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142. Rising Anti-China Sentiment in South Korea Offers Opportunities To Strengthen US-ROK Relations
- Author:
- Haneul Lee, Alan Yu, and Tobias Harris
- Publication Date:
- 08-2022
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Center for American Progress - CAP
- Abstract:
- The Yoon administration’s posture toward China has important implications for the U.S.-ROK alliance and America’s strategic approach in the region
- Topic:
- Security, Diplomacy, Military Strategy, Bilateral Relations, and Strategic Interests
- Political Geography:
- China, Asia, South Korea, North America, and United States of America
143. China Maritime Report No. 23: The Type 075 LHD: Development, Missions, and Capabilities
- Author:
- Conor M. Kennedy and Daniel Caldwell
- Publication Date:
- 10-2022
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- China Maritime Studies Institute, U.S. Naval War College
- Abstract:
- When the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) commissioned its first Type 075 class Landing Helicopter Dock (LHD) in April 2021, it represented an important advance in power projection capability for China’s maritime forces. For the first time, the PLAN had an amphibious warship capable of hosting significant rotary wing forces while acting as the flagship for an amphibious task force. Now with three Type 075 class ships either in or soon to be in service, the PLAN has expanded its amphibious capability even further. The Type 075’s dedicated aviation support capability, ability to conduct wet well operations, and expanded command and control and medical facilities reflect capabilities that previously did not exist within the PLAN amphibious fleet. With the Type 075 LHD, the PLAN clearly intends to bolster its ability to project power from the sea in order to protect China’s overseas interests, but will require time for amphibious task forces to become fully proficient.
- Topic:
- Armed Forces, Navy, Maritime, and People's Liberation Army (PLA)
- Political Geography:
- China and Asia
144. China Maritime Report No. 22: Logistics Support for a Cross-Strait Invasion: The View from Beijing
- Author:
- Kevin McCauley
- Publication Date:
- 07-2022
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- China Maritime Studies Institute, U.S. Naval War College
- Abstract:
- The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) believes that logistics support is one of the key determinants of a successful large-scale invasion of Taiwan. Logistics support includes transport, materiel and oil supply, medical care, search and rescue, logistics infrastructure protection, and maintenance of war materiel reserves. Despite the recognized importance of logistics support, it is likely the PLA does not currently possess the requisite logistics capabilities to successfully support a large-scale amphibious landing on Taiwan and a possible protracted conflict involving the United States and allies. Key deficits include a lack of amphibious ships (both military and civilian), transport aircraft, and war reserves. The PLA also continues to face difficulties with landing the requisite logistics supplies during the critical beach assault phase, constructing maritime transfer platforms or temporary wharves to sustain resupply if intact ports are not rapidly captured, establishing a landing base for logistics operations, maintaining the flow of logistics during on-island combat, and establishing strategic war reserves to support the large-scale operation and possibly prolonged conflict. These problem areas might be resolved with several years of sustained effort and complex training.
- Topic:
- Territorial Disputes, Armed Forces, Conflict, and People's Liberation Army (PLA)
- Political Geography:
- China, Taiwan, and Asia
145. China Maritime Report No. 21: Civilian Shipping and Maritime Militia: The Logistics Backbone of a Taiwan Invasion
- Author:
- Lonnie D. Henley
- Publication Date:
- 05-2022
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- China Maritime Studies Institute, U.S. Naval War College
- Abstract:
- Most analysts looking at the Chinese military threat to Taiwan conclude that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is incapable of invading the island because it lacks the landing ships to transport adequate quantities of troops and equipment across the Taiwan Strait. This report challenges that conventional wisdom, arguing that the PLA intends to meet these requirements by requisitioning civilian vessels operated by members of China’s maritime militia (海上民兵). Since the early 2000s, the Chinese government and military have taken steps to strengthen the national defense mobilization system to ensure the military has ample quantities of trained militia forces to support a cross-strait invasion. Despite ongoing challenges—including poor data management, inconsistent training quality, and gaps in the regulatory system—and uncertainties associated with foreign-flagged Chinese ships, this concept of operations could prove good enough to enable a large-scale amphibious assault.
