China & Taiwan

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...

  Introduction The first report in this series examined Chinese and Russian influence and interests in the Indo-Pacific region. This report, the second of five in the series, analyzes China’s use of the instruments of power to build its...

With a newly elected Congress, there is an opportunity to reinforce the US focus on the Indo-Pacific. As geopolitical dynamics in the region continue to evolve, it will be important for Congress to consider funding and legislative measures that...