This post is from September 2005. Facts and links may have changed since. See more from that month

Article1 min read

Questions About U.S. Intelligence on China

Two months ago, I wrote a blog post entitled Zhang Liying: China’s Missile Gal.

At issue were a pair of quotations in an unclassified publication from the National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC) that suggested China was building anti-satellite weapons:

Challenges to Space Superiority, published by the National Air and Space Intelligence Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, highlights two quotations by “Liying Zhan” of the “Langfang Army Missile Academy” to suggest that China will “threaten on-orbit assets.”

Gregory [Kulacki of the Union of Concerned Scientists] tracked down the original article (here is the article in Chinese) after I noticed the quotes seemed, well, too good to be true.

Turns out, I was right. The term “translation” is less appropriate than, say, “distorted hack job.”

Now, Gregory Kulacki and David Wright have written An Analysis of a March 2005 Report by the U.S. National Air and Space Intelligence Center (15 September 2005).

Check it out.

Jeffrey Lewis

Writing on ACW 2004–2026

Dr. Jeffrey Lewis is the founding publisher of Arms Control Wonk.com. He is the Director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. His also a non-resident affiliate at Stanford's Center for Security and International Cooperation and a Contributing Editor to Survival.

All posts by Jeffrey Lewis