China hosted a major international gathering on May 14 and 15. Over a thousand delegates from 110 countries, including 29 world leaders, flocked to Beijing to attend the so-called One Belt, One Road Summit. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) was first proposed by Chinese... MORE

The One Belt, One Road summit, held in Beijing on May 14–15, was supposed to be a celebration of China’s major Eurasian developmental initiative (Xinhua, May 16). But at least to outsiders, it may not have turned out this way. European reservations hindered the acceptance... MORE

At the end of April, China’s Defense Ministry announced it would be conducting “live fire drills” near the border with North Korea (MOD, April 27). This followed weeks of rumors that the PLA was deploying in large numbers close to the Korean peninsula, which the... MORE

Since the 2016 General Election, American relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) have followed a rollercoaster-like trajectory. Days before his inauguration, President Trump briefly reversed decades of predictable American conduct in a telephone conversation with Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen and hinted a departure... MORE

One of the key themes of Xi Jinping’s attempts to reform the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is the need to recentralize power under the Central Military Commission (CMC), the PLA’s highest-level decision-making organ which Xi has led since November 2012. The thinking is that PLA... MORE

Despite the tough challenges facing the Chinese economy, President and “core leader” Xi Jinping is going ahead with ambitious plans to project Chinese power worldwide including the landmark One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative. Xi is expected to announce a new series of projects linking... MORE

Update: Since the publication of this article, Chinese reporting on the Army Aviation brigades in the new 74th and 75th Group Armies indicates that the 74th GA has been formed around units primarily from the former 42nd GA, not the 41st as previously reported, and... MORE

The present crisis over North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs not only impels a much more careful look at the Korean peninsula but also encourages closer scrutiny of the complex interstate relations among the six parties involved in trying to reverse Pyongyang’s nuclear gains. One... MORE

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s official visit to Iran in early March 2017—his third in three years—was scheduled to include the testing of a section of a new railway along the Iran-Azerbaijan border. The Astara (Iran)–Astara (Azerbaijan) railroad is part of the North–South Transport Corridor (NSTC),... MORE

This past week’s big and still developing story is the sharp escalation of confrontation on the Korean peninsula. But Russia, which has made itself a key actor to many current global dramas, from the French elections to the civil war in Libya, is not a... MORE