- Topic:
- Territorial Disputes, Armed Forces, Militias, Logistics, People's Liberation Army (PLA), and Invasion
- Political Geography:
- China, Taiwan, and Asia
146. China Maritime Report No. 20: The PLA Army Amphibious Force
- Author:
- Dennis J. Blasko
- Publication Date:
- 04-2022
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- China Maritime Studies Institute, U.S. Naval War College
- Abstract:
- The PLA Army’s (PLAA) amphibious units would serve as the core of any joint force charged with invading Taiwan. As a result of the 2017 reforms, the PLAA now possesses six amphibious combined arms brigades distributed across three group armies (the 72nd, 73rd, and 74th). During a cross-strait invasion, these brigades would likely receive support from other elements of the group armies to which they belong. This could include fire support, air defense, air transport, aerial fire support, and electronic warfare/cyber-attack.
- Topic:
- Armed Forces, Maritime, People's Liberation Army (PLA), and Invasion
- Political Geography:
- China and Asia
147. China Maritime Report No. 19: The PLA Airborne Corps in a Joint Island Landing Campaign
- Author:
- Cristina L. Garafola
- Publication Date:
- 03-2022
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- China Maritime Studies Institute, U.S. Naval War College
- Abstract:
- The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Airborne Corps would likely play an important role in a cross-strait invasion through operations behind enemy lines. During the landing campaign, the Corps would conduct paradrops or landing operations onto Taiwan, facilitated by PLA Air Force (PLAAF) aircraft. Once on island, airborne forces would seize and hold terrain and conduct a variety of operations to support the broader invasion. In recent years, the Corps has reorganized to improve its capability for mechanized maneuver and assault, leveraging the PLAAF’s larger inventories of transport aircraft, particularly the Y-20; improved the sophistication of its training at home; and gleaned insights from abroad via training with foreign militaries. Nevertheless, it is uncertain to what extent the Corps is able to overcome key challenges relevant to a cross-strait campaign. These include ensuring effective integration with similar ground force and marine units; carrying out operations in complex or degraded environments; transcending the Corps’ lack of relevant combat experience; and obtaining adequate air support.
- Topic:
- Armed Forces, Air Force, People's Liberation Army (PLA), and Invasion
- Political Geography:
- China and Asia
148. China Maritime Report No. 18: Chinese Special Operations in a Large-Scale Island Landing
- Author:
- John Chen and Joel Wuthnow
- Publication Date:
- 01-2022
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- China Maritime Studies Institute, U.S. Naval War College
- Abstract:
- PLA special operations forces (SOF) would likely play important supporting roles in an amphibious assault on Taiwan. Their capabilities and training are geared towards several missions undertaken during the preparatory and main assault phases of the landing, including infiltration via special mission craft and helicopter, reconnaissance and targeting, obstacle clearance, strikes and raids, and extraction missions. While PLA SOF have made progress in recent years, several longstanding challenges could affect their performance in an island landing: integrating advanced special mission equipment for complex and dangerous missions, coordinating their operations with non-SOF supporting and supported forces, and overcoming the Chinese military’s penchant for centralized command. Even if PLA SOF are only partially effective, however, their support to the main assault force could diminish Taiwan’s ability to defend itself from a large-scale invasion.
- Topic:
- Armed Forces, Maritime, Special Operations, People's Liberation Army (PLA), and Invasion
- Political Geography:
- China, Taiwan, and Asia
149. EU - Pacific talks: EU - ASEAN relations: For better and for worse
- Author:
- Europeum
- Publication Date:
- 11-2022
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Europeum Institute for European Policy
- Abstract:
- If you missed the debate EU - Pacific talks: EU - ASEAN relations: for better and for worse, you can read the report from the debate written by Šárka Váchalová. During the debate these questions were discussed: As tensions with authoritarian powers such as Russia and China amplify, how can the EU and ASEAN partnership remain strong moving forward? What are the areas that the two regions can strengthen given the ongoing geopolitical tug of war?
