This ChinaPower Podcast is a recording of an event we held on December 18th, 2024 on the U.S. Department of Defense’s (DOD) 2024 report on the Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China (PRC)—commonly known as the China Military Power Report (CMPR). 

 Required every year by Congress for over 20 years, the CMPR offers an authoritative assessment of the PRC's national strategies and its regional and global ambitions. It also outlines key developments pertaining to People’s Liberation Army (PLA) modernization and the expansion of its nuclear, cyberspace, and space capabilities. What are the major takeaways from the 2024 report and what is the current assessment of China’s military power? How are China’s defense and security strategies evolving, and what does it mean for the United States? Joining us to highlight the report’s findings are Dr. Ely S. Ratner, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs and Dr. Michael S. Chase, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for China, Taiwan, and Mongolia.  

In this episode of the ChinaPower Podcast, Dr. Feng Zhang joins us to discuss China-North Korea relations in light of the growing Russia-North Korea relationship and deployment of North Korean troops to support Russia. Dr. Zhang discusses how the China-North Korea relationship has suffered in recent years, in part due to China joining UN sanctions against North Korea in 2016, the COVID-19 pandemic, and North Korea’s involvement in Russia’s war against Ukraine. Dr. Zhang explains that China has a waning influence over North Korea, evidenced most strongly through the recent further alignment between Pyongyang and Moscow. He notes that China still sees itself as a great power on the Korean Peninsula, striving for regional stability to ensure its own national security, but that China struggles to use its economic and diplomatic pressures on North Korea, fearing that it may antagonize Pyongyang against Beijing. Dr. Zhang notes that North Korea is widely viewed in China as an agent of chaos and Beijing does not want to be viewed as a member or leader in the “axis of upheaval” with North Korea, Russia, and Iran. Finally, given China’s rising concerns about North Korean foreign policy and growing North Korea-Russia ties, Dr. Zhang predicts Beijing will try to play a bigger role in working with the incoming Trump Administration and other regional actors to curb North Korea’s provocative behavior.

Dr. Feng Zhang is a Visiting Scholar at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center. He previously held positions at Tsinghua University, Murdoch University, and the Australian National University. He specializes in Chinese foreign policy, international relations in East Asia, and international relations theory. He is the author of Chinese Hegemony: Grand Strategy and International Institutions in East Asian History (Stanford, 2015). He co-authored two books with Richard Ned Lebow: Taming Sino-American Rivalry (Oxford, 2020) and Justice and International Order: East and West (Oxford, 2022). His new book on China’s Policy toward Afghanistan since 1949 will be published shortly. His current project examines the causes and management of U.S.-China competition.  

In this episode of the ChinaPower Podcast, Dr. Ryan Berg joins us to discuss China’s relations with Latin America. Dr. Berg discusses both Chinese and U.S. interests in the region, emphasizing that while the U.S. has tended to approach the region with “strategic neglect,” China seems to view Latin America as highly important in terms of both its strategic and economic goals. Dr. Berg explains his view that President Xi is personally invested in the region and believes it holds high economic complementarity to the Chinese economy, specifically in relation to China’s Belt and Road Imitative (BRI). Dr. Berg notes that although the U.S. is still the preferred security partner among Latin American countries, China is becoming more competitive in this space and is viewed among many countries as providing more opportunities, specifically in the economic realm. Dr. Berg also discusses the public opinion of China in Latin America, noting that China’s image has not fully recovered since its decline during COVID-19, and describes the U.S. efforts to not only warn Latin American countries of the risks of investment and economic deals with China but also the US attempt to compete with China as the preferred economic partner. Dr. Berg provides insights on President Xi’s most recent trip to the region for the APEC Leader’s Summit, specifically discussing his inauguration of a new massive port in Peru, and other ways Xi seemed to overshadow President Biden. Finally, Dr. Berg discusses some of the concerns surrounding China’s growing presence in the region and suggestions for U.S. policymakers.

Dr. Ryan C. Berg is director of the Americas Program and head of the Future of Venezuela Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He is also an adjunct professor at the Catholic University of America and a course coordinator at the United States Foreign Service Institute. His research focuses on U.S.-Latin America relations, strategic competition and defense policy, authoritarian regimes, armed conflict and transnational organized crime, and trade and development issues. Previously, Dr. Berg was a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he helped lead its Latin America Studies Program, as well as visiting research fellow at the University of Oxford’s Changing Character of War Programme. Dr. Berg was a Fulbright scholar in Brazil and is a Council on Foreign Relations Term Member.

