On January 5, 2012, President Barack Obama and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta released new defense strategic guidance, highlighting U.S. national defense priorities and underscoring America’s determination to maintain its global leadership and military superiority despite budgetary constraints [1]. The strategy indicates the United States... MORE

On March 6, China and India operationalized a coordination agreement to avert conflict along their contested border. The Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on India-China Border Affairs, as the agreement is officially termed, was first broached by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao during a visit... MORE

BEIJING DENIES RUSSIAN RUMORS OF SU-35 FIGHTER PURCHASE Last week, Russian media reported Moscow was close to finalizing a $4 billion deal for 48 Su-35s with Beijing. The reported sticking point was that the Russian side wanted greater assurances that Chinese engineers would not reverse... MORE

China’s People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) is still searching for the best way to recruit, educate and train its male aviation cadets (feixing xueyuan). After graduation, they serve as aviators (feixing renyuan), which includes fighter, attack, helicopter, bomber and transport pilots (feixingyuan), as well... MORE

Just over a year ago, the Chinese government took the unprecedented step of launching a trial property tax in response to rising real estate prices. Since the mid-2000s in China, real estate prices have been going through the roof. In 2010, home prices in Shanghai... MORE

The mid-November 2011 surprise four-day visit to Mongolia of the 14th Dalai Lama reignited simmering Chinese worries about how the Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader is using and is being used by its northern neighbor and important mineral trade partner. From China’s perspective, the Dalai Lama’s... MORE

After apparently engineering the contretemps that have hit Chongqing Party Secretary Bo Xilai, President Hu Jintao is putting additional pressure on other members of the Gang of Princelings—the political faction composed of senior cadres’ offspring. The political fortunes of Bo, the high-profile son of Chinese... MORE

Chinese political culture contains a lot of dangerous ideas for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). This may go a long ways toward explaining Beijing’s fickle relationship with Confucius as a symbol of Chinese culture and, now, with the trappings of Maoism. While criticism of Chongqing’s... MORE

Moscow’s Reappraisal of Prospects for Europe and the ResetTwo recent articles by Sergei Karaganov of the Council on Defense and Foreign Policy offer another perspective on the Russian veto of the UN Security Council resolution on Syria and on Sino-Russian cooperation. In December, he wrote... MORE

China’s Vice President Xi Jinping’s visit to Turkey, where he held several meetings with Turkish leaders, has underlined the growing economic ties and diplomatic exchanges between the two countries, despite their failure to develop joint positions on political issues. Xi met Turkey’s president and prime... MORE