Tim Cook, who likely knowingly worked with suppliers that used Uyghur forced labor? That Tim Cook?

He has to know about the Anti-Rightist Campaign, right?

The demise of Zhang Youxia hits different I was genuinely surprised by the announcement of Zhang Youxia's detention. I shouldn't have been. But this feels personal.

Also, this is an excellent piece. Drew actually got to meet Zhang on several occasions and his insigbt is valuable context. open.substack.com/pub/chinadre...

At the end of the day if that accusation helps sell the punishment I’m sure they’ll go with it.

Given the planned expansion of the stockpile, I’d wager they also tried to bribe some folks given the money their various subsidiaries could make. I bet a highly placed source at CNNC would be worried about their own neck right now.

For context, CNNC not that important when it comes to nuclear stockpile management. It might make more sense for someone in the leadership of CAEP, the folks that actually make the devices for the PLA, to have more intimate knowledge of this issue.

I also don’t buy the whole nuclear secrets thing. IMO it doesn’t make sense for a CNNC senior leader to be that intimate with the investigation. As far as I know, the PLA gets first dibs on investigation and detentions and would not want to expand the circle beyond the PLA unless necessary.

Zhang appears to be a more competent leader than others. He’s not some shmuck commissar and at least has some combat experience that probably has significance. It’s likely that he had amassed what was viewed as unacceptable levels of power and influence in the PLA after the purges that began in ‘23.

The PLA and the CCP love hand waving the meeting of goals, and deadlines like poverty alleviation and mechanization. They could just “basically” achieve the ‘27 benchmark capabilities and keep working on it if this was the main issue. The PLA Daily story on this suggests it was more complex.

I think part of this corruption bit is a generational struggle within the PLA. It’s only been since 2017 where the pay for play promotion scheme was being ripped out root and stem and the old guard probably doesn’t know how to not operate that way. It’s hard to change culture in that amount of time.

while we’ll never get the exact truth, I’d be willing to wager your right n to something here. I imagine there were acceptable levels of corruption and Zhang was viewed as capable of keeping within appropriate boundaries. I would venture he went beyond what was acceptable.

10/10

I’m sure the PLA still wastes time painting rocks (they love this) and reciting lines of Xi Jinping thought on public sanitation or whatever. It’s just that as an organization, their shifting priorities have had some impact on how units do this one aspect of political work.

China Maritime Report No. 27: PLA Navy Submarine Leadership - Factors Affecting Operational Performance The way the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) selects and manages its submarine officers increases the likelihood of human performance errors onboard a PLAN submarine. First, PLAN submarine officer...

digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cmsi-maritim...

Plus, political officers are more and more expected to be both Red and Expert. Due to career options or promotion criteria, more political officers are staying more familiar with military ops than before, so it’s not like they’re going to say commander do an impossible task I’m overruling you.

PLA regulations outline a division of labor between political officers and military commanders responsibility. I’m sure the system isn’t perfect, but they are expected to stay in their lanes. apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA...

Plus if you think about what constitutes political work training and how they are working to make it less burdensome it’s a different situation. Political work is more than just droning on about Xi. It also includes legal affairs, CI issues, MWR, personnel management, and psyops, and some HUMINT.

OTOH I’m sure they spend time talking about how great 习近平强军思想 is when they could be on the range. However, the way they talk about integrating it into post training reviews or using it as a means to address things like the five incapables seems to indicate a desire to avoid needless interruptions.

People Win Wars: The PLA Enlisted Force, and Other Related Matters Editor’s Note: One of the authors of this article is protected with a pseudonym. Regular readers of War on the Rocks know that we allow this in only the

This isn’t the PLA of yesteryear. First, the percentages that are out there are based on new enlisted training, not operational units usual training schedule. I imagine this isnt too crazy if your goal is brainwashing new recruits? warontherocks.com/2020/07/peop...

Ugh, UGFs*

They’re have more conducive geography to sustaining distributed ops and maintaining redundant comms.

This is kind of funny since the PLAAF is both experimenting with distributed operations and building a variety of types of shelters at its airfields. I feel like the PLA culturally yearns for hardened concrete and UGGs, Some airfields only have between 4-8 beefier HAS and loads of softer shelters.

I’ve been getting good mileage out of the originals!

Didn’t the Soviets/Russians also mess with early collaborative engagement capabilities on anti ship missile systems, and wasn’t that a feature component of Dance of the Vampires?

This is something that drives me nuts with all of these proposed systems. I’m all for a high low mix of munitions, but the low end stuff needs to be able to reach whatever you’re shooting at. Who would have thunk the “priority” theater necessitates munitions and platforms that have legs?

Red fume at night, Aerospace Force’s delight

J-16, F-16 差不多吧

In this piece we outline how the PLA thinks about employing these to support a variety of operations with redundant sensors and to support communications and data sharing. The PLA views its ability to collect, process, and disseminate information as critical. Messing with that cycle will be vital.

I’m excited about my most recent publication, and was extremely pleased to get to work with my brilliant wife on it. In order to carry out informationized operations across domains, the PLA needs to have a redundant means to sustain a kill mesh. One of the ways it seeks to add redundancy is UASs

It would be rad to get a “AND KILL J-16s” eventually