Author Archive

Telegraphing Conflict in the Taiwan Strait: Lessons from Mao Zedong

By | October 08, 2024

This essay looks at Taiwan from the vantage point of PRC leadership circa 1951, considering the connection between coastal defenses, counter-revolutionary suppression, and public sentiment.

The Dandong Chess Board: Trade, Anti-Corruption, and Russian Visitors

By | May 26, 2024

What are the ambitions of Chinese Communist Party cadre in Dandong in opening up further to North Korea and Russia? And a local anti-corruption update.

China’s Ground Game in Dandong and North Korea

By | January 27, 2024

As Sino-North Korean bilateral relations intensify, Adam Cathcart looks at China’s ground game in Pyongyang and Dandong, with a focus on business.

Chinese Intellectuals, the CIA, and Defector Memoirs in the 1960s

By | January 18, 2024

Newly declassified documents shed light on a CIA operation to extract high-level intellectuals as defectors from the People’s Republic of China. We also look at defector accounts of meetings with Mao Zedong.

Red Lines, Taiwan, and the UK Foreign Secretary Visit to Beijing

By | September 04, 2023

Adam Cathcart unpicks Chinese reponses to a British diplomatic delegation, and the eruption around a UK House of Commons committee’s reframing of Taiwan sovereignty.