Political and Military Analysis on China

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My topic is about China’s perspective on deterrence, but before I deal with the topic, I must point out that for a long time in the Cold War, China strongly opposed the concept of nuclear deterrence, which, as so frequently used by the US government, had carried with it such derogatory connotations as “nuclear blackmail,” “nuclear coercion,” “nuclear containment,” and “nuclear threat.” And China, as the country most frequently threatened by nuclear attack,was understandably reluctant to use such a term.1 Not until the late 1980s or early 1990s, when China’s drive toward defense modernization inspired academic debate, did deterrence gain acceptance as a key concept in strategic studies and lose its pejorative sense. However, even though the term remained taboo for some time, the logic of deterrence has always played a major role in Chinese nuclear thinking. To facilitate understanding, I explain China’s nuclear policy, making use of US deterrence terminology, and compare China’s deterrence thinking with that of the United States.

China’s No-First-Use Policy Indicates That It Applies Pure Deterrence and Deterrence by Punishment

The most important element of China’s nuclear policy is renunciation of the first-use option. By adopting a no-first-use policy, China has to base its deterrence on retaliation, not on denial. Therefore it must develop retaliatory second-strike capabilities instead of nuclear war-fighting capabilities and doctrines. Studying the nuclear thinking of earlier Chinese leaders like Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, we find that neither man considered nuclear weapons usable on the battlefield in the same way as conventional means. Moreover, neither believed that nuclear wars could ever be fought and won in a measured and controlled way. Such thinking differs from that of American nuclear strategists who have explored many possible forms of nuclear conflict and have formulated complex, complete theories of nuclear war fighting, including limited war, theater nuclear operations, and escalation control.

The Self-Defensive Nature of China’s Nuclear Policy Means That It Carries Out Central Deterrence but Not Extended Deterrence

China preserves nuclear capabilities only to deter nuclear-weapon states from launching nuclear attacks against its homeland. China neither provides a “nuclear umbrella” to, nor accepts one from, any other country. Its opposition to the policy of extended nuclear deterrence—the practice of nuclear-weapon states’ providing nuclear umbrellas to their non-nuclear-weapon allies—attests to the self-defensive nature of that policy. China has clearly indicated that it will neither deploy nuclear weapons on foreign territory nor allow foreign nuclear weapons into China. By comparison, the United States has incorporated extended deterrence as a key component into its nuclear strategy and alliance policy, both during the Cold War and even today. I disagree with the notion that extended deterrence helps nonproliferation by relieving allies of the need to develop their indigenous nuclear arsenals, thus reducing the number of nuclear states. In my view, extended deterrence is first and foremost a defense commitment used to strengthen an alliance, with nonproliferation a by-product of this commitment rather than a predesigned major mission. Very few of America’s allies face threats today that can be dealt with only by US extended nuclear deterrence; rather, US conventional military means can easily satisfy their defense requirements. Additionally, extended deterrence promotes proliferation by motivating declared or potential enemies of the United States and its allies to possess nuclear weapons as asymmetric means to offset US conventional superiority. If we are serious about creating conditions for a nuclear-free world, as President Obama has suggested, the policy of extended nuclear deterrence should be among the first to change.

China’s Nuclear Policy Seeks Deterrence at the Grand Strategic and Strategic Levels, Not at the Operational and Tactical Levels

Chinese leaders mainly consider nuclear weapons a political instrument for employment at the level of grand strategy, not as a winning tool for military operations. The concept of “what wins, deters” does not guide China’s nuclear thinking. China has not stratified nuclear operations into strategic, operational, or tactical levels. China perceives a nuclear strike against its territory—whether with high- or low-yield warheads, causing either great or small losses—as the attack that invokes its counterattack. The American practice, by comparison, incorporates nuclear war fighting into strategic, campaign, and tactical operations. For example, theater operational plans (OPLAN) like US Pacific Command’s OPLAN 5077 (the OPLAN for military conflict in the Taiwan Strait) have annexes on nuclear operations.

