

A top national security strategist during the Cold War, Karber recently led a group of his Georgetown students in a study of the underground system. The three-year study was sparked, Karber said, by the devastating 2008 earthquake in Sichuan, when some of the tunnels caved in and radiation teams were dispatched to the area, leading to speculation that the tunnels held nuclear weapons.

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China’s Stockpile of Military Plutonium: A New Estimate


Zhang argues that while China has kept information about its stocks of fissile materials and nuclear weapons secret, a great deal of new public information on the history of Chinese plutonium production has recently become available. His paper estimates China’s stockpile of plutonium for nuclear weapons by analyzing the new public information about the plutonium production at its two plutonium production complexes. Also, the history of plutonium production and the status of the production facilities are discussed. Zhang estimates that China currently has stockpiles of about 1.8±0.5 tons of plutonium available for weapons. The new estimated value is significantly lower than most previous independent estimates, which range from 2.1–6.6 tons of plutonium.