China is Watching Us. Is the U.S. Air Force Still Watching China?

On Oct.

十月号

1, 2026, Beijing celebrated the 77th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China and the beginning of the end for the U.S. Air University’s China Aerospace Studies Institute.

2026年1月1日，北京庆祝中华人民共和国成立77周年，也是美国空军大学中国航天研究院终结的开始。

The institute was one of several centers of excellence established across the U.S. military’s professional military education programs, with the Army, Navy, and Air Force each running a center focused on its own service’s needs.

该研究所是美国军方专业军事教育项目中建立的几个卓越中心之一，陆军、海军和空军各自运营一个专注于各自军种需求的中心。

The China Aerospace Studies Institute, however, was more than just a U.S. Air Force and Space Force research center that provided open-source insights on their Chinese counterparts.

然而，中国航天研究院不仅仅是一个提供有关中国同行的开源见解的美国空军和太空军研究中心。

The in-house analysts and the researchers they sponsored formed a critical node in our understanding of Chinese military power.

内部分析师和他们资助的研究人员构成了我们理解中国军事实力的关键节点。

Losing the China Aerospace Studies Institute will mean losing foundational knowledge of America’s most dangerous adversary at a time when we can ill afford a lack of understanding.

失去中国航天研究院将意味着失去对美国最危险对手的基础知识，而此时我们已经无法承受缺乏了解的后果。

The U.S. Air Force created the China Aerospace Studies Institute nearly a decade ago to track Chinese aerospace developments through open sources, both in terms of military power and the civilian industrial capacity underpinning it.

近十年前，美国空军创建了中国航天研究院，通过开源跟踪中国航天航空的发展，包括军事实力和支撑其的民用工业能力。

Through the institute’s contracts and conferences, the China Aerospace Studies Institute also nurtured a larger community of interest, educated U.S. military officers, and supported ongoing Department of Defense efforts to understand the adversary.

通过该研究所的合同和会议，中国航天研究院还培育了更大的利益共同体，教育了美国军官，并支持国防部正在进行的了解对手的努力。

Many of the published translations and analyses, such as those on military-civil fusion , were important to a much wider audience than the U.S. Air Force.

许多已发表的翻译和分析，例如关于军民融合的翻译和分析，对于比美国空军更广泛的受众来说都很重要。

Its “In Their Own Words” series put key doctrinal texts of the People’s Liberation Army into English, including both the 2013 and 2020 editions of the Science of Military Strategy , the Science of Campaigns , and, this March, the Science of Second Artillery Campaigns .

其“用自己的话说”系列将中国人民解放军的重要理论文本翻译成英文，包括2013年版和2020年版的《军事战略学》、《战役学》以及今年3月的《第二炮兵战役学》。

These studies represent some of the best analytic work done inside and outside government, regardless of classification.

这些研究代表了政府内部和外部所做的一些最好的分析工作，无论分类如何。

Now Air University will make the “surplus” and eventually phase them out.

现在，空军大学将制造“剩余”并最终逐步淘汰它们。

The Air Force insists otherwise.

空军则坚持不然。

Officially, the institute’s “mission continues,” carried on by “assigned military service members.” The staffing chart says differently.

按照官方说法，该研究所的“使命仍在继续”，由“指定的军人”继续执行。人员配置表的说法不同。

Those military billets amount to two master sergeants and a deputy position that has sat empty for more than a year.

这些军事职位相当于两名军士长和一个已经空置一年多的副职位。

As the institute’s director, Brendan Mulvaney, put it, “All of the research has always been done by the civilian personnel.” The institute’s own notice, since pulled from its website, dispensed with euphemism: Air University “has decided to close” the China Aerospace Studies Institute, and once the civilians leave, it “will close.” The gap between the two accounts speaks for itself.

正如该研究所所长布伦丹·马尔瓦尼所说，“所有研究一直都是由文职人员完成的。”该研究所自己的通知（后来从其网站上撤下）省略了委婉的说法：空军大学“已决定关闭”中国航天研究院，一旦平民离开，它“将关闭”。两个账户之间的差距不言而喻。

What we are giving up is not small.

我们所放弃的东西并不小。

In 2025 alone , the institute’s website drew nearly 80,000 visitors who downloaded more than 50,000 reports.