China’s Nuclear Arsenal at the Minimum Level Can Be Interpreted to Some Extent as the Minimum-Deterrence Posture

At this point, let me alter the meaning of the concept of nuclear deterrence somewhat by giving it some Chinese characteristics. Chinese minimum deterrence means that the role played by nuclear weapons in national security should be minimized. China would use nuclear weapons only against nuclear attack and only for second-strike purposes. Accordingly, the arsenal must be kept at the minimum level needed. In China’s official documents, “lean” and “effective” are the two adjectives used to describe the nuclear arsenal. To keep the arsenal lean, China has to exercise restraint in developing nuclear weapons; to keep the arsenal effective, China has to modernize it to ensure credibility after a first nuclear strike. Furthermore, Chinese strategists regard the concept of minimum deterrence as a relative one, defined not only by quantitative criteria but also by the survivability of nuclear weapon systems and the credibility of counterattack. Some researchers in the United States have concluded that, based on its modernization effort, China is shifting from a minimum- to a limited-deterrence posture, whereby China could use nuclear weapons to deter both conventional and nuclear wars—and even to exercise escalation control in the event of a conventional confrontation. However, we must remember that the basic logic of China’s nuclear thinking conceives of nuclear weapons as a deterring, not a winning, instrument against other such weapons.

China Depends More on Uncertainty for Its Deterrence Than Any Other Nuclear-Weapon State

By introducing the matter of uncertainty, I try to preempt any questions on China’s opaqueness regarding the structure and size of its nuclear force. For a state adopting a no-first-use policy and intending not to waste too much money on unusable weapons, dependence on opaqueness to bring about greater deterrent value is a wise choice. One can achieve deterrence through the certainty of prospective costs outweighing prospective gains, as well as through the uncertainty in cost/gain calculations. Deterrence works not only to reverse the enemy’s original intention, but also to prevent him from forming such an intention for lack of information. Comparing China with the United States, one sees that the former places more emphasis on taking advantage of uncertainty in implementing deterrence, while the latter realizes more deterrence value by a show of force.

Lastly, China’s Nuclear Policy Has Remained Constant

Here, I want to make the point that China’s perspective on nuclear deterrence has not changed very much since the start of the twenty-first century. The 1960s and 1970s had been the most crises-ridden years for China. Since then, China’s security environment has improved steadily. However, several new factors complicate China’s nuclear calculations. First, it has more nuclear neighbors than before. Second, the Taiwan Strait has become a potential flash point that might drag two nuclear states into military conflict. And third, the deployment of US ballistic missile defense (BMD) systems threatens the credibility of China’s deterrence and the strategic stability between the United States and China. In spite of these new developments, we can see no substantial change in China’s declared nuclear policy and no deviation from the basic deterrence logic in which it believes. Several reasons may account for this lack of change. First, the multilateral-deterrent relationship that China forms with all nuclear-weapon states can readily accommodate new nuclear neighbors. Second, deterrence applied at the strategic level, if credible, can deter nuclear use against China in peace and even in conventional conflict. Third, the BMD system may result in a reassessment of force structure and size, but not in the abandonment of a policy that has best served China’s national interest for nearly half a century.

A Revolution for China’s Air Force


The days of antiquated equipment, questionable training, and outdated concepts are over. When Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates was in Beijing in January 2011, the Chinese Air Force unveiled its new J-20 stealth fighter with a drumroll of publicity about its initial test flight that the SECDEF and his delegation could not miss. The immediate question: Was this just coincidence, or was it flaunting by increasingly belligerent Chinese military leaders? "I asked President Hu [Jintao] about it directly and he said that the test had absolutely nothing to do with my visit and had been a preplanned test," Gates said. "I take President Hu at his word that the test had nothing to do with my visit."


Ready for Takeoff: China's Advancing Aerospace Industry


This monograph assesses China's aerospace capabilities and the extent to which China's participation in commercial aerospace markets and supply chains is contributing to the improvement of those capabilities. It examines China's commercial aviation manufacturing capabilities, its commercial and military capabilities in space, Chinese government efforts to encourage foreign participation in the development of China's aerospace industry, transfers of foreign aerospace technology to China, the extent to which U.S. and other foreign aerospace firms depend on supplies from China, and the implications of these issues for U.S. security interests.