In this episode of the ChinaPower Podcast, Mr. Ivan Kanapathy joins us to discuss what Donald Trump’s second administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy may look like and the ways in which Trump redefined the U.S. relationship with China during his first term. Mr. Kanapathy shares that a second Trump administration will likely show high continuity from his first and speaks to how Trump will have to deal with a more aggressive China this time around but that many of the measures the Trump administration put in place during his first term have served to weaken China throughout the last few years. Mr. Kanapathy provides his assessment that the Trump administration will likely maintain many of the same objectives from the Biden administration, specifically in prioritizing U.S. security and prosperity as well as maintaining strong relationships with our allies and partners. However, he shares that Trump will likely place a larger emphasis on reducing freeriders and on leveling the planning field through increased burden sharing. Mr. Kanapathy shares his thoughts on Trump’s proposed economic policies towards the region and his view that Trump’s tariffs on China during his first administration were highly successful in diversifying U.S. imports and making goods from allies and partners, rather than China, more attractive. He explains his view that the U.S. needs clearer leadership and a more concrete strategy towards China that includes a model of deterrence without assurances. Finally, Mr. Kanapathy explains that the next administration should seek positive sum competition with China, rather than cooperation, and explains that rather than mil to mil cooperation, leader level meetings will be more effective.  

Ivan Kanapathy is a senior vice president with Beacon Global Strategies. From March 2018 to July 2021, he served on the White House’s National Security Council staff as director for China, Taiwan, and Mongolia and deputy senior director for Asian affairs. From 2014 to 2017, Ivan worked at the American Institute in Taiwan, representing U.S. interests and advising on military and security issues in Taipei. Earlier in his career, Ivan spent a year studying in Beijing and traveling throughout China, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia as a U.S. Marine Corps foreign area study fellow; he later led the development and implementation of the service’s global security cooperation strategy and policies at the Pentagon. As a naval flight officer, Ivan accumulated 2,500 flight hours, served three years as a F/A-18 weapons officer and tactics instructor at the U.S Navy Fighter Weapons School (better known as TOPGUN), and deployed to the Middle East and Western Pacific five times, earning several combat awards and decorations. He holds a MA (with distinction) in East Asia security studies from the Naval Postgraduate School, a BS in physics and economics from Carnegie Mellon University, and an AA and diploma (with highest honors) in Chinese – Mandarin from the Defense Language Institute. 

In this episode of the ChinaPower Podcast, Mr. Rick Waters joins us to discuss what the recent U.S. presidential election results mean for China. Mr. Waters shares that China viewed President Trump’s first term as largely divided into two different phases, a more transactional phase in the first half of the administration and a second phase shaped by U.S. anger at China over Covid-19. Mr. Waters also explains that during the recent U.S. presidential election, Chinese scholars did not see large strategic differences between the Trump and Harris campaigns regarding China, and instead saw the differences as mainly tactical. Similarly, he speaks to China’s view that changes in which party controls the U.S. Congress will not cause significant changes in the overall U.S. trajectory on China, as both U.S. parties are increasingly concerned about the challenges and threats China poses. However, he notes Beijing may be concerned that a Republican dominated House and Senate may lead to the end of Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) with China. Mr. Waters also speaks to how China may approach the new Trump administration and assesses that China is waiting to see the first moves from the United States and whether those signal that Trump is willing to bargain with Xi or if the United States will take a greater turn towards unilateral decoupling. Finally, Mr. Waters speaks to possibility of NATO expanding into the Indo-Pacific and the growing ties between Pyongyang and Moscow, and what these changing geopolitics will mean for the future of the US-China relationship.

Rick Waters is the managing director of Eurasia Group's China practice. Drawing on his decades of experience in the US foreign service, Rick leads the firm's China expertise and client offerings. His research interests include China's global and regional diplomacy, US-China relations, and China's domestic political economy. Rick joined Eurasia Group after a 27-year career as the US State Department's top China policy official, overseeing the creation of the Office of China Coordination, informally known as the China House, and concurrently serving as deputy assistant secretary of state for China and Taiwan. Rick also held multiple roles at the US embassy in Beijing—including during the period between the accidental US bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999 and the Hainan Island incident in 2001.

In this episode of the ChinaPower Podcast, Mr. Jon Czin joins us to discuss domestic dynamics and leadership decisionmaking within the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC). Mr. Czin discusses what is currently missing in the conversation within the United States on Chinese politics and the fact that many analysts failed to predict the scope and concentration of power that President Xi Jinping would be able to garner. He describes his humanistic approach to studying decisionmaking by Chinese leadership, attempting to look at issues through the eyes of Xi Jinping and the context within China in which Xi makes these decisions. Mr. Czin discusses his impression of Xi Jinping and both how and why he is vastly different from his predecessors, using Xi’s unique past as a primary reason for his style of leadership. He speaks to Xi’s focus on domestic and party issues, such as widespread corruption, and discusses what he sees as the limited connection that exists currently between China’s internal dynamics and its foreign policy. Mr. Czin shares his assessment that China has arrived as a defining force in the geopolitical environment and in 10 to 20 years China will continue to have the capacity and the will to be a formidable rival to the United States. Finally, he discusses what he sees as China’s view of the United State’s internal dynamics and the upcoming presidential election.

