China & Taiwan

As the new Trump administration formulates its China strategy, defining clear end states will be essential to avoid a reactive or incoherent approach. A long-term rivalry with a peer competitor like China demands more than tactical responses—it requires a...

Executive Summary China’s rapid advancement in low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite internet technology represents a direct challenge to global US operations, communications infrastructure, and the free flow of information. Leveraging BeiDou’s Navigation Satellite System (BDS), Beijing’s Global Positioning System...

Flowing from Tibet, the Lancang River goes through twelve Chinese megadams before reaching Laos as the Mekong River, a crucial freshwater source in Southeast Asia. A hydropower map from the Stimson Center shows 209 hydropower dams completed or under...

The pro-Russian tack taken by the Trump administration seems puzzling and even counterproductive to most Americans, to say nothing of our NATO allies and global partners. Recent polling shows a majority of Americans do not trust Putin, that there...

Introduction Few notes of concord survive contact with Donald Trump. Trump’s election in 2016 upended settled assumptions; one by one he knocked down the pillars of consensus and convention that held up decades of American diplomacy. The strongest and...

American allies in the Indo-Pacific are the cornerstone of the US strategy to maintain regional stability, deter aggression, and uphold a free and open international order. Through access, interoperability, and shared capabilities, these alliances extend American power and enable...

Introduction Russia and China have had diplomatic relations with North Korea and each other for more than 75 years, but Russian and Chinese relations with North Korea could not be more different. North Korea is China’s sole military ally,...

Executive Takeaway China’s Civil-Military Fusion (CMF; 军民融合) strategy, combined with its artificial intelligence (AI)–driven cognitive warfare (认知战) capabilities, aims to offset the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA; 中国人民解放军) lack of modern combat experience by using big data, social control mechanisms,...

As Georgia pivots away from the West and slides into dictatorship, China emerges as its key strategic partner. While Washington and Brussels struggle to find transatlantic unity and craft a unified approach to Russia and Ukraine, Beijing methodically expands...

For nearly a century, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Taiwan have largely avoided direct military confrontations across the Taiwan Strait. However, there have been four notable exceptions: the Taiwan Strait crises of 1954–55, 1958, 1995–96, and most...