Defense White Paper “China’s National Defense in 2010”


hina’s 2010 Defense White Paper follows a pattern by now well-established in these biannual reports on the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). It offers some new details not present in the previous report, but stops well short of offering the degree of detail that foreign analysts and policy makers hope for. Where Western documents typically focus more—and Western analysts expect more information—on specific capabilities, it focuses primarily on more general intentions. While it leaves many questions unanswered, however, it is a carefully-written document that offers insights into China’s defense policy and some general trends in its military development. Beijing’s ongoing moves toward greater transparency (some would say “translucence”) should be applauded, however short they may still fall of foreign expectations

Through the Lens of Distance: Understanding and Responding to China’s ‘Ripples of Capability’


Several pronounced trends are emerging as the United States moves beyond its “unipolar moment,” the foremost among them being the rise of developing powers and the proliferation of asymmetric technologies. The Asia-Pacific, with a rising China at its center, is the critical arena in which Washington must respond to these challenges. China’s unyielding stance on its present territorial and maritime claims and continued development of anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) capabilities are particularly worrisome. While it is premature to project a global power transition in which China eclipses U.S. power and influence, the United States needs to remain closely aware of and engaged in regional affairs to retain an influential role and remain a reliable security partner throughout the Asia-Pacific. This brief offers a set of force structure priorities for the United States as it grapples with China’s increasingly sophisticated capabilitie

from jamestown



China's Nuclear Warhead Storage and Handling System


China maintains its operational nuclear warhead stockpile through a centralized storage and handling system managed by the People’s Liberation Army’s Second Artillery. A preliminary examination indicates that Beijing adopts a responsible and serious attitude with regards to nuclear security and safety. Yet, an expanding ballistic missile infrastructure in the absence of significant growth in their nuclear warhead stockpile could indicate an extension of Second Artillery’s conventional strike mission.

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Liu Kejun displays one section of a segmented stamp, one of five sections that, when joined together, symbolize an expression of democracy in a small village in west China.

Liu is one of five residents of the village of Luogudong in Chongqing municipality who were chosen by the villagers to hold the five sections of the village's official stamp. Any new plan for the village must meet their consent before they can join their sections together and give an official stamp of approval.

This simplified form of representative democracy is a symbol of the "grassroots democracy" that is picking up steam across China as the nation plays up social stability against the backdrop of a cooling economy.

China's GDP growth rate dropped to 9.2 percent year-on-year in 2011, down from 10.3 percent the year before, posing greater economic and social challenges for China in the year ahead.

However, the country also faces problems left by decades of hot-red growth. In rural areas, illegal land grabs and environmental pollution often cause conflicts between villagers and local governments.

During a visit to south China's Guangdong province, Premier Wen Jiabao stressed the importance of rural self-governance and urged local authorities to ensure rural residents' voting rights.

His call came after massive protests last year by residents of the village of Wukan, who confronted the local government over issues related to illegal land grabs, financing and the violation of local election regulations. The protest simmered for months, highlighting the social vulnerability of China's economic heartland.

ECONOMIC ILLS, SOCIAL CURES

Realizing that a surging GDP is not a cure for grievances and turbulence, China has made more efforts to improve livelihoods and protect people's rights in recent years.

The trend was particularly conspicuous in 2011, when China reported slower economic expansion but more generous investment in education, housing and social welfare. About 360 million urban and rural residents were covered under government-subsidized social security programs as of the end of 2011.

China also kicked off construction on 10 million low-income housing units last year.

Even more eminent are the greater social commitments shown by traditionally GDP-obsessed local governments. In poorer western provinces like Sichuan and Shaanxi, over 80 percent of increased revenues were injected into social and welfare projects in 2011.

DEMOCRACY ON THE RISE

As social development speeds up, various forms of grassroots democracy are flourishing in China's cities and countryside.

Zhang Yongchun, the new Communist Party of China (CPC) secretary of Chongqing municipality's Taojia township, will tell you that just a few years ago, local Party officials did most of their work behind closed doors.

But in order to obtain his current post, Zhang had to participate in a public nomination and direct election process last year.

"I beat three candidates over two rounds of campaigning, during which time we gave speeches on our political views and competed for votes," said Zhang.

Zhang said he has busied himself with social projects since his victory in order to deliver on the promises he made during his campaign.

City officials are also paying more attention to public opinion, as observed by Xu Jimin, a professor of law at Sichuan University.

Xu has participated in the drafting of several regulations and pieces of legislation in Chongqing and neighboring Sichuan province. He said he has noticed a rise in the number of public hearings on law drafts in recent years.

"They (officials) also ask for our professional advice more frequently. It's no longer rare for a draft to be killed by our opposition," said Xu.

Analysts said fast development in China's social and political sectors are closely linked, and the two will continue to provide momentum for each other.

"Better living standards raise democratic awareness, which in turn will safeguard people's well-being," said Hu Angang, a professor and policy researcher at Tsinghua University.

