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Articles by Arran Hope
White paper promotes new world order
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China: New Quality Combat Forces Underpin Military Modernization
New Quality Combat Forces Underpin Military Modernization Executive Summary: “New quality combat forces,” which refers to the integration of emerging technologies with military capabilities, are increasingly important to Chinese military modernization, according to authoritative policy documents and commentaries in Party media.
Beijing’s New Approach to Taiwan
In 2025, Beijing has intensified its approach to Taiwan across legal, military, discourse, and political dimensions. In October, a local public security bureau opened investigation into a sitting Taiwanese lawmaker for the first time, enhancing its legal warfare tactics against the democratic state.
Beijing’s New Approach to Taiwan
In 2025, Beijing has intensified its approach to Taiwan across legal, military, discourse, and political dimensions. Read Full Article » Show comments Hide Comments Related Articles
Beijing’s New Approach to Taiwan
Executive Summary: In 2025, Beijing has intensified its approach to Taiwan across legal, military, discourse, and political dimensions. In October, a local public security bureau opened investigation into a sitting Taiwanese lawmaker for the first time, enhancing its legal warfare tactics against the democratic state.
Nihilism, Denialism, and Annihilation in New Xinjiang White Paper
Executive Summary: Xi Jinping’s personal imprimatur on the Party-state’s policies in Xinjiang are unambiguous, according to a new white paper published to coincide with a central-level delegation to the region in late September. The Party uses cultural and historical arguments to justify its ongoing policies of cultural erasure in the region that have been characterized by governments, parliaments, and other entities as genocidal. The white paper celebrates many of these policies.
‘AI +’ Initiatives Multiply After Years of Experimentation
By 2035, artificial intelligence (AI) will underpin practically all sectors of the economy and society, according to recent plans from policy planners in Beijing. The upcoming 15th Five-Year Plan could become the first to include “AI+” as a major policy initiative. Development of the “AI+” formulation is a good example of Beijing’s approach to policymaking, with almost a decade of local experimentation preceding its appearance in central-level policies.
‘AI +’ Initiatives Multiply After Years of Experimentation
Executive Summary: By 2035, artificial intelligence (AI) will underpin practically all sectors of the economy and society, according to recent plans from policy planners in Beijing. The upcoming 15th Five-Year Plan could become the first to include “AI+” as a major policy initiative. Development of the “AI+” formulation is a good example of Beijing’s approach to policymaking, with almost a decade of local experimentation preceding its appearance in central-level policies.
SCO Summit Focuses on Shaping Emerging Frontiers
Executive Summary: The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is an increasingly important vehicle through which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) seeks to drive changes to the international system. This year’s summit focused on seizing the current moment to shape rules and standards in emerging frontiers, such as artificial intelligence (AI), cyberspace, and outer space.
Experts Reminded of Central Mission at Summer Retreat
Executive Summary: This August, 62 experts from the fields of science and technology, philosophy and social sciences, and basic research were invited to take a vacation and meet with senior officials in Beidaihe as part of an annual tradition that dates back to at least 2001. Cultivating talents in strategic sectors is seen as essential to achieving the Party’s ambitions of becoming the world’s preeminent power. Many appear to have bought in to the mission.
Terminal Authority: Assessing the CCP’s Emerging Crisis of Political Succession
Executive Summary: Xi Jinping continues to dominate the Chinese Party-state system, based on an assessment of evidence from spring and summer 2025. Despite high-level purges, unusual military reshuffles, and persistent rumors of elite dissatisfaction, there is no visible indication that Xi’s personal authority has meaningfully eroded. Signs of rebalancing within the military-security apparatus add nuance to this assessment.
Divergent Implications for Xi’s Power From New Party Regulations
Executive Summary: Speculation is growing about a power struggle at the top of the Party. An announcement of new regulations for influential decision-making and coordinating bodies is a clear sign of change in how the leadership makes policy. Its implications for Xi Jinping’s power remain unclear. One interpretation sees the regulations as evidence of Xi enhancing his vertical control over the system, while another reading sees him being constrained by the rest of the leadership.
Authorities Renew Reform and Opening Amid Economic Pressures
Executive Summary: The Party has updated plans to build the Greater Bay Area into a key growth driver, emphasizing attracting foreign investment and overseas talent. The measures from Beijing seek to make it easier for funds and elite global experts to move between the jurisdictions of Hong Kong and Shenzhen, with the goal of boosting development and cutting-edge innovation.