仅 2025 年，该研究所的网站就吸引了近 8 万名访问者，下载了超过 5 万份报告。

The institute mailed more than 1,200 printed reports, handed out another 1,000 at the Air & Space Forces Association’s annual conference, and distributed more than 10,000 decks of its “PLA-ying cards.” Units had booked its traveling People’s Liberation Army Fundamentals course through mid-2026, and more than 250 people attended its conference this May.

该研究所邮寄了 1,200 多份印刷报告，在空军和太空军协会年会上分发了另外 1,000 份报告，并分发了 10,000 多副“解放军迎战卡”。各单位已预订了截至 2026 年中期的中国人民解放军基础知识巡回课程，今年 5 月已有 250 多人参加了会议。

All of it rested on a civilian staff of 10.

所有这一切都由 10 名文职人员承担。

Nor was the cut a judgment on the institute’s work.

此次削减也不是对研究所工作的评判。

By Mulvaney’s account, it “had nothing to do with [the institute’s] mission.” The China Aerospace Studies Institute produces no professional military education students, whereas teaching them is Air University’s primary mission.

根据马尔瓦尼的说法，它“与[该研究所的]使命无关”。中国航天学院不培养专业军事教育学生，而培养军事教育学生是航空大学的首要任务。

By that logic, a research center is expendable because it is not a school.

按照这个逻辑，研究中心是可以牺牲的，因为它不是学校。

The Army War College’s China Landpower Studies Center , the Marine Corps War College’s China Warfighting Initiative , and the Navy’s institute in Newport all remain intact.

陆军战争学院的中国陆地力量研究中心、海军陆战队战争学院的中国作战计划以及位于纽波特的海军研究所都完好无损。

The air, space, and missile forces of the People’s Liberation Army, the institute’s core portfolio, will no longer have a dedicated home anywhere in the U.S. military’s education system.

作为该学院的核心力量，中国人民解放军的空中、太空和导弹部队将不再在美国军队的教育系统中拥有专门的位置。

Some would dismiss the loss.

有些人会忽略这种损失。

They would say that Air University faces real budget pressure and had to find savings somewhere, and that the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the RAND Corporation, university centers, and the Jamestown Foundation — which one of us leads and where the other is a fellow — already produce open-source research on China in volume.

他们会说，空军大学面临着真正的预算压力，必须在某个地方寻找节省的资金，而战略与国际研究中心、兰德公司、大学中心和詹姆斯敦基金会（我们一个领导，另一个是研究员）已经大量进行了有关中国的开源研究。

We do this work ourselves, and we know that outside research cannot fill the gap.

我们自己做这项工作，我们知道外部研究无法填补空白。

Outside institutions do not translate the People’s Liberation Army’s doctrinal texts at this scale, and they do not teach units across the force.

外部机构不会如此大规模地翻译中国人民解放军的条令文本，也不会向全军部队进行教学。

Nor can an outside organization duplicate the China Aerospace Studies Institute’s proximity to the U.S. Air Force and trustworthiness that comes from being inside the system.

外部组织也无法复制中国航天研究院与美国空军的密切关系以及来自系统内部的可信度。

Moreover, outside organizations are rarely compensated adequately for the actual costs supporting government and military institutions, unless they are a part of a cumbersome contract.

此外，外部组织很少能就支持政府和军事机构的实际成本得到充分的补偿，除非它们是繁琐合同的一部分。

Even today, some national security officials would dismiss the loss on the grounds that classified work is more important — the kind of work only national security agencies can perform.

即使在今天，一些国家安全官员也会对这次损失不予理睬，理由是机密工作更重要——只有国家安全机构才能从事的工作。

Open source is redundant, they would say.

他们会说，开源是多余的。

The key people who need to know would know.

需要知道的关键人物会知道。

And that would be enough.

这就足够了。

Democracies, however, do not work that way.

然而，民主国家并不是这样运作的。

Nor does that view consider the realities of what a war might bring.

这种观点也没有考虑战争可能带来的现实。

The rivalry with China engages nearly every sector of American society.

与中国的竞争几乎涉及美国社会的各个领域。

It is not simply a problem for the government to resolve.

这不仅仅是政府要解决的问题。

Corporate boardrooms and investors face the reality of Beijing’s predatory economic policies and have to grapple more with geopolitical risk.

企业董事会和投资者面临北京掠夺性经济政策的现实，必须更多地应对地缘政治风险。

American universities and companies need to understand research partners, and U.S. government desk officers seek information on more Chinese companies, individuals, and policies than the intelligence community can possibly collect and process.

