In this article in Contemporary Southeast Asia, I examine China’s behavior in the South China Sea disputes through the lens of its strategy for managing its claims. Since the mid-1990s, China has pursued a strategy of delaying the resolution of the dispute. In the article, I make several arguments: The goal of China’s strategy is to consolidate its …
Revising Deng’s Foreign Policy
At the end of December, the Jiefangjun Bao, the official paper of the People’s Liberation, carried a brief article on page three of the print edition – with a small revelation about a key principle of China’s foreign policy. The article described a speech delivered by Gen. Ma Xiaotian, Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the PLA, to the China …
The Twimpact Factor
Alexis Madrigal at The Atlantic reports on a new study from the Journal of Medical Internet Research about the relationship between tweets of a journal article and scholarly citations. The conclusion: articles that many people tweeted about were 11 times more likely to be highly cited than those who few people tweeted about. Apparently, the …
Maritime Security in the South China Sea
In this chapter, I explore the recent competition over maritime rights in the South China Sea. This competition over maritime rights is related to but distinct from other components of maritime security in the region, including competing claims to territorial sovereignty over island groups, freedom of navigation and naval modernization. I argue that despite the recent …
Open Sources and Information Laundering
At the end of 2011, a study by the at Georgetown University on China’s nuclear forces attracted a great deal of attention, including a in The Washington Post. The project documented the construction of networks of tunnels by the Second Artillery, the PLA’s strategic rocket forces, and suggested that China might have as many as 3,000 nuclear warheads …
Beyond the Moat
A chapter of mine (co-authored with Alexander Liebman) on the influence of China’s navy has just been published in an edited volume of papers from an annual conference on the People’s Liberation Army. Read the chapter
Did Hu Jintao Call For War?
Earlier this week, media reports suggested that China had placed a new emphasis on preparing for war in response to recent events in the region, including the disputes in the South China Sea and the “pivot” in U.S. policy from the Middle East to Asia. According to the AFP, “Hu Jintao…urged the navy to prepare for …
MIT Spotlight
Today, I was featured on the MIT homepage and the subject of a profile by MIT news office.
China Views India’s Rise
In this chapter for Strategic Asia 2011-12, I examine how Chinese foreign policy elites view the rise of India. I make two main arguments: Contrary to the conventional wisdom, China views India’s rise as a positive development that promotes China’s own core interests and strategic objectives more than it threatens or challenges them. Enhanced cooperation …
China’s Maritime Assertiveness
Michael Swaine and I have just written an article for the China Leadership Monitor that examines China’s assertiveness in the Yellow, East, and South China Seas. We assess whether, to what degree, and in what ways the PRC has become more assertive along its maritime periphery in recent years. It also assesses the external and …