Jamestown Foundation

Beijing Tightens Control Over Outbound Investment Executive Summary: A new State Council administrative regulation is the first in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to govern outbound investment as a whole. It defines “resident individuals” as outbound investors for the first time, subjecting private overseas investment to the approval, reporting, security-review, and penalty framework that previously only encompassed enterprises.

Russia’s Fuel Shortages Strike Russians at Home Executive Summary: Russia is experiencing more fuel shortages as Ukraine focuses strikes on Russian oil refineries in Moscow and is able to reach targets nearly 2,500 kilometers (1,553 miles) inside Russia.

Maritime Pressure Expands to Pratas and Taiping Executive Summary: Beijing is expanding its “Kinmen model” of gray-zone maritime pressure to other Taiwan-controlled offshore islands and maritime positions. For over two years, it has used political or maritime triggers to challenge Taiwan-administered boundaries, deploy the China Coast Guard (CCG), and normalize its law-enforcement presence in waters under Taiwan’s effective control, but that Beijing claims as its own jurisdiction.

Xi’s Leninist Selectocracy has Cemented Party Dictatorship Executive Summary: General Secretary Xi Jinping’s reforms to the nomenklatura system has built a selectocracy that is best understood as a realignment with Leninist party-building norms after experiments with more democratic bottom-up mechanisms under Xi’s predecessor, Hu Jintao. Such changes are intended to strengthen the Party as a whole, not just Xi’s own power.

Muscovites Now More Pro-War and Anti-Western Than Russians Elsewhere Executive Summary: Many believe in both Russia and the West that Muscovites are more interested in restoring ties with the West and less supportive of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine than are those living elsewhere in the Russian Federation. This is not the case, according to Lev Gudkov, one of Russia’s most distinguished sociologists.

Moving Past ‘Spirit of Anchorage’ Could Spur More Realistic Negotiations Executive Summary: Russia continues to demand that Kyiv cede the Ukrainian-controlled parts of its Donetsk oblast, promoting the “spirit of Anchorage” to allege that the United States informally accepted Russian control of the entire Donbas region, which comprises the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, as a starting point in peace talks.

CNP Part IV: Calculation Holds Keys to Strategic Competition Executive Summary: The Party pins its legitimacy to success in developing “comprehensive national power” (CNP). Understanding how it conceptualizes CNP may enable the United States to identify effective ways for integrated deterrence to target vulnerabilities the Party has identified and drive perceptions that reduce the leadership’s confidence across constituent elements of CNP.

Australia’s Defense Diplomacy Amid PLA Missile Test Executive Summary: The People’s Republic of China (PRC) recently launched a nuclear-capable ballistic missile from a strategic nuclear submarine (SSBN) into the Pacific, leading to backlash in the region. The missile was Beijing’s first publicly acknowledged submarine-launched ballistic missile test into the Pacific, and the second ballistic missile test into the Pacific in under two years.

Cossack Resilience in Face of Ukrainian Gains Executive Summary: As Ukrainian missile strikes expand across Russia, Russian President Vladimir Putin has framed the war as a Western test of Russia’s “resilience,” drawing attention to the structures the Kremlin relies upon to bridge the civil-military divide and reinforce societal cohesion.

Türkiye Seeks to Use Syria’s Realignment For Eurasian Energy Leverage Executive Summary: The energy environment in Eurasia has transitioned to a security issue, and discussions of the Four Seas concept have returned. The plan allows Türkiye to leverage itself as the central overland energy transit hub connecting the Persian Gulf, Caspian, Mediterranean, and Black seas via Syria.