Mr. Jonathan A. Czin is the Michael H. Armacost Chair in Foreign Policy Studies at Brookings Institution and a fellow in the John L. Thornton China Center. He is a former member of the Senior Analytic Service at CIA, where he was one of the intelligence community’s top China experts. Jon led the intelligence community’s analysis of Chinese politics and policymaking, playing a central role in assessing and briefing senior policymakers on President Xi Jinping, his rise to power, and decisionmaking on an array of key issues and crises. From 2021 till 2023, he was director for China at the National Security Council, where he advised on, staffed, and coordinated White House and inter-agency diplomacy with the People’s Republic of China, including all of President Biden’s interactions with President Xi, and played a leading role in addressing a wide range of global China issues. He also served as advisor for Asia-Pacific security affairs in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and overseas at a CIA field station in Southeast Asia. He holds a master’s in international relations from Yale University, graduated magna cum laude from Haverford College, and studied at Oxford University. He is proficient in Mandarin Chinese.

In this episode of the ChinaPower Podcast, Dr. Taylor Fravel, Dr. George Gilboy, and Dr. Eric Heginbotham join us to discuss their recent article assessing China's defense budget. They challenge widely cited figures that estimate China's defense spending at $700 billion and provide an apples-to-apples analysis based on purchasing power parity. They assess China's defense spending is around $470 billion, about one-third of the U.S. defense budget, and detail what categories they included and excluded. The conversation explores the analytical shortcomings of current estimates, emphasizing the need for appropriate exchange rates and like-for-like item comparisons between China's and the U.S.'s defense budgets. They also discuss China's military priorities and modernization efforts and key factors that may determine the future trajectory of Chinese defense spending.  

 Dr. M. Taylor Fravel is the Arthur and Ruth Sloan Professor of Political Science and director of the Security Studies Program at MIT, specializing in international security with a focus on China and East Asia. He is the author of Strong Borders, Secure Nation and Active Defense: China's Military Strategy Since 1949, with numerous publications in leading journals like International Security and Foreign Affairs. A Rhodes Scholar and Andrew Carnegie Fellow, he holds degrees from Middlebury, Stanford, LSE, and Oxford. Fravel also serves on the board of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations and leads the Maritime Awareness Project. 

 Dr. George J. Gilboy is a senior fellow at the Center for International Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). George concurrently heads Woodside Energy’s Tokyo office. From 2013 to 2018, George was chief economist and vice president of business environment in Perth, leading Woodside’s corporate forecasting team. George lived and worked in China from 1994 to 2013 in roles with Woodside, Shell, Cambridge Energy Research, and Tsinghua University. George holds a BA from Boston College and a PhD in political economy from MIT. 

 Dr. Eric Heginbotham is a principal research scientist at MIT’s Center for International Studies and a specialist in Asian security issues. Before joining MIT, he was a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation, where he led research projects on China, Japan, and regional security issues and regularly briefed senior military, intelligence, and political leaders. Prior to that he was a senior fellow of Asian Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. After graduating from Swarthmore College, Heginbotham earned his PhD in political science from MIT. He is fluent in Chinese and Japanese and was a captain in the US Army Reserve. 

In this episode of the ChinaPower Podcast, Dr. Andrea Kendall-Taylor joins us to discuss the evolving relationship between Russia and China. Dr. Kendall-Taylor discusses the broader geopolitical factors driving Russia’s desire to strengthen ties with China. She analyzes Russia’s increasing dependence on China in the context of its war in Ukraine, and recent reports that China may be providing lethal aid to Russia. Dr. Kendall-Taylor also explores the dynamics between Putin and Xi, highlighting how their close relationship shapes the strategic coordination between the two countries. Finally, Dr. Kendall-Taylor addresses potential challenges for Europe and the United States in responding to this growing alignment.

Dr. Andrea Kendall-Taylor is a senior fellow and director of the Transatlantic Security Program at CNAS, specializing in national security issues, particularly regarding Russia, authoritarianism, and the transatlantic alliance. She previously served as deputy national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia at the National Intelligence Council (NIC) in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). She also served as a senior analyst at the CIA, focusing on Russia, autocratic regimes, and democratic decline. Outside CNAS, she is a distinguished practitioner in grand strategy at Yale’s Jackson School, and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. Her work has appeared in numerous prominent journals including Journal of Peace Research, Democratization, Journal of Democracy, Foreign Affairs, The Washington Post, The Washington Quarterly, and Foreign Policy. She holds a BA from Princeton and a PhD from UCLA. Kendall-Taylor was also a Fulbright scholar in Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan.