New Rules Advance Data-Based Governance System
Executive Summary: New regulations that seek to build an integrated national system for sharing government affairs data are intended to boost the Party’s dual priorities of boosting innovation and safeguarding security. The regulations aim to resolve issues and inefficiencies caused by data silos and government organs refusing to share data with other organizations.
5/28/25 National Security News and Commentary
Quotes of the Day: “Water does not resist. Water flows. When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress. Water is not a solid wall, it will not stop you. But water always goes where it wants to go, and nothing in the end can stand against it. Water is patient. Dripping water wears away a stone. Remember that, my child. Remember you are half water. If you can't go through an obstacle, go around it.
White Paper Offers Chinese Wisdom at the Crossroads of History
Executive Summary: A new white paper titled “China’s National Security in the New Era” is targeted to both domestic and international audiences and offers “Chinese wisdom” and solutions to contemporary challenges. In a bid for global leadership, the document frames “unstoppable” world historical trends as aligning with its mission of national rejuvenation and rebukes the United States for being a destabilizing international actor.
White Paper Offers Chinese Wisdom at the Crossroads of History
Executive Summary: A new white paper titled “China’s National Security in the New Era” is targeted to both domestic and international audiences and offers “Chinese wisdom” and solutions to contemporary challenges. In a bid for global leadership, the document frames “unstoppable” world historical trends as aligning with its mission of national rejuvenation and rebukes the United States for being a destabilizing international actor.
Beijing Touts Malaria Victory in African ‘Discourse Power’ Push
Executive Summary: Beijing cannot and will not replace the United States’s former role in overseas aid, but it will seize opportunities to portray itself as playing a leading role where doing so aligns with its own programmatic interests. The PRC views international aid differently to the West, and tends to concentrate funds strategically, such as in countries rich in natural resources.
Nobody Cares About the Party’s Recommended Readings
Executive Summary: The Propaganda Department’s top books from 2024 highlight those by Xi Jinping, as well as ones focused on military themes, Party history, and China’s place in the world. This official book list has virtually no overlap with similar lists on platforms like Douban or WeChat, and minimal interest in the list indicates that citizens of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) largely ignore the Beijing’s attempts to shape national culture.
The PRC Sees ‘Window of Opportunity’ With Europe
Executive Summary: Beijing sees a strategic window of opportunity to drive a wedge between the United States and Europe and improve its economic and trading relationship with the European Union. Officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Party’s International Department have used a number of bilateral channels in the last two months to encourage European interlocutors to promote Beijing’s preferences at the European level.
The Increasing Insignificance of the Two Sessions
Executive Summary: The annual “Two Sessions” meetings in Beijing are increasingly insignificant affairs, as the lack of genuine policy announcements and restrictions on delegates reduces the space for consultation and deliberation. The government unveiled a new RMB 1 trillion national innovation investment guidance fund, but details are scant and its announcement was relegated to a press conference rather than in a policy document.
Multiple Multipoles: Distinguishing Definitions Between Beijing and the West
Executive Summary: Beijing believes that the multipolar world it has spent decades calling for is within reach, judging by recent high-level speeches in Europe, Russia, and elsewhere. Beijing’s conception of multipolarity diverges in important ways from that of the West. Moscow has been central to Beijing’s approach to advancing multipolarity, and President Xi Jinping has tended to discuss key foreign policy strategies during visits to Moscow.
Military Content Restrictions Could Indicate Trouble Ahead
Executive Summary: New measures to control online information related to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could be an indicator of imminent military operations, further purges, or other military activity. The measures are drafted by 10 military and state bodies, indicating that Beijing places enormous importance on information security and continues to pursue high-level military-civil integration.
Beijing Woos Washington While Advancing New International Order
Executive Summary: The PRC is tempering its criticisms of the United States and other powerful countries in the early part of the Trump administration in a seeming attempt to foster a stable external environment while it continues to enhance its national power. Official PRC media have mostly refused to criticize President Trump’s rhetoric regarding territorial expansion, in contrast to non-official media and other global coverage of the new president’s inaugural address.
Dreams Deferred in Xi’s New Year’s Speech
Executive Summary: Xi Jinping’s New Year’s speech hinted at weaknesses in the People’s Republic of China. The speech emphasized the many hardships that people are currently facing at home while acknowledging fears about a turbulent external environment. Xi did not mention “national rejuvenation” and he conceded that the “China dream” was far from being realized.
Winter is Coming: Beijing Tightens Public Security
Executive Summary: A new campaign, “Operation Winter,” has been announced to mobilize public security officials in the wake of deadly attacks across the People’s Republic of China. The operation seeks to mobilize extra human resources and integrated technology to enhance the party-state’s apparatus of “preventive repression,” resolving issues at the earliest opportunity.
