I am off to Beijing for about a month, initially to attend a CISSM Workshop at Tsinghua University (清华大学) and then, eventually, deliver two lectures at Tsinghua’s Arms Control Seminar
In the meantime, I leave you with a little Nelson Report action on the Pentagon’s delay in releasing Chinese Military Power:
While that may take as long as another two or three weeks, sources say it could come sooner, and that it is desired sooner.
[snip]
Informed observers say that to the extent there is internal debate remaining on the official version, it’s over how far to go in exploring the differences between assessments based on public and/or known Chinese capabilities and expenditures, vs. suspected or known-to-be-secret programs.
[snip]
… sources speculate that it is no coincidence that the “three weeks” timetable mentioned by some DOD officials may match the expected timetable for China to announce the next set of 6 Party Korea talks, discussed above. “Clearly, if that were a consideration, you would not want to see a DOD report knocking the hell out of the PRC released just as a breakthrough was expected on N. Korea…or while the talks were on-going”, comments an informed observer.
I’ll be covering this from the other end of things through July 16.