美国大学和公司需要了解研究合作伙伴，而美国政府官员寻求的中国公司、个人和政策的信息超出了情报界可能收集和处理的范围。

Nor will any White House declassify intelligence on the scale and frequency that would be necessary to support these decisions.

白宫也不会解密支持这些决策所需的规模和频率的情报。

The China Aerospace Studies Institute has built authoritative knowledge relevant to those questions, including reports such as the 2020 study on China’s Military-Civil Fusion Strategy.

中国航天研究院已经建立了与这些问题相关的权威知识，包括《2020年中国军民融合战略研究》等报告。

For the U.S. military, specifically, a war with China would engage the whole of the armed forces and draw deployments toward the Western Pacific.

具体而言，对于美国军队来说，与中国的战争将涉及整个武装部队，并将部署转向西太平洋。

These are soldiers and sailors who, today, do not have a need to know about an adversary outside their current theater and deployment.

如今，这些士兵和水手不需要了解当前战区和部署之外的对手。

If and when war comes, it will already be too late.

如果战争来临，那就太晚了。

Their commands will push forward the intelligence they need to fight, but not the baseline familiarity with the People’s Liberation Army that takes time to build, which the institute’s courses and publications supplied.

他们的命令将推进他们作战所需的情报，但不会推进对人民解放军的基本熟悉，而这需要时间来建立，而该机构的课程和出版物提供了这一点。

Open-source information and analysis can be shared freely among citizens and allies, making it irreplaceable as a resource for persuading and mobilizing.

开源信息和分析可以在公民和盟友之间自由共享，使其成为不可替代的说服和动员资源。

Citizens should be able to verify claims made by leaders — to understand national security challenges themselves.

公民应该能够验证领导人的主张，从而了解国家安全面临的挑战。

Citizens, as with allies and partners, require a common understanding.

公民与盟友和伙伴一样，需要达成共识。

The headlines rarely answer some of the China questions that affect everyday life.

头条新闻很少回答一些影响日常生活的中国问题。

Why is the Federal Communications Commission cracking down on Chinese drones ?

美国联邦通信委员会为何严厉打击中国无人机？

Open-source researchers have provided answers.

开源研究人员已经提供了答案。

The institute’s surveys of Chinese drone-swarm inventions and of China’s military drone industry are part of the explanation.

该研究所对中国无人机群发明和中国军用无人机产业的调查是部分解释。

For all of the resources of the intelligence community, U.S. government officials also require more open source.

对于情报界的所有资源，美国政府官员也要求更多的开源。

Exquisite collection systems and clandestine human intelligence are like looking through a microscope.

精致的收集系统和秘密的人类智慧就像通过显微镜观察。

China is too vast to see so narrowly.

中国太大了，不能这么狭隘地看待。

The Chinese Communist Party has more than 100 million members, ruling a country larger than the continental United States, with bureaucratic rhythms and politicking that can cue analysts to future developments.

中国共产党拥有超过一亿党员，统治着一个比美国大陆还大的国家，其官僚节奏和政治策略可以为分析人士提供未来发展的线索。

Analysts have to see the forest before they can truly appreciate the trees.

分析师必须见森林才能真正赏树。

That is what open source brings: familiarity with the rhythms of a system, of what is normal and routine.

这就是开源带来的：熟悉系统的节奏，熟悉什么是正常的和常规的。

The China Aerospace Studies Institute provided that service tailored toward the needs of the U.S. Air Force.

中国航天研究院提供了针对美国空军需求的定制服务。

Beijing itself prizes open-source research.

北京本身就重视开源研究。

In 2023, Recorded Future documented the People’s Liberation Army increasingly buying open-source research from private Chinese companies, including on the U.S. military and Taiwan.

2023 年，《Recorded Future》记录了中国人民解放军越来越多地从中国私营公司购买开源研究成果，包括有关美国军方和台湾的研究成果。

Beijing pays contractors to read what America publishes about itself.

北京付钱给承包商来阅读美国发布的有关其自身的信息。

The Air Force is letting go of the institute that reads what China publishes.

空军正在放弃阅读中国出版物的机构。

More importantly, the People’s Liberation Army and the intelligence services have maintained a significant number of institutes that focus on open-source collection and analysis, including the Ministry of State Security’s bureau publicly known as the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations , founded in 1980, or the Military Intelligence Bureau’s China Institute for International and Strategic Studies, founded in 1979.

