This episode of the MWI Podcast features a conversation with Ali Wyne, a policy analyst at the RAND Corporation and Non-Resident Fellow with the Modern War Institute. Wyne is one of the most insightful observers of China, as well as the Indo-Pacific region more broadly. He has also written widely on both US and Chinese grand strategy and how it plays out in the region.
In the conversation, he addresses important questions like how we should conceptualize the shrinking power gap between the United States and China, and what it portends for the future. In addition, he notes that for all of the focus in US policy and analytical circles on China, there are still a lot of things very much open to debate—things we don’t, and perhaps can’t, yet understand about China and its future trajectory as a US competitor.
You can hear the full episode below, and if you aren’t already subscribed to the MWI Podcast, be sure to find it on iTunes, Stitcher, or your favorite podcast app so you don’t miss an episode!
In the April-June 2000 issue of the Military Intelligence Professional Bulletin is an article "The People's Republic of China and Intelligence Analysis" is a fairly clear forecast of what China has done since and why.
The article mentions the S. China Sea, trade as a means to acquire technology (technology transfer, spying, etc.), filling the void left by the USSR, its ascendance to the UN Security Council, financial strength, Document 65 (constant planning for a military invasion of Taiwan), and securing its "1st Line of Defense."
After almost nineteen years, it helps explain things today.