"The democratic trend is entering all walks of life thanks to improved living conditions. Its rise is unstoppable," said Lu Xueyi, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

USCC 2011 Annual Report to Congress


An Analysis of State-owned Enterprises and State Capitalism in China

The United States is working hard to recalibrate its national security strategy with an Asia-Pacific focus. If China can act boldly, it has multiple avenues for countering it.
For the past several months, the United States has been busy promoting its “pivot” toward the Asia-Pacific and Indo-Pacific regions. Free from conflict in Iraq, and with the winding down of its involvement in Afghanistan apparently accelerating, the U.S. now has more freedom to focus its strategic muscle on this dynamic part of the world. Through pronouncements in the press, and with some carefully crafted diplomatic and strategic jockeying, the United States is gradually reasserting itself in the region.

Such a shift is no surprise to anyone who has been following recent geopolitical events. Militarily, the United States made its intentions clear in the 2007 Maritime Strategy report under the George W. Bush administration. While still engaged in two wars in the Middle East, U.S security planners were still crafting a change of strategy well before the withdrawal of forces in Iraq and Afghanistan had been finalized.

In March 2011, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton all but declared that a new game was afoot. “We are in a competition for influence with China,” she told the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “Let’s put aside the humanitarian, do-good side of what we believe in. Let's just talk straight realpolitik. We are in competition with China.”

Such a shift makes sense for a number of reasons. The Asia-Pacific and Indo-Pacific regions are home to some of the world’s fastest growing economies. With America’s precarious economic position, gaining access to such markets offers the prospect of more American jobs and a boost to a still sluggish economy.

But it’s hard to escape the reality that China is the key reason for the U.S. refocusing. With the United States having spent the better part of the last decade fighting conflicts in the Middle East, China has meanwhile gone to great lengths to enhance its strategic position in East Asia. Beijing has steadily increased its armed forces budget over the last decade. With its advances in anti-access weapons and asymmetrical arms, U.S. forces are, according to one scholar, “On the wrong side of physics.” While U.S. military forces outgun their Chinese rivals, recent studies suggest China’s military budget will double by 2015, meaning a China-centric strategy makes sense.

Still, it’s important not to overstate the speed with which the U.S. pivot – and the associated China concerns – have taken place. The fact is that U.S. -China tensions aren’t exactly new. Indeed, seemingly lost in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks is the fact that the United States and China faced off in the Taiwan Strait in 1996 and in 2001 over an aircraft collision near Hainan Island. In The Diplomat last May, Frank Ching correctly pointed out, “Bush himself had already repudiated the Clinton administration’s policy of forging a strategic partnership with China, calling Beijing a strategic competitor, rather than a strategic partner.” Several days after the return of its EP-3 surveillance crew, the U.S. offered Taiwan a massive arms package. With tensions brewing “shifts in attitudes in both nations seem to be pointing to a showdown.”

So how could – and should – China respond? Beijing certainly has a number of diplomatic, military and strategic tools at his disposal if it wishes to negate U.S. plans, and Beijing policymakers must be prepared for any flare-ups over Taiwan, the South China Sea or on trade issues.

A good start would be for China to rebuild goodwill with its neighbors by showing some flexibility over regional disputes. Above all, China would do well to consider a multilateral framework to resolve the territorial disputes in the South China Sea. With significant natural resources and fishing rights at stake, every nation in the region has an interest in resolving such issues peacefully. China would be much better served by rethinking its expansive claims and committing to a peaceful negotiated settlement to all outstanding issues. China could also strongly suggest, via diplomatic channels that extend beyond current measures in place, that claimant nations do more to explore the joint development of important natural resources in disputed areas. Some progress has been made here, but all claimants deserve to know how much potential wealth there is beneath the sea, and how much it would cost to develop such resources. A carefully crafted and clear strategy could win China key allies in the region.

One of the reasons many in the Asia-Pacific welcome the U.S. pivot is the ambiguity of Chinese intentions. Beyond the eloquent but often meaningless pronouncements of a “peaceful rise,” a lack of transparency, especially over the military, leaves diplomats in the region wondering about China’s real ambitions. China’s neighbors look at new weapons platforms such as aircraft carriers and anti-ship missiles and court the United States as a balancer to complement their own military capabilities. Beijing could ease tensions by boosting the exchange of military officers with countries like Vietnam and the Philippines, and conducting joint military operations. Nothing creates a sense of stability and reassurance like transparency.

