Our picks: China watchChina as a “Cyber Great Power” | China’s Strengths & Weaknesses | U.S. Tech in Chinese Weapons, and more

China’s Shrinking Families  (Nicholas Eberstadt and Ashton Verdery, Foreign Affairs)
The demographic trend that could curtail Beijing’s ambitions.

China Builds Advanced Weapons Systems Using American Chip Technology  (Ellen Nakashima and Gerry Shih, Washington Post)
In a secretive military facility in southwest China, a supercomputer whirs away, simulating the heat and drag on hypersonic vehicles speeding through the atmosphere — missiles that could one day be aimed at a U.S. aircraft carrier or Taiwan, according to former U.S. officials and Western analysts.
The computer is powered by tiny chips designed by a Chinese firm called Phytium Technology using American software and built in the world’s most advanced chip factory in Taiwan, which hums with American precision machinery, say the analysts.
Phytium portrays itself as a commercial company aspiring to become a global chip giant like Intel. It does not publicize its connections to the research arms of the People’s Liberation Army.

Suspected China Hack of Microsoft Shows Signs of Prior Reconnaissance  (Dustin Volz and Robert McMillan, Wall Street Journal)
Investigators suspect personal data taken in earlier huge hacks or scraped off social-media sites aided breach of Microsoft Exchange Server.

Facebook Staff Fret Over China’s Ads Portraying Happy Muslims in Xinjiang  (Newley Purnell, Wall Street Journal)
Workers express concerns internally about advertisements and content by Beijing promoting message that mostly Muslim ethnic minorities in the region are thriving.

China as a “Cyber Great Power”: Beijing’s Two Voices in Telecommunications  (Rush Doshi et al., Brookings)
External Chinese government and commercial messaging on information technology (IT) speaks in one voice. Domestically, one hears a different, second voice. The former stresses free markets, openness, collaboration, and interdependence, themes that suggest Huawei and other Chinese companies ought to be treated like other global private sector actors and welcomed into foreign networks. Meanwhile, domestic Chinese government, commercial, and academic discourse emphasizes the limits of free markets and the dangers of reliance on foreign technologies — and, accordingly, the need for industrial policy and government control to protect technologies, companies, and networks. Domestic Chinese discourse also indicates that commercial communication networks, including telecommunications systems, might be used to project power and influence offensively; that international technical standards offer a means with which to cement such power and influence; and — above all — that IT architectures are a domain of zero-sum competition.