- Topic:
- European Union, Geopolitics, ASEAN, and Dialogue
- Political Geography:
- Russia, China, and Europe
150. Greenhouse Gas Emissions from State-Owned Enterprises: A Preliminary Inventory
- Author:
- Alex Clark and Philippe Benoit
- Publication Date:
- 02-2022
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Center on Global Energy Policy (CGEP), Columbia University
- Abstract:
- State-owned enterprises (SOEs) play a major role in the production of goods and services across many of the world’s largest economies, particularly in electricity generation, oil and gas, and heavy industry. SOEs (defined in this report as companies for which 50 percent or more of voting shares are held by a government) are also major sources of greenhouse gas emissions. The governments that control these SOEs are also signatories to the Paris Agreement on climate change. State ownership provides these governments with a major direct point of control over the climate and energy outcomes of these companies, both in terms of reducing emissions and directing future investment into low-carbon technologies and infrastructure. Improving the measurement of SOEs’ contribution to both national and global-level emissions provides important information to help understand to what extent SOEs should be targeted and to design strategies to maximize their potential role in the broader energy transition. This report provides an accounting of direct emissions associated with SOEs globally. It is challenging to comprehensively identify every SOE, as the total is estimated at well over 100,000. In addition, most identified SOEs do not disclose their emissions nor are estimates of these emissions available in the public domain. Despite these limitations, data compiled for this report covering almost 300 major SOEs suggest that SOEs globally are responsible for at least 7.49 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent (GtCO2e) annually in direct (Scope 1) emissions. While the true scale of SOE-related emissions is likely to be substantially higher, particularly when accounting for national oil companies and iron and steel manufacturers that do not currently report their emissions, this figure is over 1 GtCO2e greater than various previous estimates, and larger than the total annual emissions of any country except China.
- Topic:
- Climate Change, Energy Policy, Environment, and Green Technology
- Political Geography:
- China, Asia, and Global Focus
151. U.S.-China Technological “Decoupling”: A Strategy and Policy Framework
- Author:
- Jon Bateman
- Publication Date:
- 04-2022
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
- Abstract:
- A partial “decoupling”2 of U.S. and Chinese technology ecosystems is well underway. Beijing plays an active role in this process, as do other governments and private actors around the world. But the U.S. government has been a primary driver in recent years with its increased use of technology restrictions: export controls, divestment orders, licensing denials, visa bans, sanctions, tariffs, and the like. There is bipartisan support for at least some bolstering of U.S. tech controls, particularly for so-called strategic technologies, where Chinese advancement or influence could most threaten America’s national security and economic interests. But what exactly are these strategic technologies, and how hard should the U.S. government push to control them? Where is the responsible stopping point—the line beyond which technology restrictions aimed at China do more harm than good to America? These are vexing questions with few, if any, clear answers. Yet the United States cannot afford simply to muddle through technological decoupling, one of the most consequential global trends of the early twenty-first century. The U.S. technology base—foundational to national well-being and power—is thoroughly enmeshed with China in a larger, globe-spanning technological web. Cutting many strands of this web to reweave them into new patterns will be daunting and dangerous. Without a clear strategy, the U.S. government risks doing too little or—more likely—too much to curb technological interdependence with China. In particular, Washington may accidentally set in motion a chaotic, runaway decoupling that it cannot predict or control. Sharper thinking and more informed debates are needed to develop a coherent, durable strategy. Today, disparate U.S. objectives are frequently lumped together into amorphous constructs like “technology competition.” Familiar terms like “supply chain security” often fail to clarify such basic matters as which U.S. interests must be secured and why. Important decisions are siloed within opaque forums (like the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States [CFIUS]), narrow specialties (like export control law), or individual industries (like semiconductors), concealing the bigger picture. The traditional concerns of “tech policy” and “China policy” receive outsized attention, while second-order implications in other areas (such as climate policy) get short shrift. And as China discourse in the United States becomes more politically charged, arguments for preserving technology ties are increasingly muted or not voiced at all. This report aims to address these gaps and show how American leaders can navigate the vast, perilous, largely unmapped terrain of technological decoupling. First, it gives an overview of U.S. thinking and policy—describing how U.S. views on Chinese technology have evolved in recent years and explaining the many tools that Washington uses to curb U.S.- China technological interdependence. Second, it frames the major strategic choices facing U.S. leaders—summarizing three proposed strategies for technological decoupling and advocating a middle path that preserves and expands America’s options. Third, it translates this strategy into implementable policies and processes—proposing specific objectives for U.S. federal agencies and identifying the technology areas where government controls are (or are not) warranted. The report also highlights many domestic investments and other self-improvement measures that must go hand in hand with restrictive action.
