Conflicts / Tensions

  • Conflicts - Tensions

    Fit for Purpose

    FORUM Staff  |  Photos by AUSTRALIAN DEFENCE DEPARTMENT The mission was critical; the timeline telling: Conduct a comprehensive review of Australia’s defense strategy and force posture — perhaps the nation’s most consequential such analysis in more than three decades — and issue recommendations within six months, rather than the 18 months typical for such an undertaking. “Now that’s a tall…

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  • Conflicts - Tensions

    A Nuclear Shift

    FORUM Staff During the past decade, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has doubled its combat missile brigades within the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF), unveiling missiles capable of launching conventional and nuclear warheads and touting technology to evade missile defense.   “The technologies and deployment patterns of these weapons are important indications of the direction of China’s force posture,”…

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  • Conflicts - Tensions

    Slippery Moves

    FORUM STAFF A dearth of modern tanker ships willing to carry sanctioned Russian oil has given rise to a “shadow” fleet of more than 600 past-their-prime vessels that deliver crude and refined petroleum to receptive nations. The vessels elude detection by obscuring their ownership, turning off automatic identification system (AIS) devices, transferring cargo at sea and “spoofing,” or broadcasting a…

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  • Conflicts - Tensions

    PRC’s global security initiative contradicts actions

    Dr. Jinghao Zhou The People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) foreign ministry released a paper in February 2023 addressing international security challenges and solutions. The Global Security Initiative (GSI) reflected a speech by Chinese Communist Party (CCP) General Secretary Xi Jinping 10 months earlier in which he unveiled his GSI proposal. It is imperative that those who question recent CCP actions…

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  • Conflicts - Tensions

    Sharp Edges

    Dr. Jake Wallis/Australian Strategic Policy Institute Under an assertive Chinese Communist Party (CCP) General Secretary Xi Jinping, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is building a global propaganda system designed to reshape the international order. This is a more complex challenge than that posed by other authoritarian states in the information domain, even more so than Russia’s disruptive integration of…

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  • Conflicts - Tensions

    Exposing CCP Espionage

    FORUM Staff A clearly visible high-altitude balloon traversing the continental United States in late January and early February 2023 — before a U.S. fighter jet shot down the surveillance system — alerted nations to the extent of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) espionage efforts. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has deployed this type of surveillance technology globally before to…

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  • Conflicts - Tensions

    Transnational Repression

    FORUM Staff The People’s Republic of China (PRC) continues to face international criticism for violating the sovereignty of nations across the globe with its “overseas police service stations,” clandestine offices established in many cases without the approval or knowledge of countries that become their unsuspecting hosts. Rights advocates say the stations are bases from which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)…

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  • Conflicts - Tensions

    Implications of PLA Modernization

    FORUM Staff The rise of an assertive People’s Republic of China (PRC) over the past decade and the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) pursuit of large-scale military capabilities challenge the international security order throughout the Indo-Pacific and beyond, experts contend. People’s Liberation Army (PLA) modernization could have near- and long-term implications for regional stability that impact the South China Sea, Taiwan…

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  • Conflicts - Tensions

    High-Risk Proposition

    FORUM Staff The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) demonstrated the use of civilian ferries to launch a mock invasion of Taiwan during an August 2022 exercise. Using a custom-made ramp, the PLAN employed civilian roll-on/roll-off (RoRo) ferries to load amphibious assault craft on a Chinese beach near the Taiwan Strait, according to USNI News, the daily…

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  • Conflicts - Tensions

    Standing Firm Against the PRC’s New Expansionism

    FORUM Staff  |  Photos by Reuters More signs are emerging that nations — especially in the Indo-Pacific — view the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as a security threat. Indicators include Japan’s plan to drastically increase its defense spending, the election of a South Korean president critical of Chinese coercion and first-time participation in NATO’s annual summit by four Indo-Pacific…

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