Indo-Pacific: China, Mongolia, and Taiwan

Malik, Ammar A., et al. (Williamsburg, VA: AidData at William and Mary, 2021).
"Our new report, 'Banking on the Belt and Road: Insights' from a new global dataset of 13,427 Chinese development projects, offers a bird’s-eye view of China’s geo-economic strategy before and after the introduction of the BRI in 2013. It details how spending patterns, debt levels, and project implementation problems have changed over time, leveraging insights from a uniquely granular dataset that captures 13,427 projects across 165 countries worth $843 billion. These projects were financed by more than 300 Chinese government institutions and state-owned entities. The new dataset covers projects approved between 2000 and 2017 and implemented between 2000 and 2021. It is the most comprehensive dataset of its kind."

Orlander, Eric. China in Africa Project. (January 11, 2021).

Boston University - Center for Global Policy Development.
“Welcome to China’s Global Power Database, a new interactive created by Boston University's Global Development Policy Center. China’s Global Power Database tracks all the world's power plants financed by Chinese foreign direct investment and/or China's two global policy banks, the China Development Bank and the Export-Import Bank of China. At the end of 2018, Chinese capital is involved in upwards of 777 power plants overseas, providing a total of 186.5 GW of power generation capacity. Among these power plants, Chinese participation includes foreign direct investment (FDI), mergers and acquisitions (M&A), greenfield investments, and debt finance. The database also tracks and displays the deal types, Chinese investors/financiers, percentage of ownership by investor, amount of capacity (in MW), type of technology, operating status, and the estimated annual CO2 emissions of the power plants.”

Boston University - Center for Global Policy Development.
“This dataset is the first global, harmonized, validated, and geolocated record of Chinese development finance. It covers the years 2008 through 2019, to include equal time before and after the launch of the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013. It includes all loans from the China Development Bank and Export-Import Bank of China to governments, inter-governmental bodies, and state-owned entities.
This interactive database includes 858 loans, detailing each project's lender, year, amount, sector, and length in kilometers, where applicable. Among those 858 projects, 615 have specific geographic footprints, and these 615 projects are shown in the visual map. The remaining 243 projects are included in the full list of projects, below the map.
We aim to give context to China’s development finance by showing projects in relation to several types of socially and ecologically sensitive territories:
Indigenous Peoples’ Lands
National Protected Areas
Critical Habitat”

Center for Strategic and International Studies
“Reconnecting Asia maps new linkages—roads, railways, and other infrastructure—that are reshaping economic and geopolitical realities across the continent. Through data curation and objective analysis, the project aims to fill Asia’s infrastructure-information gap, squaring lofty ambitions with facts on the ground. Our methodology explains the science and art behind these efforts. Reconnecting Asia is made possible by a start-up grant from the Brzezinski Institute on Geostrategy and the expertise of the leadership, research, advisory, and development teams below, and the valuable insights of our partners.”

Shih, Chih-yu.
China Review 19, no. 1 (February 2019): 57-87.

Chou, Chih-Chieh.
China Review 18, no. 3 (August 2018): 121-148.

Lai, Christina.
Asian Security 15, no.2 (2019): 140-158.

Lin, Gang and Wenxing Zhou.
China Review 18, no. 3 (August 2018): 177-206.

Lim, Yves-Heng.
Asian Security 14, no. 3 (September-December 2018): 318-338.

Thompson, Drew.
War on the Rocks (October 2, 2018).

You, Ji, and Yufan Hao.
China Review 18, no. 3 (August 2018): 89-119.

Brown, David G., and Kevin Scott.
Comparative Connections 20, no. 1 (May 2018): 61-69.

Ellis, Evan.
Global Americans (December 7, 2018).

Strategic Comments 25, no. 3 (2019): vi-vii.

Chou, Chih-Chieh.
China Review 18, no. 3 (August 2018): 149-176.

