Over the past three years, China’s sea-based nuclear deterrent capability has noticeably improved, beginning with the first service deployment of a nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarine in 2014. Most recently, geospatial analysis conducted by AllSource Analysis has recently revealed four Jin-class (Type 094) ballistic missile submarines... MORE

Even by the standards of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the brutal treatment of China’s first Nobel Prize winner, Liu Xiaobo, has breached the norms of civilized behavior. The third day after Liu‘s death from liver cancer—which deteriorated into the terminal stage last June largely... MORE

On July 10, Mongolia swore in its new president, Khaltmaa Battulga—a former professional judo wrestler, wealthy businessman, former Democratic Party (DP) parliamentarian, and former minister of transportation and construction (2008–2012). It was widely expected that the Mongolian People’s Party (MPP) candidate, Parliamentary Speaker Miyeegombo Enkhbold,... MORE

Baku hosted the first joint gathering of the heads of the railway administrations of Iran, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine and Poland, on June 19. The meeting was dedicated to the newly-launched “South-West Transport Corridor,” which links into the broader Trans-Caspian International Route project launched in 2016.... MORE

Egypt: The Rafah Attack and Hamas Under Pressure Militants in northern Sinai killed at least 26 Egyptian solders in a suicide car-bomb attack on two military checkpoints near Rafah on July 7 (al-Jazeera, July 8). The attack, which was claimed by Islamic State (IS), was... MORE

On June 5, Saudi Arabia announced it was cutting diplomatic ties with Qatar and closing its land border in response to Qatar “supporting terrorism.” Bahrain, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates quickly joined, and all denied airspace overflight rights to Qatari airlines. Saudi Arabia and... MORE

On July 4, North Korea launched a multi-stage Hwasong-14 ballistic missile. During the flight test, the missile reached an altitude of 2,300 km and a lateral distance of 900 km (People’s Daily, July 4). Though the test followed a “lobbed” trajectory (higher altitude over a... MORE

Chinese President Xi Jinping has charged the PLA Air Force (PLAAF) with transforming itself into a “powerful people’s air force with integrated air and space and offensive and defensive capabilities” (iFeng, September 1, 2016). This undertaking aligns with the capabilities prioritized in China’s 2015 defense... MORE

In 1934, confronted with rising pro-communist sentiments in his country, Chiang Kai-shek, leader of China’s Nationalist Party, launched the neotraditionalist New Life Movement (新生活运动) as part of a comprehensive anti-communist program that sought to use traditional values as a counterweight against Bolshevik-inspired revolutionist ideas. Fast... MORE

The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) anticipates that future warfare will be “unmanned, invisible, and silent” (“无人、无形、无声”战争), with ever higher degrees of “intelligentization” (智能化). [1] PLA strategists expect that future, autonomous combat involving unmanned systems, as well as the joint operations of unmanned and manned... MORE