China's Quest for Foreign Technology

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TARGETING DEFENSE TECHNOLOGIES

James Mulvenon and Chenny Zhang

While economic development is the primary driver of China’s non-traditional collection and espionage activity, improving the capabilities of its military is a close second. The combination of the shock of the first Gulf War in the early 1990s, the emergence of the ongoing cross-straits crisis with Taiwan, and the increasingly heavy demands created by the growth of China’s strategic interests around the globe have driven Beijing to expand dramatically the resources devoted to military modernization and lay down aggressive benchmarks for success.

Yet from the 1990s forward, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and the defense–industrial base faced significant structural impediments ...