PRC Sees Opportunities in US Election Results
Executive Summary: Beijing has been preparing for a Trump presidency since at least the spring, assessing potential cabinet picks and their views on the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Since November 5, the PRC has hyped areas in which the United States might want to cooperate, including those in which Beijing has leverage. Many see opportunities stemming from Trump’s likely approach to governing, his isolationist outlook, and his proximity to Elon Musk and other similar figures.
The Art of War: PRC Weaponizes Culture to Galvanize the People
Executive Summary: The Party sees culture as a tool to achieve its strategic ambitions both inside and outside the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Speeches, articles, and conferences portray it as central to achieving national rejuvenation. Party discourse on culture is shot through with militaristic terminology. Not just echoing Mao-era rhetoric, this reflects Beijing’s desire to “engineer souls” in pursuit of a strong nation.
Discourse Dimensions of the PLA’s Joint Sword 2024-B Exercises
Executive Summary: The Joint Sword 2024–B exercises by the People’s Liberation Army were in part a tool of political intimidation to “serve as a stern warning to the separatist acts of ‘Taiwan Independence’ forces,” namely the Lai Ching-te administration. Beijing’s rhetoric is doubling down on blaming Taiwan for its own desire to resort to military action and saber-rattling.
PRC at 75: Xi Makes Dour Address While Critics Articulate Bleak Outlook
Executive Summary: Xi Jinping’s address on the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) highlighted risks and challenges ahead and included a lengthy segment on unification with Taiwan. The speech was accompanied by relatively muted celebrations on October 1, which passed with minimal fanfare.
Beijing’s Soft Power Push with African Nations
Executive Summary: The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has successfully used its hosting of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation to burnish its soft power and its credentials to be seen as the leader of the Global South. Close political alignment on core issues, including African states affirming support for the PRC’s positions on Hong Kong, Xinjiang, Tibet, and unification with Taiwan are indicative of the PRC’s diplomatic gains.
A ‘Chinese Starlink’ Launches New Era For Domestic Space Industry
Executive Summary: A commercial company has become the first enterprise in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to launch a batch of internet satellites into low-Earth orbit. PRC media has framed this “Qianfan” constellation as one of the country’s principal competitors to SpaceX’s Starlink.
Kursk Incursion Draws Delayed Response From Beijing
Executive Summary: Official media in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has finally begun to comment on the Ukrainian operation in Russia’s Kursk oblast, which began on August 6. It gives Ukraine low odds of success, emphasizes Russia’s strength and successes elsewhere in the conflict, and has started amplifying Russian propaganda about US involvement and potential Ukrainian attacks on the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant.
Wolf Worriers: Repeated Cries for Reform Fail to Convince at Third Plenum
Executive Summary: The Resolution from the Third Plenum focused primarily on economic reform but reinforced the Party’s existing strategy rather than announcing a change in overall direction. The Resolution does nothing to mitigate concerns about the real estate sector, weak domestic demand, subsidized export-oriented manufacturing, and plans to achieve dominance in critical technologies.
PRC Advances New International Order In Astana
Executive Summary: The People’s Republic of China (PRC) sees the Shanghai Cooperation Organization as an important part of a wider strategy to construct a new international order. Beijing projects soft power through promoting norms, discursive constructs, and policy preferences in the SCO which member states officially endorse. These include language about comprehensively reforming the UN and supporting all PRC efforts to achieve national reunification with Taiwan.
New China Coast Guard Regulation Buttresses PRC Aggression in the South China Sea
Executive Summary: The new “Regulation of the CCG Organization on Enforcing Law and Order” formalizes the increasingly assertive actions taken by Chinese forces in parts of South China Sea (SCS), empowering CCG to detain foreign vessels and persons for up to 60 days (Art.
Taiwan’s Reform Bills Indicate Volatility
Executive Summary: Taiwan’s Executive Yuan has returned inflammatory legislation to the Legislative Yuan over concerns that it violates democratic principles, procedural justice, and the country’s constitution. The legislation is also likely to face judicial challenges.
Change of discourse between Xi and Putin on Ukraine - Analysis - Eurasia Review
On May 16, Vladimir Putin, newly re-elected President of the Russian Federation, visited Beijing. There he was met by President Xi Jinping for their annual meeting in person. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China (PRC) noted that bilateral relations between the two countries have withstood wind and rain, grown stronger over time, and withstood the tests of unpredictability of international storms () (FMPRCMay 16).
