September 2015 | Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative

Asia: All Eyes on the Obama-Xi Summit

By Richard Javad Heydarian | September 25, 2015 | Categories: China, United States

President Xi Jinping’s ongoing nine-day trip to the United States is his first state visit to the country. He is being greeted with a 21-gun salute and attendant formalities and honors, but he is no stranger to his hosts. In 2013, he held a special informal summit with President Barack Obama at Sunnylands estate in […]

Xi’s Visit to Cool Down the South China Sea

By Xue Chen | September 24, 2015 | Categories: China, South China Sea, United States

On President Xi Jinping’s first state visit to the United States this week, the South China Sea might be low on his list of topics for discussion. Access for Chinese investment in the United States, coordination on monetary policies, and even climate change will likely be far higher on President Xi’s agenda. The decades-old South […]

Chris Johnson Previews Xi Jinping’s Visit

By AMTI Leadership | September 22, 2015 | Categories: China, United States

President Xi Jinping arrived in Seattle today for the first leg of a week-long trip to the United States. The Chinese president will visit Washington, DC, on September 24-25 for meetings with President Barack Obama, congressional leaders, and others before proceeding to New York, where he will address the United Nations on September 28. On […]

Introducing our New AMTI Director

By Michael Green, Mira Rapp-Hooper and Gregory Poling | September 15, 2015 | Categories: AMTI Update

Introducing our New AMTI Director: Greg Poling By Michael J. Green Senior Vice President for Asia and Japan Chair, CSIS Chairman of the Editorial Board, AMTI CSIS is proud to announce our first “hail and farewell” at AMTI. We began in 2013 with an idea for a multimedia platform to promote transparency in maritime Asia […]

The Legal Rationale for Going Inside 12

By James Kraska | September 11, 2015 | Categories: China, South China Sea, Spratly Islands, United States

While China conducts innocent passage around real U.S. islands of Alaska, the U.S. is apparently unable to do so around China’s fake islands in the South China Sea. The transit by Chinese warships in innocent passage through the territorial sea of Attu Island in the Aleutian chain has added an additional wrinkle to U.S. policy […]

China’s Navy Lobby and its Impact on PRC Maritime Sovereignty Policies

By Christopher D. Yung | September 11, 2015 | Categories: China, East China Sea, Indo-Pacific Region, South China Sea

Introduction This paper assesses the influence of the PLA Navy (PLAN) and its affiliated individuals and organizations (referred to as the “PLAN Lobby” or “Navy Lobby”) on specific policies related to China’s “maritime sovereignty”.[1] A lobby is a group of individuals who use direct or indirect means to collectively or individually advocate policy positions to […]

The Enabling Role of UNCLOS III in PRC Maritime Policy

By Isaac B. Kardon | September 11, 2015 | Categories: China, East China Sea, International Law, South China Sea

To what extent does the law of the sea influence PRC decisions about maritime policy? If there is any influence, does it on balance play a constraining or enabling role in Beijing’s decisionmaking in this domain? This brief, mostly conceptual article argues that the enabling effects are more significant. For Beijing, UNCLOS III functions to […]

China’s Maritime Rights Protection Leading Small Group—Shrouded in Secrecy

By Bonnie Glaser | September 11, 2015 | Categories: China, East China Sea, South China Sea

Foreign policy decisionmaking in China has always been opaque, but under Chinese Communist Party General Secretary and President Xi Jinping, it has become even more cryptic. The strongest leader to come to power in more than two decades, Xi has concentrated power in his own hands and rarely vets foreign policy initiatives with the […]

Directing China’s “Little Blue Men”: Uncovering the Maritime Militia Command Structure

By Andrew S. Erickson and Conor Kennedy | September 11, 2015 | Categories: China

While Russia has employed “Little Green Men” surreptitiously in Crimea, China uses its own “Little Blue Men” to support Near Seas claims. As the U.S. military operates near Beijing’s artificially-built South China Sea (SCS) features and seeks to prevent Beijing from ejecting foreign claimants from places like Second Thomas Shoal, it may well face surveillance and […]

Xi in Command: Downsizing and Reorganizing the People’s Liberation Army (PLA)

By Michael S. Chase | September 11, 2015 | Categories: China

While many eyes were focused on China’s massive military parade in Beijing last week, which displayed a number of types of advanced military hardware, such as missiles, tanks, and fighter jets, another potentially much more important story about the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) appeared to be unfolding, albeit largely behind the scenes. According to recent […]