Attempts must also be made to reduce tensions with China’s largest regional competitor, India. Beijing could start by launching a serious diplomatic effort to engage India in resolving long standing border issues that have plagued relations for far too long. This may mean China taking the initiative with New Delhi. Progress has been maderecently, but with India seemingly moving to upgrade its military capabilities and considering eyeing closer relations with the United States, it’s in China’s own interests to show that New Delhi doesn’t need to turn to the U.S. for support. If this means downgrading its “all-weather friendship” with Pakistan, then so be it.

But China should also look outside the Asia-Pacific and Indo-Pacific region to ensure the U.S. pivot doesn’t turn into encirclement. Robust support of Europe in its time of crisis would be a useful step, and while Chinese investment in places like Africa and Latin America is controversial, it is often far more complex than portrayed in the Western media.

So far, Chinese leaders have only paid lip service to assisting Europe. But how could China come to the EU’s aid? Fareed Zakaria has an interesting idea on this very issue. “The International Monetary Fund could go to the leading holders of such reserves – China, but also Japan, Brazil and Saudi Arabia – and ask for a $750 billion line of credit. The IMF would then extend that credit to the troubled EU economies, but insist on closely monitoring economic reforms, granting funds only as restructuring occurs,” he argues. “That credit line would more than cover the borrowing costs of both Italy and Spain for two years. The IMF terms would ensure that the two nations remained under pressure to reform and set up conditions for growth.”

So where does China fit in exactly? “(Now), the Chinese would have to devote at least half the funds. What's in it for them? A new global role. This could be the spur to giving China a much larger say at the IMF. In fact, it might be necessary to make clear that Christine Lagarde would be the last non-Chinese head of the organization.”

Leading a rescue package for Europe would grant China a greatly enhanced global role no military advances or diplomat maneuvers could supplant, while helping to safeguard one of its largest markets would help underpin China’s economic growth.

Still, China is understandably unlikely to abandon its military advances in favor of diplomatic praise. With this in mind, though, it would be best served by focusing its military capital on further developing its Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) strategy. Dedicating massive financial recourses to second-hand aircraft carriers with limited capabilities, or creating new carries that will take years to develop, could eventually look like an expensive folly compared to an effective and focused A2/AD strategy. China’s resources would be better served further creating and developing capable and ultra quiet next generation Air Independent Propulsion (AIP) diesel submarines for deployment in and around Taiwan and the South China Sea and fully developing anti-ship ballistic missile technology like the DF-21D.

A focus on A2/AD tactics and weapons, combined with the natural advantages of fighting in its home territory, is already proving a challenge to U.S. strategists with naval forces invested in increasingly vulnerable carrier battle groups. With America looking to cut its military budget and still maintain significant forces in the Asia-Pacific through operational concepts like “Air-Sea Battle,” just being able to afford to stay the course may be China’s best military strategy.

All this is easier said than done. But steps such as reining in the country’s self-defeating propaganda machine, including jingoistic op-eds in the Global Times, would cost little – ifChina is to respond to international concerns, then it needs to utilize all means at its disposal, and that doesn’t just mean hardware or even diplomats. Catchphrases like “mutual interest” and “peaceful rise” are no longer convincing (if indeed they ever were) and need to be retired.

China has many potential tools with which to negate the U.S. strategy. Deploying and sticking to such a approach will be a challenge for sure, especially with the coming transition to a new generation of leaders later this year. China may or may not aspire to global leadership – the burden of leadership is never easy to bear after all. But if it wants to avoid being encircled by the United States’ deft pivot to the region in the long run, then it would be well-advised to undertake a comprehensive revamp of all tools at its disposal, however hard that might feel in the short term.

2011
REPORT TO CONGRESS
of the
U.S.-CHINA ECONOMIC AND
SECURITY REVIEW COMMISSION

Why China Will Democratize


Behind the political stagnation on the surface, signs abound that a fundamental political transformation is taking place in China. In the fall of 2011, an unusually large group of independent citizens launched very vocal campaigns to compete for seats in various local congresses. Around the same time, groups of “netizens” went to a small village in Shandong province to try to visit Chen Guangcheng, a human right activist under house arrest, despite repeated reports about visitors being beaten. In July 2011, a train crash in the city of Wenzhou caused a storm of criticism against the government on “weibo,” micro-blog sites in China that claim nearly 200 million readers. Although these are just three pieces of evidence, they represent a rising independent civil society and illustrate that China’s political regime is increasingly being challenged.


The Emergent Security Threats Reshaping China’s Rise