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  • Ongoing Organizational Reforms of the PLAAF

    From the chapter by Dr. Brendan S. Mulvaney and Ken Allen on the Ongoing Organizational Reforms of the PLAAF from Modernising the People’s Liberation Army: Aspiring to be a Global Military Power (available

  • ITOW: Hypersonic Vehicle Technology

         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. CASI would like to thank all of those involved in this effort.      In the “In Their Own Words” series, CASI and its

  • ITOW: Air Force Tactical Logistics

    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. CASI would like to thank all of those involved in this effort. In the “In Their Own Words” series, CASI and its collaborators aim

  • Tiananmen Square: The Declassified History - w/ postscript 2024

    The Chinese army crackdown on the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests killed thousands of people, up to 10,000 according to released declassified UK documents. The figure was given in a secret diplomatic cable from then British ambassador to China, Sir Alan Donald written on 5 June 1989.  The cable is in

  • China’s Space Capability and What This Means for the West

    The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has rapidly advanced in the space domain on several fronts simultaneously. Gen. Stephen Whiting, commander of U.S. Space Command testified in early 2024 that, “The PRC is moving breathtakingly fast in space. America must rapidly increase the timeliness, quality

  • Army Fuel Keeps Air Force Aircraft Flying

    In mid-February it was reported that a unit of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force was receiving aviation fuel and other supplies from a supply base of the PLA Army. The report provides more evidence that the PLA is improving its joint logistics capability, as previously assessed by

  • Status of the 41st Aviation Brigade transition to the J-20

    By late last fall, the People’s Liberation Army Air Force’s (PLAAF) 41st Aviation Brigade active out of Wuyishan Airbase in Fujian province appeared to be transitioning to the J-20. Commercial satellite imagery from 29 November 2023 shows six J-20 airframes in the open at Wuyishan Airbase. This

  • The PLA’s New Information Support Force

    The PLA’s New Information Support Force Dr. Brendan S. Mulvaney  On Friday, 19 April, Xi Jinping, Chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC) of the Chinese Communist Part (CCP), attended a ceremony where he established a new ‘force’ of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), the Information

  • Hypersonics Research Collaboration Between the United States and the PRC

    This report is the fourth in our series describing the state of research into Hypersonics in the People's Republic of China.  The first report detailed the current state of research into hypersonics in China, the second report detailed Collaboration Efforts on Hypersonic Research Between the PRC and

  • The PLA Navy Coastal Defense Missile Force

    The People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) is comprised of five branches (兵种): the surface fleet, the submarine fleet, naval aviation, the marine corps, and coastal defense. As the PLAN modernizes, each of the branches has undergone its own modernization. This includes the PLAN Coastal Defense force

  • CASI Quarterly Update #1 for 2024

    CASI Quarterly update #1 for 2024Friends of CASI,            Yet another busy quarter to start off the year.  The team at CASI continues to do great work, digging in to source material and providing top notch analysis, reporting, and support to senior leader and the force writ large.  I couldn’t be

  • Chang Guang Satellite Technology Company overview

    This paper provides a brief overview of Chang Guang Satellite Technology Co., Ltd. (CGST) [长光卫星技术股份有限公司], its operations, and connections to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), the People’s Republic of China (PRC) government, and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Previously known in English as

  • PLA On-Orbit Satellite Logistics

    The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is preparing its satellite operators to perform on-orbit satellite refueling, for peacetime and wartime space logistics.  They are also already integrating lessons learned into corresponding military doctrine and training tools.  To further ready a PLA in-space