China and the US have deep misunderstandings about nuclear deterrence, according to international relations experts, setting the two powers up for potentially disastrous consequences.
According to Jiang Tianjiao, an associate researcher at Fudan University in Shanghai, the two countries even have different definitions of deterrence – one of the most important concepts in military strategy.
For China’s military science research institutes, the word encompasses two basic actions: deterring a rival from doing something, and forcing the other side to do something through deterrence.
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By contrast, Western academic definitions refer only to the first situation as deterrence, while the second is defined separately as coercion or compulsion.
The consequences of these misunderstandings could be disastrous when it comes to nuclear issues. This is a problem that China’s younger generation of strategists – a small group that includes Jiang – is trying to address by building a distinctly Chinese approach to deterrence theory.
“Since the beginning of the 21st century, as the unofficial strategic dialogue between Chinese and American society has deepened, the two sides have gradually come to realise that they don’t even agree on the meaning of ‘deterrence’,” Jiang said.
“When ‘deterrence’ is mentioned by the US side, some Chinese scholars may associate the word with disrespect or even humiliation and bullying, which is not conducive to dialogue and communication.”
Jiang noted that US leaders had come up with various deterrence strategies over the years. These range from “tailored deterrence”, aimed at targeting specific adversaries, to strategies that address technological advancements such as cyber deterrence and space deterrence.
“Because there are different understandings or even misunderstandings, some Chinese people may think that the US policy is coercive, not only in the nuclear field but also in all strategic security fields,” Jiang said.
“As a result, Beijing will feel suspicious and uneasy about the strategic intentions of the US, [and] may go as far as thinking that the US is preparing for a nuclear war or using nuclear weapons to coerce China.”
He added that these concerns could “force China to prepare for some worst-case scenarios”.
In a paper published in the Chinese-language Journal of International Security Studies in September, Jiang called for researchers and strategists to build an “independent knowledge system” of deterrence theory. With the US signalling a return to great power competition – and China identified as a major competitor – Jiang stressed that simply following American strategy would not work.
“China must establish its own strategic goals, as well as the strategic methods and guiding ideology to go with them, but the first step is to ensure an accurate and up-to-date understanding of US nuclear deterrence theories and policies.”
The push is all the more urgent as emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence and space technologies, pose “huge risks” to national security and could lead to an escalation of conflict.
For instance, AI could affect the nuclear balance by improving the accuracy of nuclear weapons systems and transforming their intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance abilities. AI could also give conventional weapons systems new abilities to interfere with or attack nuclear systems.
Yang Yuan, an associate professor at the University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, warned in a 2021 paper that in today’s world, nuclear deterrence “is probably one of the most important ‘national issues’ for strategists to study”.
“But it is worrying that the current strategic community is still ‘understudying’ this ‘great issue’ of national survival,” Yang said.
One example Jiang cites of why China should forge its own path in deterrence theory is the continued emphasis on the doctrine of mutually assured destruction, or MAD. MAD assumes that each superpower has enough nuclear weapons to destroy the other, but that both sides would be deterred from doing so.
The MAD doctrine was introduced into Chinese strategy circles and had been taken for granted, but it was born in the context of the US-Soviet arms race, Jiang said.
“It is clearly inappropriate in the present, as technological advances and evolving game theory ideas require a new understanding of the conditions for achieving ‘deterrence’.”
The growing push to develop deterrence strategy within academia dovetails with the Chinese government’s own policy direction in recent years. China’s 14th five-year plan report, published in 2021, emphasised the need to “build a high-standard strategic deterrence”.
A year later, a key report of the Communist Party’s twice-a-decade national congress pledged for the first time to improve strategic deterrence. The country “will establish a strong system of strategic deterrence”, President Xi Jinping said at the opening of the 20th Communist Party congress in October 2022.
Jiang said he did not recall deterrence having such a high profile in the past, adding that he viewed the strategy as part of China’s modernisation plan.
