In late April, China announced the sale of two nuclear reactors to Pakistan. This deal is clearly against the guidelines of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) and the spirit if not the letter of the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) [1]. Nevertheless, the United States has not... MORE

More than 200 American officials converged on Beijing in late May for the second U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue. After two days of intensive discussions with their Chinese counterparts, the American side boasted of many accomplishments. The State Department, working on the "strategic" track of... MORE

China launched what it claims is the first purpose-built hospital ship (Type 920) in the world in 2007, stirring a considerable amount of international speculation regarding the Chinese Navy's future roles and missions. The use of hospital ships in non-military operations by the U.S. Navy... MORE

Premier Wen Jiabao’s just-completed weeklong tour to South Korea, Japan, Mongolia and Burma (Myanmar) provides a good opportunity for evaluating the extent to which China is playing a “responsible leadership role” in world affairs. In President Barack Obama’s National Security Strategy report released in late... MORE

Taipei has rejected a proposal from Tokyo that would allow Japan to expand its air defense identification zone (ADIZ) to include airspace above areas west of the island of Yonaguni currently under the jurisdiction of Taiwan’s ADIZ. Yonagunijima is Japan's westernmost island in the Ryukyu... MORE

The first essay in this occasional series showed the extent to which official Chinese explanations of the disintegration of the Soviet Union stress the failure of the Communist party there to maintain a comprehensive dictatorship. The assumption behind this argument is that if the Chinese... MORE

The Han Kuang (Han glory; HK) joint-force exercises have been an established institution of the Taiwanese military since 1984. The annual military training regime is divided into two phases:  command post exercise (CPX) and computer-simulated war gaming, followed by field training exercises (FTX). The FTX... MORE

China’s longstanding relationship with North Korea has come under greater international scrutiny since the March 26 sinking of the 1300-ton South Korean corvette Cheonan near the de facto maritime boundary between North and South Korea. The apparent torpedo attack killed 46 of 104 sailors aboard... MORE

Beijing authorities have raised the country’s security alert to the highest level—the first time since the August 2008 Olympics Games—in the wake of a spate of killings in schools and kindergartens that left at least 27 dead and some 100 injured. Given the resources that... MORE

On May 21, Norwegian oil company Statoil announced that it agreed to sell 40 percent stake ($3 billion) of the Peregrino field located in the Campos basin offshore of Brazil to Chinese state-owned Sinochem Group. The Peregrino announcement closely follows the disclosure in March that... MORE