Royal Aeronautical Society – On Boxing Day 26 December 2024, pictures and video emerged of a new Chinese stealth aircraft, featuring a unique configuration of three engines, diamond planform and no tail. Veteran aviation journalist and stealth expert BILL SWEETMAN assesses what we know so far. 

The Diplomat – While maritime militia forces are not playing a major role in China’s multi-pronged pressure campaign against Taiwan, they are not completely absent from the battlespace.

China Maritime Studies Institute – The construction of the Type 052C guided missile destroyer took a long time, and it was experimental in the sense of “taking small steps for rapid progress” (xiao bu kuai pao). In fact, it was also the engineering prototype of the standard fleet destroyer Type 052D. The first and second Type 052C ships were launched in April and October 2003, respectively. They were the most advanced guided missile destroyers of the PLAN at that time, but the subsequent four ships of the same type were launched in October 2010, July 2011, and January and July 2012, respectively.

1945 – This week, the Department of Defense released its twenty-fourth annual China Military Power Report (CMPR). Here are the most important revelations from its 182 pages that informed professionals need to know.

War on the Rocks – China’s military is both corrupt and increasingly capable. Yesterday, the Pentagon released its 24th China Military Power Report since Congress initiated its mandate in 2000, offering revelations unavailable elsewhere. The document reveals new details of the most dramatic military buildup since World War II, ongoing challenges that Chairman Xi Jinping and his party army are addressing with determination, and context to interpret what it all means. The bottom line: endemic corruption and lingering personnel and organizational weaknesses must be weighed against the Chinese Communist Party’s unrivaled ability to marshal resources and its ongoing production and deployment of advanced military systems on an unmatched industrial scale. Xi commands a system riven by brutal elite power struggles, but he is determined to pursue control over Taiwan with an increasingly potent toolkit. With deadly seriousness, he continues to advance sweeping organizational reforms to maximize relevant warfighting capabilities in fulfillment of his Centennial Military Building Goal of 2027, even at the cost of short-term churn and challenges.

The War Zone – China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has expanded its global reach and moved more regularly and in greater mass beyond its regional waters in the past year as it continues to roll out warships and logistics support vessels that provide the force with greater range. That’s one finding from the unclassified version of an annual Pentagon’s report to Congress on China’s military that was released Wednesday.