The Next Step in PLA Modernization: Intelligence-ization

Dean Cheng is currently a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, and a non-resident fellow with the George Washington University Space Policy Institute. He was recently a senior advisor to the China program at the US Institute of Peace. In 2022, he retired after 13 years with the Heritage Foundation, where he was a senior research fellow on Chinese political and security affairs, and wrote on various aspects of Chinese foreign and defense policy. 

Prior to joining the Heritage Foundation, he worked at the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA), a Federally Funded Research and Development Center, Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), and as an analyst with the US Congress’ Office of Technology Assessment. 

He is the author of Cyber Dragon: Inside China’s Information Warfare and Cyber Operations (NY: Praeger Publishing, 2016), and China and the New Moon Race (Washington, DC: George Washington University Space Policy Institute, January 2025), and has written extensively on Chinese views of deterrence, Chinese views of space power, and Chinese mobilization, and contributed to a number of volumes on the Chinese People’s Liberation Army.

He has testified before Congress numerous times, and spoken at the National Space Symposium, the US National Defense University, the USSTRATCOM Deterrence Symposium, Harvard, and MIT.