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  • Control and Decisionmaking in Xi Jinping’s Military

    Over the past decade, Xi Jinping centralized control over the military through more than just reshuffling the People’s Armed Forces. Just as importantly, he stripped away control over the Party gun from other parts of the Chinese Communist Party. In doing this, the primary potential disrupting

  • Third Combat Brigade of PLA Air Force Likely Receives Stealth Fighters

    On 9 December the Dutch Aviation Society’s website Scramble reported that a J-20 bearing the serial number 61162 had been spotted the day before. The J-20 is the first and only fifth-generation fighter that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force operates. Judging from this serial

  • CMSI report on Chinese Special Operations in a Large-Scale Island Landing

    This is a report from our "Big Brothers" at the China Maritime Studies Institute (CMSI) focused on PLA SOF.      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

  • CASI Webinar on China and Cyber

    CASI hosted a webinar focused on Cyber issues related to the PRC.  We were joined by: Naomi Wilson, Vice president of policy for Asia at the Information Technology Industry Council (ITI) Prof SHEN Yi, Associate Professor of the Department of International Politics, School of International

  • CASI Intermediate Developmental Education (IDE) Program

    The China Aerospace Studies Institute (CASI) has been approved for a new China-focused Intermediate Developmental Education (IDE) program that will begin in August 2023.CSAF authorized this new program to advance the Action Order-Competition task to “educate and train for competition” by developing

  • In Their Own Words: 2020 Science of Military Strategy

          The “In Their Own Words” series is dedicated to translations of Chinese documents in order to help non-Mandarin speaking audiences access and understand Chinese thinking. In the “In Their Own Words” series, CASI aims to provide Chinese texts that illustrate thoughtful, clearly articulated,

  • Competition With China: China's Military Strategy

    Part of CASI's "Competition With China" video series which helps Airmen better understand the strategic competition with China broadly, and takes a deep look at many of the military and security aspects of that competition. CASI uses source documents to research and report on China’s aerospace

  • .....Don't Think Like a Westerner

    This article is the second in a series of essays, workshops, and events seeking to better understand the nature of deterrence, particularly from the viewpoint of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) People’s Liberation Army (PLA).  This series is a joint project between the Australian Strategic

  • CASI Quarterly Update #4 for 2021

    CASI Quarterly update #4 for 2021Friends of CASI,As we bring 2021 to a close, we would like to take the chance to thank everyone for their interest and support throughout the year.  Despite being another challenging year, due to COVID, we were able to make progress and return at least parts of

  • Sino-Russian Defense Cooperation’s Impact on Chinese Aerospace RD&A

    We should not forget that in the “Era of Great Power Competition,” the United States has two peer “Strategic Competitors” and several others with whom we compete. When our two largest competitors, namely the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation, cooperate toward their common

  • Commentary on ADIZ issues and the PRC

    Dr. Mulvaney discusses increased flight activity by the PLA in the Taiwan ADIZ and in the South China Sea at the Habibie Center's Talking ASEAN Webinar on "Air Force Intrusions in the Indo-Pacific Airspace: Impacts on Regional Peace and Stability from ASEAN Perspective"A big thank you to Ken Allen

  • China's Spaceplane Program

    Spaceplanes are one area in which China seeks to mimic or compete with U.S. technology. Inspired by the U.S. Space Shuttle and more recently by the Boeing X-37B orbital test vehicle, China has several ongoing projects to develop reusable launch vehicles capable of flight in both air and space. While

  • PLA Rocket Force Organization- Executive Summary

    While recent scholarship has gone a long way toward demystifying China’s missile force, it remains in many ways a poorly understood phenomenon, with an unusually high degree of censorship even by the already strict standards of the PLA. The following is a brief executive summary of a much longer

  • ITOW: China National Nuclear Power appeals for bigger role

    Below is a partial translation of a speech by Lu Tiezhong, head of China National Nuclear Power Co., LTD., in the business of the development, investment, construction, operations, and management of nuclear power projects. The Shanghai-listed company is part of the larger China National Nuclear

  • Competition with China: PLA Command and Control

    Part of CASI's "Competition With China" video series which helps Airmen better understand the strategic competition with China broadly, and takes a deep look at many of the military and security aspects of that competition. CASI uses source documents to research and report on China’s aerospace