Office of the Secretary of Defense. (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Defense, 2020).
“The PLA’s objective is to become a ‘world-class’military by the end of 2049 - a goal first announced by General Secretary Xi Jinping in 2017. Although the CCP has not defined what a ‘world-class’ military means, within the context of the PRC’s national strategy it is likely that Beijing will seek to develop a military by mid-century that is equal to—or in some cases superior to—the U.S. military, or that of any other great power that the PRC views as a threat. As this year’s report details, the PRC has marshalled the resources, technology, and political will over the past two decades to strengthen and modernize the PLA in nearly every respect. Indeed, as this report shows, China is already ahead of the United States in certain areas such as:
Shipbuilding…Land-based conventional ballistic and cruise missiles…Integrated air defense systems…
More striking than the PLA’s staggering amounts of new military hardware are the recent sweeping efforts taken by CCP leaders that include completely restructuring the PLA into a force better suited for joint operations, improving the PLA’s overall combat readiness, encouraging the PLA to embrace new operational concepts, and expanding the PRC’s overseas military footprint.”

U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Publishing Office, 2020).
“Topics this year include China's view of strategic competition with the United States; China's promotion of alternative global norms and standards; China's strategic aims in Africa; vulnerabilities in China's financial system and risks for the United States; U.S.-China links in healthcare and biotechnology; China's growing power projection and expeditionary capabilities; Taiwan; Hong Kong; and a review of economics, trade, security, political, and foreign affairs developments in 2020.”

William G. Braun III, et al., (Carlisle Barracks, PA: U.S. Army War College Press, 2016).
USAWC Integrated Research Project - "The context of the Asia-Pacific rivalry between the United States and China has evolved over the last 5 or 6 decades. Issues associated with territorial dispute resolution, response to a bellicose nuclear-armed North Korea, and partner concerns over China’s increasingly assertive foreign policy now challenge the relationship, once characterized by strong elements of cooperation and economic growth. This report examines U.S.-China gray zone competition in the Asia-Pacific, and identifies land forces capabilities and initiatives necessary to advance U.S. national interests in the face of that competition. The report offers nine specific recommendations and a two-tier implementation plan to integrate those recommendations into defense management processes."

Defense Intelligence Agency. (Washington, DC: Defense Intelligence Agency, 2019).
“Chinese leaders characterize China’s long-term military modernization program as essential to achieving great power status. Indeed, China is building a robust, lethal force with capabilities spanning the air, maritime, space and information domains which will enable China to impose its will in the region. As it continues to grow in strength and confidence, our nation’s leaders will face a China insistent on having a greater voice in global interactions, which at times may be antithetical to U.S. interests. With a deeper understanding of the military might behind Chinese economic and diplomatic efforts, we can provide our own national political, economic, and military leaders the widest range of options for choosing when to counter, when to encourage, and when to join with China in actions around the world. This report offers insights into the modernization of Chinese military power as it reforms from a defensive, inflexible ground-based force charged with domestic and peripheral security responsibilities to a joint, highly agile, expeditionary, and power-projecting arm of Chinese foreign policy that engages in military diplomacy and operations across the globe.”

Cordesman, Anthony H. (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2019).
“This report is an experimental net assessment that addresses China's emergence as a global superpower, and its competition with the United States.”

National Institute for Defense Studies. (Tokyo, Japan: National Institute for Defense Studies, 2021).

Mobley, Terry.
Strategic Studies Quarterly 13, no. 3 (Fall 2019): 52-72.

Feng Yujun, et al. (Beijing: Carnegie–Tsinghua Center for Global Policy, 2019).

Jones, Bruce. (Washington, DC: Brookings, 2019).

Chatzky, Andrew, and James McBride.
Council on Foreign Relations (May 21, 2019).

ChinaPower from the Center for Strategic & International Studies. April 12, 2019, streaming audio, 31:09.

Campbell, Kurt M., and Jake Sullivan.
Foreign Affairs 98, no. 5 (September-October 2019): 96-110.

Harsono, Hugh.
War Room (April 9, 2019).

ChinaPower. (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2019).

Anonymous. (Washington, DC: Atlantic Council, 2021).
“Key Points
• The single most important challenge facing the United States and the democratic world in the twenty-first century is the rise of an increasingly authoritarian and aggressive China under Xi Jinping. China has long had an integrated, operational strategy for dealing with the United States. The United States has so far had no such strategy with regard to China. This is a dereliction of national responsibility.
• US strategy and policy toward China must be laser-focused on the fault lines among Xi and his inner circle–aimed at changing their objectives and behavior and thus their strategic course. Communist Party elites are much more divided about Xi’s leadership and vast ambitions than is widely appreciated.
• The foremost goal of US strategy should be to cause China’s ruling elites to conclude that it is in China’s best interests to continue operating within the US-led liberal international order rather than building a rival order, and that it is in the Chinese Communist Party’s best interests to not attempt to expand China’s borders or export its political model beyond China’s shores.”

