As Taiwan’s presidential election concludes, Beijing and Washington both will—pro tempore—breathe a sigh of relief to have successfully stifled Taiwan’s most recent attempt to validate its de facto sovereignty through the holding of two controversial UN referenda, which both ended in vetoes because the total... MORE

Taiwan's Ministry of Defense announced on March 11 that China's real defense budget is most likely to be two to three times more than the reported amount from the National People's Congress and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (China Times, March 11). Last week... MORE

The People’s Liberation Army's (PLA) focus on creating modular combined arms forces is part of its plan to create a Hardened and Networked Army (HNA) [1]. It is mechanizing the force while introducing information operations doctrine and equipment. The first PLA division developed as part... MORE

Both Taiwan (ROC) and China (PRC) legally claim sovereign rights over the Spratly archipelago composed of islets and reefs in the form of a U-shaped line based on the same assertion that they are historically Chinese waters—made up by eight or nine disconnected dots in... MORE

The January 2007 test of an anti-satellite missile was a watershed event in China’s modernization program, because it demonstrated a key military capability of China and a major vulnerability of the United States. There is another element of China’s military transformation that tends to receive... MORE

China is currently engaged in a determined effort to transform its military from an army based on Mao Zedong’s principles of mass-oriented, infantry-heavy “People’s War,” to what many foreign observers perceive to be an agile, high-technology force capable of projecting power throughout the Asia-Pacific. A... MORE

In recent years, senior Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leaders and high-ranking military officers have repeatedly emphasized the importance of naval modernization. Most prominently, CCP General Secretary, President and Central Military Commission (CMC) Chairman Hu Jintao in a December 2006 speech to People’s Liberation Army Navy... MORE

In an interview with Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun, Taiwan’s Vice-Minister for Defense Ko Chen-heng reportedly stated that Chinese warships have stepped up naval activities along the “first island chain” (diyidaolian) with five to six recorded incursions in the past two years (China Times, January 24;... MORE

Southeast Asia is represented by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), a bloc of 10 countries in the region, which covers the most strategically important area for China’s energy security. The region encompasses all of China's energy-shipping routes from the Middle East, Africa and... MORE

On January 7, the Singaporean Ministry of Defense (MINDEF) announced that Permanent Secretary of Defense Chiang Chie Foo and People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Deputy Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Ma Xiaotian signed the first bilateral agreement for defense exchanges and security cooperation between the countries.... MORE