- Topic:
- National Security, Science and Technology, Intellectual Property/Copyright, Authoritarianism, Economy, Espionage, Military, and Interdependence
- Political Geography:
- China, Asia, North America, and United States of America
152. Red Ink: Estimating Chinese Industrial Policy Spending in Comparative Perspective
- Author:
- Gerard Dipippo, Ilaria Mazzocco, and Scott Kennedy
- Publication Date:
- 05-2022
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Center for Strategic and International Studies
- Abstract:
- A new report by the CSIS Economics Program and the Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics quantifies the size of total industrial policy spending by China and compares it to seven other major economies: Brazil, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the United States. Much of the existing research on industrial policy focuses on its effects, but there are few, if any, published studies that attempt a systematic comparison and quantification of overall industrial policy spending. The heart of the report is the careful calculation of total industrial policy spending by China and the other economies, combining estimates from multiple tools, among them direct subsidies, tax breaks, below-market credit, and state investment funds. The report provides additional context by examining the historical trajectory of industrial policy of these economies and the evolution of industrial policy across these economies for three industries—aluminum, semiconductors, and electric vehicles. The historical and sectoral analyses point to some similarities across economies, but they also demonstrate how distinctive China has been in terms of both quantifiable spending and non-quantifiable policy tools. Finally, this report discusses several important policy implications, including greater transparency and more harmonized reporting about industrial policy spending and the potential ways in which policymakers could employ these data to more effectively limit industrial policy spending by China and other economies.
- Topic:
- Economics, Industrial Policy, Industry, and Labor Market
- Political Geography:
- China and Asia
153. China, Europe, and the Pandemic Recession: Beijing’s Investments and Transatlantic Security
- Author:
- John R. Deni, Chris Alden, Erik Brattberg, Roger Cliff, Mark Duckenfield, R. Evan Ellis, Nicholas Nelson, and Laura Speranza
- Publication Date:
- 05-2022
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
- Abstract:
- Given the depth and breadth of the pandemic-induced recession in Europe, private companies in need of capital and governments looking to shed state-owned enterprises may be tempted to sell shares, assets, or outright ownership to investors with liquidity to spare. Of greatest concern is the role that China might play in Europe, building Beijing’s soft power, weakening allied geopolitical solidarity, and potentially reprising the role it played in the 2010s, when its investments in Europe expanded dramatically. More specifically, there is concern over China’s investments in infrastructure and sensitive technologies relevant to American and allied military operations and capabilities. Whether Europe is prepared and able to parry Beijing’s economic statecraft is somewhat unclear, given varied attitudes toward China and the patchwork of investment screening mechanisms across the continent. Regardless, the outcomes will have significant implications for US security and for the Defense Department specifically. In support of US European Command (EUCOM) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the U.S. Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) assembled an interdisciplinary team to examine these issues and offer actionable policy recommendations for military leaders and decisionmakers on both sides of the Atlantic.