Hart, Melanie, and Blaine Johnson.
Center for American Progress (February 28, 2019).

McGregor, Richard.
Foreign Affairs 98, no. 5 (September-October 2019): 18-25.

Nobukatsu, Kanehara. Asia-Pacific Review 28, no. 1 (May 2021): 61-79.

Lehr, Amy K.
Center for Strategic & International Studies (November 13, 2018).

Hillman, Jonathan E., and Maesea McCalpin.
Center for Strategic & International Studies (April 11, 2019).

U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Publishing Office, 2020).
“Topics this year include China's view of strategic competition with the United States; China's promotion of alternative global norms and standards; China's strategic aims in Africa; vulnerabilities in China's financial system and risks for the United States; U.S.-China links in healthcare and biotechnology; China's growing power projection and expeditionary capabilities; Taiwan; Hong Kong; and a review of economics, trade, security, political, and foreign affairs developments in 2020.”

Kennedy, Scott, and Yilin Wang. (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2021).
“The People’s Bank of China (PBOC), which oversees the world’s largest financial system, struggles to effectively communicate with market actors, domestic and foreign. Yi Gang, the current governor of the PBOC, despite being more reticent than his counterparts around the world, has spoken on more public occasions than his predecessor. As a result of Yi’s personal interest as well as changes in the PBOC’s communications strategy, the bank has gained greater public visibility. However, this recent activism should not be mistaken as a sign of greater autonomy or authority. The PBOC has assumed a more important role in China’s overall financial governance, taking up a ‘dual-pillar’function that included both monetary policymaking and macro-prudential management; but it is still far from an independent central bank whose words convey great authority. U.S. policymakers and the financial community should pay close attention to how the PBOC speaks to markets to understand how Chinese economic policies are implemented, but everyone should recognize that on critical issues, higher authorities within the central government and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) still set the agenda and speak most authoritatively for the regime.”

BluEarth
“Reliable data on China’s economy are notoriously difficult to come by. Official Chinese government figures exist, but lack transparency and credibility, while the few private indicators that exist are far too limited in size and scope for strategic planning.
We founded China Beige Book International in 2010 to help institutional investors and corporate CEOs navigate China’s notoriously black box economy. Today we operate the largest private in-country data-collection network ever developed to track the Chinese marketplace, gathering real-time economic data from thousands of firms across all of China’s regions, sectors, and 34 discrete industries.
Our flagship platform provides independent data and in-depth analysis on every key component of China’s diverse economy—from growth dynamics to labor market and inflation trends to the world’s only tracker of the credit environment and shadow banking.
These data are the principal drivers of our advisory work, allowing our globally-recognized team of experts to guide clients through the noise while staying ahead of critical market-moving trends in the world’s second-largest economy.”

Segal, Stephanie, and Dylan Gerstel. (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2021).
“The CSIS Economics Program launched ‘Degrees of Separation’ to establish clearer objectives for U.S. engagement with China and to assess whether disengagement from specific economic activities can help in meeting such objectives. This interim report reviews the evolution of the U.S.-China relationship since President Nixon’s visit to China in February 1972. It takes stock of the current bilateral economic relationship, with particular focus on trade, investment, and innovation linkages. The report identifies six distinct areas that motivated U.S.-China engagement from 1972 through the end of the Trump administration: (1) geostrategy; (2) economics; (3) human rights and civil society; (4) global rules and norms; (5) global public goods; and (6) technology and innovation. While specific objectives in each area continue to evolve, these six areas remain relevant to guiding bilateral engagement today. A subsequent report, delivered later this year, will present a framework for assessing specific economic activities as candidates for targeted decoupling, along with case studies designed to test the framework.”