“China has been gradually working out a ‘non-Western’ modernisation path over the past few decades, which is evident in areas ranging from the economy to scientific and technological innovation to national security and military strategy,” he said.
Using military threats to deter international crises and wars has been a central theme of international security studies for at least 2,000 years.
Deterrence regarding the use of nuclear weapons gained prominence as a military strategy in the 1950s and early 1960s during the Cold War.
Chinese leaders, including Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, recognised the deterrent power of nuclear weapons early on. The fact that the People’s Republic of China faced a consistent nuclear deterrent from the West was a driving force behind the country’s “two-bombs-and-a-satellite” mission in the 1960s.
But for a long time it was taboo for China to use deterrence strategy to describe its nuclear policy or position, Jiang said.
There are deep historical reasons for this. One is that China, as a weaker country at the time, was subject to “nuclear blackmail” by the superpowers, according to Jiang.
For example, in 1953, then US president Dwight Eisenhower threatened to use nuclear weapons to end the Korean war if the Chinese refused to negotiate.
“The feeling could be likened to a tyrant standing at the entrance to the village, waving a big stick and shouting at the unarmed people: ‘I will take care of anyone who disobeys me’,” Jiang said.
Deterrence theory is also seen by some as inconsistent with China’s diplomatic values. Unlike in Western countries, where deterrence is seen as neutral, in China it is usually perceived as negative and aggressive, with coercive connotations, which is at odds with Beijing’s advocacy for peaceful development.
As a result, there had been relatively little elaboration, development and application of deterrence theory, let alone promotion of academic-policymaker interaction, since it was imported from the West in the 1980s, Jiang said.
Today, it remains a “very niche” part of international relations research in China, where topics such as the Belt and Road Initiative and US or European issues dominate.
Wang Hongzhang, a researcher at the PLA Rocket Force Command College – the top military academy for training commanders of the People’s Liberation Army’s strategic missile forces – noted in a 2012 paper that the application of Western theories “was impossible” to effectively address the problems facing China’s nuclear deterrence strategy.
Jiang said that while there were some policy principles guiding China’s nuclear strategy, this was “not enough to deal with the increasingly complex external geopolitical environment and challenges”.
“China needs a new set of doctrines that are understandable to the international community and well-suited to the new dynamics,” he said.
One of these policy principles is the “no first use” approach that China has maintained for 60 years since it tested its first atomic bomb in 1964. But Jiang pointed out that Western countries, including the US, had been sceptical about whether China was sincere about the policy.
He attributes this to different strategic cultures.
“China’s logic is that it sees nuclear deterrence as a political gesture rather than something that’s going to be used on the battlefield,” he said. “This is unlike the US, which has been researching how to use nuclear weapons in the real world.”
China’s nuclear capabilities have become a hot topic among policymakers and researchers worldwide.
In June, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute concluded that China was expanding its nuclear forces “faster than any other country” and may end up with more intercontinental ballistic missiles than Russia or the United States within a decade.
Hao Nan, a research fellow at the Charhar Institute, a non-governmental think tank on diplomacy and international relations, wrote in a recent article that the trajectory of nuclear developments in East Asia, driven by the US-China rivalry, threatened to destabilise the region and set off a chain reaction of nuclear deterrence efforts.
“It is imperative for global security that the US and China resume a meaningful arms control dialogue to prevent a cascading series of escalatory measures that could have catastrophic consequences,” Hao said.
Despite China’s nuclear modernisation efforts, Jiang said there was little evidence that China’s underlying deterrence strategy had changed significantly from its earlier approach, including its “no first use” policy.
But one problem has emerged: how should China, which has always maintained a low-key image as a nuclear power, explain its growing nuclear capabilities to the world?
That was where a strategic deterrence framework could play a role, Jiang said, because it would give other countries a clear picture of what China would do in certain circumstances and avoid further guesswork and misunderstanding.
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