- Topic:
- Security, Military Affairs, Economy, Investment, Transatlantic Relations, COVID-19, State-Owned Enterprises, and Recession
- Political Geography:
- China, Europe, Asia, and United States of America
154. Public Views of the U.S.-China Competition in MENA
- Author:
- Michael Robbins
- Publication Date:
- 07-2022
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Arab Barometer
- Abstract:
- Over the last decade, the global competition between the U.S. and China has been on the rise. China’s increased global outlook, particularly through its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), has led to a significantly greater economic engagement with countries across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). At the same time, the U.S. continues its retrenchment from the region focusing on a broader pivot to Asia. How have these developments affected views toward both countries? Arab Barometer’s wave seven, the largest public opinion survey of its kind across MENA since the time of COVID, provides insight into these questions. Across MENA, China remains more popular than the U.S. Among the nine countries surveyed, only in Morocco is the U.S. more popular overall than China. In the remainder, China tends to be significantly more favored than the U.S. Yet, this story may be gradually changing. When asked about closer economic ties between their country and the two global powers, in the majority of countries surveyed, citizens are significantly less likely to say they want stronger ties with China than they were in 2018-19. In no country is there an increased desire for stronger economic ties with China while in multiple cases there has been a 20-point shift against China. By comparison, in most countries the desire for closer economic ties with the U.S. has increased or remained unchanged over the same period. This outcome suggests that BRI may not be having the intended effects, with citizens now moving away from China overall.
- Topic:
- Infrastructure, Conflict, Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Strategic Competition, and Rivalry
- Political Geography:
- China, Asia, North America, and United States of America
155. The Future of Xi’s China. Scenarios and Implications for Europe
- Author:
- Alessia Amighini
- Publication Date:
- 09-2022
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI)
- Abstract:
- At the upcoming 20th Party Congress, which opens Sunday in China, Xi Jinping is expected to be confirmed as the country's Secretary General for an unprecedented third term. At a time of international instability caused by the Covid pandemic and the war in Ukraine, as well as rising competition between international superpowers, the Chinese leadership is called to increase the country's international standing, while ensuring economic growth at the domestic level. However, achieving these goals will not be without challenges. This Report analyses China’s hard road to international prestige and development. Which prospects for China's economic growth? Which obstacles to its rise at the global level? To which extent can the Party steer the country’s direction?
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Development, Economy, Xi Jinping, and Instability
- Political Geography:
- China, Europe, and Asia
156. Suppressing the truth and spreading lies: How the CCP is influencing Solomon Islands’ information environment
- Author:
- Blake Johnson, Miah Hammond-Errey, Daria Impiombato, Albert Zhang, and Joshua Dunne
- Publication Date:
- 10-2022
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI)
- Abstract:
- The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is attempting to influence public discourse in Solomon Islands through coordinated information operations that seek to spread false narratives and suppress information on a range of topics. Following the November 2021 Honiara riots and the March 2022 leaking of the China – Solomon Islands security agreement, the CCP has used its propaganda and disinformation capabilities to push false narratives in an effort to shape the Solomon Islands public’s perception of security issues and foreign partners. In alignment with the CCP’s regional security objectives, those messages have a strong focus on undermining Solomon Islands’ existing partnerships with Australia and the US. Although some of the CCP’s messaging occurs through routine diplomatic engagement, there’s a coordinated effort to influence the population across a broad spectrum of information channels. That spectrum includes Chinese party-state media, CCP official-led statements and publications in local and social media, and the amplification of particular individual and pro-CCP content via targeted Facebook groups. There’s now growing evidence to suggest that CCP officials are also seeking to suppress information that doesn’t align with the party-state’s narratives across the Pacific islands through the coercion of local journalists and media institutions.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Propaganda, Disinformation, and Chinese Communist Party (CCP)
- Political Geography:
- China, Solomon Islands, and Asia-Pacific
157. Frontier influencers: the new face of China’s propaganda
- Author:
- Fergus Ryan, Daria Impiombato, and Hsi-Ting Pai
- Publication Date:
- 10-2022
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI)
- Abstract:
- This report explores how the Chinese party-state’s globally focused propaganda and disinformation capabilities are evolving and increasing in sophistication. Concerningly, this emerging approach by the Chinese party-state to influence international discourse on China, including obfuscating its record of human rights violations, is largely flying under the radar of US social media platforms and western policymakers. In the broader context of attempts by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to censor speech, promote disinformation and seed the internet with its preferred narratives, we focus on a small but increasingly popular set of YouTube accounts that feature mainly female China-based ethnic-minority influencers from the troubled frontier regions of Xinjiang, Tibet and Inner Mongolia, hereafter referred to as ‘frontier influencers’ or ‘frontier accounts’. Despite being blocked in China, YouTube is seen by the CCP as a key battlefield in its ideological contestation with the outside world, and YouTube’s use in foreign-facing propaganda efforts has intensified in recent years. Originally deployed on domestic video-sharing platforms to meet an internal propaganda need, frontier-influencer content has since been redirected towards global audiences on YouTube as part of the CCP’s evolving efforts to counter criticisms of China’s human rights problems and burnish the country’s image. Alongside party-state media and foreign vloggers, these carefully vetted domestic vloggers are increasingly seen as another key part of Beijing’s external propaganda arsenal. Their use of a more personal style of communication and softer presentation is expected to be more convincing than traditional party-state media content, which is often inclined towards the more rigid and didactic. For the CCP, frontier influencers represent, in the words of one Chinese propaganda expert, ‘guerrillas or militia’ fighting on the flanks in ‘the international arena of public opinion’, while party-state media or the ‘regular army’ ‘charge, kill and advance on the frontlines’. The frontier accounts we examine in this report were predominantly created in 2020–21 and feature content that closely hews to CCP narratives, but their less polished presentation has a more authentic feel that conveys a false sense of legitimacy and transparency about China’s frontier regions that party-state media struggle to achieve. For viewers, the video content appears to be the creation of the individual influencers, but is in fact what’s referred to in China as ‘professional user generated content’, or content that’s produced with the help of special influencer-management agencies known as multi-channel networks (MCNs). For the mostly young and female Uyghur, Tibetan and other ethnic-minority influencers we examine in this report, having such an active presence on a Western social media platform is highly unusual, and ordinarily would be fraught with danger. But, as we reveal, frontier influencers are carefully vetted and considered politically reliable. The content they create is tightly circumscribed via self-censorship and oversight from their MCNs and domestic video platforms before being published on YouTube. In one key case study, we show how frontier influencers’ content was directly commissioned by the Chinese party-state. Because YouTube is blocked in China, individual influencers based in the country aren’t able to receive advertising revenue through the platform’s Partner Program, which isn’t available there. But, through their arrangements with YouTube, MCNs have been able to monetise content for frontier influencers, as well as for hundreds of other China-based influencers on the platform. Given that many of the MCNs have publicly committed to promote CCP propaganda, this arrangement results in a troubling situation in which MCNs are able to monetise their activities, including the promotion of disinformation, via their access to YouTube’s platform. The use of professionally supported frontier influencers also appears to be aimed at ensuring that state-backed content ranks well in search results because search-engine algorithms tend to prioritise fresh content and channels that post regularly. From the CCP’s perspective, the continuous flooding of content by party-state media, foreign influencers and professionally supported frontier influencers onto YouTube is aimed at outperforming other more critical but stale content. This new phenomenon reflects a continued willingness, identified in previous ASPI ICPC reports,1 by the Chinese party-state to experiment in its approach to shaping online political discourse, particularly on those topics that have the potential to disrupt its strategic objectives. By targeting online audiences on YouTube through intermediary accounts managed by MCNs, the CCP can hide its affiliation with those influencers and create the appearance of ‘independent’ and ‘authoritative’ voices supporting its narratives, including disinformation that it’s seeking to propagate globally. This report (on page 42) makes a series of policy recommendations, including that social media platforms shouldn’t allow MCNs who are conducting propaganda and disinformation work on behalf of the Chinese party-state to monetise their activities or be recognised by the platforms as, for example, official partners or award winners. This report also recommends that social media platforms broaden their practice of labelling the accounts of state media, agencies and officials to include state-linked influencers from the People’s Republic of China.