Kania, Elsa B., and Lorand Laskai. (Washington, DC: Center for a New American Security, 2020).
“In U.S. policy debates on China, military-civil fusion (MCF) has emerged as a frequent subject of debate and concern. Once a niche topic of study among only avid watchers of Chinese military modernization and defense technological development, Beijing’s drive to break down barriers and create stronger linkages between its civilian economy and defense industrial base has started to draw considerable attention in Washington. During Donald Trump’s administration, Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, senior officials across the State Department and Defense Department, and members of Congress all devoted time to MCF in speeches, using it to justify a broad range of policies. These included expanding investigations into intellectual property theft, banning Huawei from U.S. networks and critical infrastructure, urging companies like Microsoft and Google to stop working with Chinese counterparts, and even advocating for ‘decoupling’ from the People’s Republic of China (PRC), such as in supply chains and by limiting technological collaboration. MCF has emerged as a key analytic driver of the intensifying economic and technological competition between the United States and the PRC in recent years. While Joe Biden’s administration will have an opportunity to reset the tone of the U.S.-China relationship and recalibrate the use of instruments of U.S. policy, China’s model of MCF is likely to remain a major concern for U.S. policymakers.”

Livingston, Scott. (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2021).
“The Issue
• The Chinese Communist Party (CCP or the ‘Party’) is currently strengthening the presence and powers of internal Party organizations located within Chinese companies to ensure greater oversight and influence over China’s commercial sector.
• In addition, as part of what it calls the ‘modern enterprise system with Chinese characteristics,’ the CCP is requiring that companies codify a role for these Party organizations in their corporate charters.
• These new developments challenge traditional understandings of corporate autonomy, and by extension, how Chinese companies should be treated under existing international trade agreements and by the regulatory and investment review bodies of foreign governments. Because the CCP might well attempt to extend this push into foreign private companies operating in China, these new actions pose a very real threat to the operational independence of foreign-invested enterprises (FIEs).
• To formulate an effective response, companies and governments in market economies should increase their understanding of how the CCP operates at the grassroots level and work to ensure greater transparency and understanding of the overall level of Party influence within specific firms. To further this transparency, U.S. policymakers could consider requiring securities issuers in the United States provide enhanced disclosures relating to CCP activities within their firms. The U.S. government should also consider reviving open-source data collection initiatives to publish and translate key CCP regulations and Party documents in order to increase understanding and spur further analysis of the Party system.”

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Lawfare. July 6, 2020, streaming audio, 41:50
"Christian Brose was the staff director of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and he was also John McCain's senior policy adviser. He now works as the chief strategy officer of Anduril Industries, and he is the author of 'The Kill Chain: Defending America and the Future of High-Tech Warfare,' a look at how far behind the United States is growing in possible conflict against its principal national security adversary: China. Benjamin Wittes sat down with Chris to talk through what would happen if China and the United States actually fought a war. How has China modernized its military so quickly without the kind of military spending the United States has engaged in? And what does the United States need to do to stay current?"

Parton, Charles. (London, UK: Royal United Services Institute, 2019).
"This Occasional Paper seeks to outline the likely extent of the Chinese Communist Party's interference activities in the UK and to make some recommendations on what needs to be done to counter them."

"Promoting research, conducting evidence-based analysis, fostering collaboration, and training future leaders to better understand the economic and political dimensions of China-Africa relations and their implications for human security and global development."

"Dollar and Sense" podcast from Brookings. April 29, 2019, streaming audio, 0:25:08.
"Deborah Brautigam, director of the China Africa Research Initiative at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, joins Senior Fellow David Dollar to discuss China's Belt and Road Initiative and its implications for Africa. Brautigam and Dollar address the scale of Chinese financing in Africa and around the world, debt-trap diplomacy, labor issues, and much more."

"The purpose of the China Innovation Policy Series (CIPS) is to analyze trends in technology innovation in China and consider the implications for government policies and business strategies. The series examines general trends as well as a range of strategic sectors that have different economic dynamics, including: the Internet, new-generation vehicles (electric and autonomous vehicles), semiconductors, artificial intelligence, commercial aircraft, and pharmaceuticals."

Chatham House. May 16, 2019, streaming audio, 47:18.

Library of Congress
"The Chinese Rare Book Digital Collection draws from the 5,300 titles of Chinese rare books housed at the Asian Division of the Library of Congress. The initial online presentation includes about 1,000 digitized rare titles, and more will be accessible in following phases. Once complete, the digital collection will comprise nearly 2,000 titles."

Shambaljamts, Amarbayasgalan.
War Room (July 11, 2018).