In this episode of the ChinaPower Podcast, Dr. Michael Davidson joins us to discuss China’s energy security. Dr. Davidson gives an overview of China’s energy landscape and compares it to that of other countries, such as the United States. He explains how China’s energy priorities have evolved throughout the last decade, especially in response to factors such as climate change and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Dr. Davidson emphasizes the effects that the 2021 and 2022 power shortages in China had on senior Chinese leadership and the resulting elevation in importance of energy security, specifically in the power sector. Additionally, Dr. Davidson discusses China’s challenge in balancing energy security with its goals of reducing emissions and the resulting expanded definition of what energy security encompasses. Finally, Dr. Davidson speaks to how China’s evolving energy security affects its foreign policy and the potential risks for the U.S. and other countries in collaborating with China on clean energy.  

Dr. Michael Davidson is an assistant professor at the School of Global Policy and Strategy and the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department of the Jacobs School of Engineering. Michael Davidson’s research focuses on the engineering implications and institutional conflicts inherent in deploying renewable energy at scale. He is particularly interested in China’s energy system, which he has studied for over 15 years. Dr. Davidson was previously the U.S.-China Climate Policy Coordinator for the environmental nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). He was a Public Intellectuals Program Fellow at the National Committee of U.S.-China Relations, is a current fellow with the Penn Project on the Future of U.S.-China Relations, and a former Fulbright Scholar. Prior to joining UC San Diego, Davidson was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center’s Environment and Natural Resources Program. He received his Ph.D. in engineering systems and a masters in Technology and Policy from MIT. 

In this episode of the ChinaPower Podcast, Dr. Elizabeth Wishnick joins us to discuss recent Sino-Russian activities and what they mean for the overall China-Russia relationship. Dr. Wishnick analyzes the May 2024 Xi-Putin meeting in Beijing, noting that the joint statement the two countries released had significant areas of continuity and some areas of change compared to 2023. She then analyzes the meeting between the two leaders at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit and the nearly half a dozen military exercises the two countries engaged in in July and August 2024. Dr. Wishnick emphasizes that the recent surge of China-Russia military exercises are meant to signal China-Russia political and strategic coordination, with some scheduled in advance as part of their normal annual exercise plans and others scheduled in response to U.S. activities. Finally, Dr. Wishnick shares her predictions for developments within Sino-Russian relations in the coming months. 

Dr. Elizabeth Wishnick is a Senior Research Scientist in the China and Indo-Pacific Security Affairs Division at CNA. She was a Professor of Political Science at Montclair State University from 2005-2024 and the Coordinator of MSU’s Asian Studies Undergraduate Minor from 2010-2019. Since 2002, she has been a research scholar at Columbia University’s Weatherhead East Asian Institute. She previously taught undergraduate and graduate courses in international relations, Chinese politics, and Chinese foreign policy at Barnard College, Columbia College, and SIPA. Dr. Wishnick has dual regional expertise on China and Russia and is an expert on Chinese foreign policy, Sino-Russian relations, Northeast Asian and Central Asian security, and Arctic geopolitics.  She received a PhD in Political Science from Columbia University, an MA in Russian and East European Studies from Yale University, and a BA from Barnard College. She speaks Mandarin, Russian, and French.

In this episode of the ChinaPower Podcast, we are joined by Dr. I-Chung Lai and Professor Jacques deLisle to unpack China’s 2005 Anti-Secession Law and its important implications for cross-Strait relations—the topic of an international conference co-hosted by CSIS and Prospect Foundation in early August 2024. Dr. Lai dissects the legislation’s nine articles, particularly Article 8’s conditions in which China can employ ‘non-peaceful means’ toward Taiwan. Professor deLisle speaks to the implications of the recent “22 Opinions” that China released to strengthen the Anti-Secession Law. The 22 Opinions criminalizes support for Taiwan independence and could be used even against foreign individuals who are not from China or Taiwan. However, Professor deLisle suggests that international recognition and enforcement of these laws would raise human rights concerns. Finally, Dr. Lai and Professor deLisle offer their recommendations on how the United States, Taiwan, and the international community can effectively respond to China’s actions. 

Dr. I-Chung Lai is the president of Prospect Foundation, a Taiwan-based think tank. Prior to joining the Prospect Foundation, he held several prominent positions within the Democratic Progressive Party, serving as executive director of the DPP Mission to the United States and as the director general of the Department of International Affairs. He has also worked as a special assistant with the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Tokyo. 

Professor Jacques deLisle is a Stephen A. Cozen professor of law and professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania. His research and teaching focus on contemporary Chinese law and politics, including legal reform and its relationship to economic reform and political change in China, the international status of Taiwan and cross-Strait relations, China’s engagement with the international order, legal and political issues in Hong Kong under Chinese rule, and U.S.-China relations. DeLisle is the director of the Center for the Study of Contemporary China, co-director of the Center for Asian Law, and director of the Asia Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute.