RAND's China experts have examined a wide range of issues, including the country's military, political, and trade relations, especially with Taiwan and Japan; its environmental, economic, and health policies and prospects; and its international business and intellectual property (copyright) challenges.
In considering foreign application to acquire U.S. companies, the United States needs to consider both risks as well as benefits in both defense and economic dimensions, write Charles Wolf, Jr., Brian Chow, Gregory Jones, and Scott Harold.
The Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China will probably begin producing its first large commercial aircraft later this decade. But the C919 is unlikely to be technologically or commercially competitive when it arrives, writes Chad J. R. Ohlandt.
What is significant about China's acquisitions over the past few years is the change they represent from the negligible amounts in the past, writes Charles Wolf, Jr.
When the Berlin Wall fell 20 years ago, those raised in the shadow of possible nuclear holocaust felt disbelief, followed by relief and hope that the end of the Cold War would bring lasting peace, and the end of conflict. And in Europe, at least, it mostly did – but not everywhere, writes Christopher S. Chivvis.
China's challenge in defining the security role it will play in the region and the world in the coming years is to harmonize its own view of its security intentions with that of the outside world, writes Michael Lostumbo.
The increasing importance of the G-20 summits is testimony to the growing role emerging states now play in managing the international economy. But integrating these newcomers into the global community is unlikely to be straightforward or simple, writes Lowell H. Schwartz.
The damage done by the financial crisis now seems to require not a refurbishing job but an extreme makeover. While soul-searching and even self-loathing are inevitable during a crisis, this is no time for America to shy away from a capitalist system that has produced decades of economic growth, writes Krishna Kumar.
The leaders of the BRIC countries—Brazil, Russia, India, and China—hold their first stand-alone summit in Yekaterinburg, Russia, on Tuesday, June 16. The timing of the BRIC summit, just a few weeks before U.S. President Barack Obama's arrival in Moscow and the G-8 meeting in L'Aquila, Italy, is hardly accidental, writes Andrew S. Weiss.
North Korea spent weeks preparing to launch a ballistic missile that could reach the United States. It argued that the launch was intended to put a satellite into orbit. But a space launch vehicle is a ballistic missile used for a modestly different purpose, writes Bruce W. Bennett.
As recent events off the Horn of Africa have demonstrated, armed violence at sea is emerging as a growing threat.... Piracy threatens the freedom of the seas, increases the cost of international business, endangers political security through corruption, and could trigger a major environmental disaster, write Peter Chalk and Laurence Smallman.
Celestial real estate is increasingly popular. All in all more than 900 satellites, along with tens of thousands of bits of man-made space detritus, jockey for elbow room overhead. The result: a growing threat our atmosphere will soon become so crowded with floating junk as to become almost unusable, write Caroline Reilly and Peter D. Zimmerman.
The story of how President Obama engineered a grass-roots campaign, mobilizing formerly disengaged U.S. citizens with new media and new technologies, has reached almost mythological proportions. Less well known is the story of similar grass-roots efforts emerging in local communities around the world, write Cherl Benard and Edward O'Connell.
The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction ranks as one of the biggest challenges facing the Obama administration. Luckily, Mr. Obama has a tool to combat this threat, in the form of the Proliferation Security Initiative.... The trick now will be to convince key Asian countries to participate, writes Charles Wolf Jr.
Of all countries remiss in their responsibility to protect human rights, China bears special scrutiny because of its influence with the Myanmar and Sudanese regimes, writes David C. Gompert.
The United States can and should move beyond a "one size fits all" approach to sizing military forces toward a construct that shapes each service for the types of operations it is actually expected to conduct in the future, write Andrew Hoehn and David Ochmanek.
China's surplus contributes to sustaining its high growth rates, and the U.S. deficit contributes to easing inflationary pressures while enhancing average living standards through the competitive price and quality of imports from China, writes Charles Wolf Jr.
To reduce the bilateral imbalances between China and the U.S. requires more carefully crafted policies than revaluation of the yuan, else the results could be perverse, writes Charles Wolf Jr.
US-China relations, and the respective national interests which underlie them, are generally harmonious. However, this is occasionally jarred by sharp discord, writes Charles Wolf, Jr.
Ever since China test-fired ballistic missiles… in 1995 and 1996, many analysts have sounded the alarm about the threat of China's military power. This has been a false alarm until now, but within a decade China could supplant America as the dominant military power in East Asia, writes Roger Cliff.
Congressional critics say China's undervalued currency is the root of the problem. While China's currency may well be undervalued, the fundamental causes of the job losses and the trade deficit actually lie elsewhere, write William H. Overholt and Pieter Bottelier.
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