Shifting Discourse Between Xi and Putin On Ukraine
Executive Summary: Across 12 communiques, meeting readouts, and official phone calls between Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin since February 2022, the salience of language on Ukraine has reduced, but the substance has hardened.
Foreign Fixations at the Heart of Chinese-style Modernization
Executive Summary: A new report from two high-end PRC think-tanks details the country’s path to modernization in anticipation of July’s Third Plenum but suggests that any shifts in policy direction will be muted. The report emphasizes the triumph of Chinese-style modernization over the Western model and provides substantial criticisms of the failures of the West. It also argues that the PRC’s model contains lessons for other developing countries.
Learning From National Security Education Day
Executive Summary: The Comprehensive National Security Concept has expanded over the last decade to cover areas the People’s Republic of China (PRC) perceives to be its territory, which now includes the deep sea, space, and digital networks. Xi Jinping has pushed the totalizing conception of national security—explicitly linking it to economic development and traditional culture—giving the Ministry of State Security (MSS) a more public and influential role.
PRC Support Underpins Russia’s War Against Ukraine
Executive Summary: PRC aid to Russia is multidomain and underpins much of Moscow’s ability to continue to wage war in Ukraine. Attempts have been made to institutionalize the Sino-Russian relationship, deepening the military aspect in particular. The relationship between Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin nevertheless remains its driving force.
When The Chips Are Down: Taiwan’s Water and Energy Conundrum
Executive Summary: Taiwan’s heavy reliance on energy imports, coupled with high energy demands, poses significant challenges, with semiconductor manufacturing being a major consumer. Environmental concerns such as droughts, exacerbated by climate change, and Taiwan’s fossil fuel-heavy energy mix raise serious alarm bells for the island’s energy security. TSMC, Taiwan’s semiconductor giant, faces water scarcity issues, which are forecasted to impact its production capabilities.
New Quality Combat Forces: More Than Meets The Eye
Executive Summary: Conceptual framings from the military may be influencing how the CCP approaches its management of the economy. The phrase “New Quality Combat Forces” predates the phrase “New Quality Productive Forces” by several years. Now they are being linked as mutually self-reinforcing constructs.
Jing-Jin-Ji At Ten: Urban Planning Under Xi
Executive Summary: The Jing-Jin-Ji region’s integrated development embodies Xi Jinping’s vision for the PRC and is one of his strategic priorities. Planning documents from the past decade detail ambitions to leverage the potential of this region’s 110 million people by designing a global center for innovation and high-end industrial production.
Special Issue: Taiwanese Voices On The 2024 Elections
This year sees the Jamestown Foundation celebrate its 40th anniversary. The intention of Jamestown’s analysis since its inception has always been to foreground indigenous voices and local sources from the regions of focus. The organization’s founder, William Geimer, published memoirs of Arkady Shevchenko, the highest-ranking Soviet official ever to defect when he left his position as undersecretary general of the United Nations, and of Ion Pacepa, Romania’s former top intelligence officer.
Red Genes: Assessing WuXi AppTec's Ties to the Party-Army-State
Jamestown Senior Fellow Olevs Nikers Interviewed by TVP World on State of Russian-Finnish Border Jamestown Foundation Senior Fellow Olevs Nikers was interviewed by TVP World regarding the current state of affairs along Finland’s border with Russia.
PRC Law And The Demise of Hong Kong In 2024
Executive Summary: New National Security legislation, which emulates recent PRC laws, and the potential torture of a witness in the ongoing trial of Jimmy Lai, is characteristic of the erosion of legal norms in Hong Kong as it moves towards full unification with the CCP regime. Attempts at regularization and institutionalization of the PRC law in the last two decades are undercut by irresolvable tensions at the heart of the system, leading to instability.
'Self-Revolution’ Suggests Stronger CCDI Mandate
Executive Summary The third plenary session of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) of the twentieth party congress took place on January 8, emphasizing “courage in [performing] self-revolution” as a distinctive character and advantage of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Xi Jinping addressed the perennial dilemma of corruption within the CCP, pronouncing victory in a decade of anti-corruption efforts but simultaneously warning that the situation remains grim and complex.
Xi’s New Year’s Speech Dismisses Difficulties
Party’s global network of official media outlets (Youtube, December 31, 2023). The speech is an annual tradition, delivered from behind a wooden desk in rhetoric that is at once paternalistic and triumphalist, in which Xi surveys the high points of the outgoing year and looks to the year ahead.
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