Brendan S. Mulvaney has been studying the Chinese military since 2003 when, as an officer in the Marines, he was sent to get his PhD at Shanghai’s Fudan University. In 2017, he was named the inaugural director of the China Aerospace Studies Institute (CASI), a think-tank based out of the Air Force’s Air University and the National Defense University that researches Chinese air power. Mulvaney spoke to The Wire China about China’s ambitions in near space, what we should make of the spy balloon saga, and why we need to keep the lines of communication with China open. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Brendan Mulvaney.Illustration by Lauren Crow
Q: As someone who has been tracking China’s capabilities for a long time, how shocked are you by the balloon incident?
A: I’m not shocked that they exist, they've existed for a long time. It's not just China, countries around the world have them. I don't expect any countries to stop using them because they b
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