- Topic:
- Cybersecurity, Social Media, Propaganda, and Disinformation
- Political Geography:
- China and Asia
158. ‘Impactful projection’: long-range strike options for Australia
- Author:
- Marcus Hellyer and Andrew Nicholls
- Publication Date:
- 12-2022
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI)
- Abstract:
- The Australian Government has stated that the ADF requires greater long-range strike capability. This was first stated by the previous government in its 2020 Defence Strategic Update (DSU), which emphasised the need for ‘self-reliant deterrent effects’. The present government has endorsed that assessment: Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Richard Marles has stated that ‘the ADF must augment its self-reliance to deploy and deliver combat power through impactful materiel and enhanced strike capability—including over longer distances.’ He’s coined the term ‘impactful projection’ to describe the intended effect of this capability, which is to place ‘a very large question mark in the adversary’s mind.’ The term may be new, but the concept is not. To us, it’s a restating of the concept of deterrence by denial; that is, having sufficiently robust capabilities to convince an adversary that the cost of acting militarily against us isn’t worth any gains that might be made. But the need for the ADF to have those kinds of capabilities has become much more urgent. As the 2020 DSU noted, we no longer have 10 years of warning time of conventional conflict involving Australia. Moreover, this is not just the prospect of conflict far from Australia’s shores. People’s Liberation Army (PLA) force-projection capabilities have grown dramatically in the past two decades and include long-range conventional ballistic missiles, bombers and advanced surface combatants that have already transited through Australian waters.
- Topic:
- Defense Policy, NATO, and Economics
- Political Geography:
- Russia, China, Europe, Australia, and Australia/Pacific
159. Next steps for the US-China strategic nuclear relationship
- Author:
- David Santoro, David C. Logan, Vahid Brown, Heather Williams, and Duyeon Kim
- Publication Date:
- 10-2022
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Pacific Forum
- Abstract:
- Conducted with the generous support of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, this study seeks to provide an in-depth analysis of strategic nuclear issues of significance to the bilateral relationship to pinpoint the challenges to, and opportunities for, improving the current state of affairs between Washington and Beijing. The study, in other words, aims to propose an assessment of key issues and, insofar as possible, solutions or mitigation measures to address US-China strategic nuclear problems, including those that are seemingly intractable. It is motivated by the idea that even (or perhaps especially) when stark pessimism dominates, it is essential to be clear about what is in “the realm of the possible” to improve the situation, and to act on it.
- Topic:
- Security, Nuclear Weapons, Bilateral Relations, Nonproliferation, Strategic Competition, and Strategic Interests
- Political Geography:
- China, Asia, North America, Korea, and United States of America
160. Navigating an uncertain future: An exploration of China’s influence on the Netherlands’ future maritime logistics hub function
- Author:
- Frans-Paul van der Putten and Xiaoxue Martin
- Publication Date:
- 11-2022
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Clingendael Netherlands Institute of International Relations
- Abstract:
- The maritime logistics hub function is of strategic importance to the Netherlands as a trading country. The Netherlands positions itself as the ‘Gateway to Europe’ thanks to its advanced logistics network and plays an important role in the global economy. This position nevertheless faces an uncertain future: there is no guarantee that the Netherlands will remain a leader in the years ahead. Geopolitics, and particularly the influence of China, will have a major impact on the Dutch maritime logistics hub function. On behalf of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, this report examines China’s influence on the Netherlands’ maritime logistics hub function. The main question posed in the study is: How is China’s influence on the central position of the Netherlands’ maritime logistics hub function likely to evolve in the decades ahead and what possible actions could the Dutch government take in response to it? The purpose of this study is to assess scenarios as a basis for possible actions by the Dutch government and the Dutch maritime logistics sector, particularly with regard to the Netherlands’ central position and strategic autonomy as a maritime logistics hub.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Maritime, and Logistics
- Political Geography:
- China, Europe, Asia, and Netherlands