Executive Summary: The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Aerospace Force (ASF) is structured to rapidly integrate space-based surveillance, targeting, and offensive capabilities into any conflict involving the PLA, signaling Beijing’s strategic anticipation of conflicts over Taiwan or the South China Sea. By consolidating the People’s Republic... MORE

Executive Summary: Speculation is growing about a power struggle at the top of the Party. An announcement of new regulations for influential decision-making and coordinating bodies is a clear sign of change in how the leadership makes policy. Its implications for Xi Jinping’s power remain... MORE

Executive Summary: Xi Jinping has elevated Command Innovation to the core logic of the People’s Republic of China’s economy—superseding traditional growth drivers by fusing “self-reliant” strategic-industrial planning with direct financial control. This engineered system gives Beijing new leverage over how capital is deployed and who... MORE

Executive Summary: New evidence suggests that a faction within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) aligned with former president Hu Jintao and former premier Wen Jiabao could be exerting influence on the direction of the Party. Three party elders—all of whom were Hu Jintao allies—reportedly criticized... MORE

Executive Summary: The relative absence of supreme leader Xi Jinping in authoritative media could indicate that his power, though still unassailable, is waning. There were no references to Xi or his eponymous ideology in coverage of crucial trade talks with the United States, the announcement... MORE

Executive Summary: Beijing is moving to systematically embed artificial intelligence into its national innovation system, according to a high-level leadership meeting of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) in early June. This marks the beginning of a new phase in which AI development... MORE

Executive Summary: Since 2019, the Party has promoted the construction of a “new national system”—a centrally directed, institutionalized framework for mobilizing state and market resources to achieve breakthroughs in core technologies vital to national power and security. Beijing sees this system as already delivering results... MORE

Executive Summary: New regulations that seek to build an integrated national system for sharing government affairs data are intended to boost the Party’s dual priorities of boosting innovation and safeguarding security. The regulations aim to resolve issues and inefficiencies caused by data silos and government... MORE

Executive Summary: Hongmen associations, with historical roots in Qing-era secret societies, have become entangled in Chinese Communist Party (CCP) united front efforts abroad, particularly through patriotic messaging promoting unification with Taiwan. Their mythologized origins and rituals make them nearly indistinguishable from criminal triad societies. Criminal... MORE

Executive Summary: Chinese experts see potential in the ability of cyberattacks enabled by artificial intelligence (AI) to disrupt nuclear infrastructure and increase the pressure to use nuclear weapons in a crisis. The development of early warning capabilities toward a launch-on-warning posture increases Beijing’s impetus to... MORE