In 2015, China’s military modernization efforts and its assertive activities in the East and South China Seas dominate public discourse on China’s growing influence. While these developments are usually viewed through a military lens, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) activities should be considered and examined as an instrument of statecraft to achieve specific political outcomes as a form of political warfare.
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The Chinese Communist Party’s power has long rested on four pillars: economic growth, nationalism, repression and communist ideology. The last of these withered away almost entirely as China liberalized its economy, with slogans such as “Long live the invincible Marxism-Leninism theory” replaced by “To get rich is glorious.” Now the first pillar is unstable too. Read more
As the long march to the presidential nomination begins, most of the likely Republican contenders are talking tough on foreign policy and criticizing the Obama administration for its evident failings in handling Russia, Iran, Syria, and the Islamic State and other Islamist extremists. Read more
The Obama administration is evidently divided over how to respond to provocative Chinese actions in cyberspace and the South China Sea. Intelligence community leaders warn that unless the U.S. retaliates, it will continue to face damaging computer network attacks of the sort China appears to have carried out against the Office of Personnel Management. Yet the administration has refused even to identify China as the culprit in the theft of over 20 million sensitive personal files. Read more
Hugh White, Professor of Strategic Studies at the Australian National University, and Alan Dupont, Professor of International Security at the University of New South Wales discuss, China’s strategy in the South China Sea. Read more
History will remember Mikhail Gorbachev as the man who destroyed Soviet Communism by trying to save it. Despite his subsequent veneration by some Western liberals, Gorbachev was no liberal himself. A true believer in state socialism, he nevertheless recognized that the Soviet system was grossly inefficient and that an entrenched and unchecked Party-State bureaucracy posed a fundamental obstacle to meaningful economic reforms. Read more
In the two years since he was named general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, Xi Jinping has moved swiftly to consolidate his personal grip on political power. Xi has established “leading small groups,” which he chairs, to handle the most pressing domestic and foreign policy problems. Read more
At the Wednesday Lunch on 22 June, Professor Alan Dupont spoke about his new Lowy Institute Policy Brief, ‘Living with the Dragon: Why Australia needs a China strategy’.
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ESCALATING tensions between China and its Southeast Asian neighbours over disputed islands in the South China Sea are the latest, worrying sign that China’s rise is ushering in a new era of strategic volatility and geo-political competition in Asia, that will be at its most dangerous in the Western Pacific. Read more
Sustaining Stability, Coping with Conflict, Building Cooperation?
Except for the problem of North Korea, East Asia has been a region of comparative stability. U.S.-PRC relations have continued a long period of stability despite the frictions that have accompanied China’s rise. Cross-Strait relations have warmed rapidly. U.S.-Japan security ties have remained strong, underpinned by common regional interests and concerns.
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