From January through May, the South China Sea dispute continued to trend in a negative direction. Consistent with the pattern of developments over the past several years, the dispute continued to be characterized by an action-reaction dynamic in which attempts by one of the claimants—most... MORE

When U.S. President Barack Obama meets Chinese President Xi Jinping for the first time in their current capacities on June 7–8, Washington will run squarely into Beijing’s recent efforts to strengthen China’s ideological bulwark against international influences. For all their merits, Xi’s two signature ideas—the... MORE

On January 27, 2013, China conducted its second mid-course missile defense interceptor test, leading to considerable speculation among Chinese and Western analysts about Beijing’s motives and intentions as well as its plans for further development of mid-course intercept technology and possible deployment of its own... MORE

On April 24, reports emerged from Xinjiang that 21 people had been killed in what was reported as a “terrorist clash” in Bachu County, Kashgar Prefecture (Xinhua, April 24). The incident came as U.S. Ambassador to Beijing Gary Locke was undertaking the first visit to... MORE

China is no longer merely a passive recipient of the world order, but it has become a key factor in determining the foreign and defense policy choices that are open to other international actors. Beijing seems to have positioned the country as a global great... MORE

A near-schizophrenic bifurcation has informed Chinese-style reform as implemented by the six-month old administration of General Secretary Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang. On the one hand, the preserving stability (weiwen) apparatus has pulled out all the stops to shackle dissidents and stymie other “destabilizing... MORE

The first aphorism of politics is that “all politics is local,” and one of the first rules of China watching is to look for domestic factors. The party’s domestic focus is highlighted by signs of ideological conservatism and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s “China Dream” to... MORE

Mongolian Petroleum Authority Chairman G. Ulziiburen announced in mid-March that Mongolia had made an agreement with PetroChina—a subsidiary of China National Offshore Oil Corporation—to exchange crude oil drilled in Mongolia with end-products processed in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. Delivery was to reach 10,000 tons of... MORE

March 19 marked the ten-year anniversary of the United States invasion of Iraq that toppled the government of Saddam Hussein. Although the international community continues to focus on the violence plaguing post-war Iraq and the country’s oil production capacity, changes in Iraqi foreign policy in... MORE

Recently, a Beijing-based defense attaché from a NATO country was reported saying, “Our assessment is they [the People’s Liberation Army] are nowhere near as effective as they think they are” (Foreign Policy, May/June 2013). Though the foreign officer did not provide further details, contrary to... MORE