更重要的是，中国人民解放军和情报部门拥有大量专注于开源收集和分析的机构，包括成立于1980年的国家安全部局（公众称为中国现代国际关系研究院）或成立于1979年的军情局中国国际战略研究所。

Chinese commentators also do not doubt the institute’s value.

中国评论人士也不怀疑该研究所的价值。

Within hours of the first reports, an editor at Guancha, a state-aligned news site, mocked the institute that “understands the People’s Liberation Army best in the observable universe,” and a blogger with more than a million followers on the Chinese social media platform Weibo spread the taunt .

在第一份报道发布后的几个小时内，官方新闻网站观察者网的一名编辑嘲笑该研究所“在可观测的宇宙中最了解中国人民解放军”，而中国社交媒体平台微博上拥有超过百万粉丝的博主也传播了这一嘲讽。

Guancha followed with a detailed report , and a talk show hosted by its chief military editor titled an episode , “The U.S. Military’s ‘China Hands’ Think Tank Is Finished.

观察者网随后进行了详细报道，并由其军事总编主持的脱口秀节目中有一集名为《美军‘中国通’智库完蛋了》。

We Miss It, Hahaha.” No one gloats over the loss of an institution that never mattered.

我们怀念它，哈哈哈。”没有人会因为失去一个无关紧要的机构而幸灾乐祸。

Cruder voices supplied a motive.

粗鲁的声音提供了动机。

At least three self-media posts ran under the same headline , “America’s Top Think Tank Collapses for an Absurd Reason,” and cast the closure as punishment for belittling the J-20 stealth fighter and misleading the U.S. military.

至少有3篇自媒体帖子以“美国顶级智库因荒唐原因倒闭”为标题，并将其关闭视为对贬低歼20隐形战机、误导美军的惩罚。

The story is invented but revealing: Its authors cannot imagine a great power discarding its China research to satisfy a staffing formula.

这个故事是虚构的，但却发人深省：它的作者无法想象一个大国会为了满足人员配置公式而放弃对华研究。

The more thoughtful drew the obvious conclusion.

深思熟虑的人得出了显而易见的结论。

A military blogger with nearly two million followers observed that far less public research on China would now appear, and that frontline U.S. Air Force squadrons would receive less guidance on their adversary.

一位拥有近 200 万粉丝的军事博主观察到，现在对中国的公开研究将大大减少，前线美国空军中队收到的针对对手的指导也将减少。

The China Aerospace Studies Institute will linger in a kind of half-life and may yet recover.

中国航天研究院将处于半衰期状态，但仍有可能恢复。

Hopefully, it will regain its budget and billets before its expertise scatters.

希望它能够在其专业知识分散之前重新获得预算和经费。

10 civilian billets are a rounding error in the Air Force budget.

10 个民用军费是空军预算中的四舍五入误差。

Restoring them requires only that someone with the power of the purse decides the mission matters.

恢复它们只需要有财力的人来决定任务的事宜。

We need more of these institutes, not fewer, and more institutional support to sustain open-source analysis of America’s greatest rival.

我们需要更多而不是更少的机构支持，以维持对美国最大竞争对手的开源分析。

With one fewer, the role of places like the China Maritime Studies Institute at the U.S. Naval War College and publications like Jamestown’s China Brief become all the more important.

少了一个，美国海军战争学院中国海事研究所等机构和詹姆斯敦《中国简报》等出版物的作用就变得更加重要。

Peter Mattis is president of the Jamestown Foundation and a former staff director of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China.

彼得·马蒂斯是詹姆斯敦基金会主席，也是美国国会及行政部门中国委员会前任主任。

Christopher Nye is a pseudonym for a non-resident fellow at the Jamestown Foundation, where he specializes in Chinese Communist Party elite politics and the institutional dynamics of the Chinese military.

克里斯托弗·奈（Christopher Nye）是詹姆斯敦基金会非常驻研究员的化名，他专门研究中国共产党精英政治和中国军队的制度动态。

**Please note, as a matter of house style, War on the Rocks will not use a different name for the U.S. Department of Defense until and unless the name is changed by statute by the U.S. Congress.

**请注意，出于内部风格的考虑，岩石战争不会对美国国防部使用不同的名称，除非美国国会根据法规更改该名称。