Abstract
The study of China’s nuclear weapons program represents a paradox at best. On one hand, it is perhaps one of the most thoroughly combed issues, both by Western scholars1 and, more recently, by Chinese researchers;2 on the other hand, it is also an area of uncertainties, unknowns, and guesswork. This is the case despite the increasing effort, particularly from US scholars, and despite a growing trend in China, to demystify its weapons programs. As a result, the issue of transparency, or lack thereof, regarding the strength, scope, speed, and strategy of the Chinese nuclear forces—including the Second Artillery, its air and naval siblings, and China’s nuclear and aerospace industries—continues to be a source of concern for many.3
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Notes
For books partially or largely focused on Chinese nuclear weapon programs, see James Mulvenon and David M. Finkelstein, eds., China’s Revolution in Doctrinal Affairs: Emerging Trends in the Operational Art of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (Santa Monica: RAND Corp., 2003)
Evan Feigenbaum, China’s Techno-Warriors: National Security and Strategic Competition from the Nuclear to the Information Age (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003)
Mark A. Stokes, China’s Strategic Modernization: Implications for the United States (Carlisle Barracks, PA: U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, 1999)
John W. Lewis and Litai Xue, China’s Strategic Seapower: The Politics of Force Modernization in the Nuclear Age (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994)
Benjamin C. Ostrov, Conquering Resources: The Growth and Decline of the PLA’s Science and Technology Commission for National Defense (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1991)
Mark A. Ryan, Chinese Attitudes towards Nuclear weapons: China and the United States during the Korean War (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1989)
Rosita Dellios, Modern Chinese Defense Strategy (London: Macmillan, 1989)
John W. Lewis and Litai Xue, China Builds the Bomb (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988)
Ellis Joffe, The Chinese Army after Mao (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987)
Chong-Ping Lin, China’s Nuclear Weapons Strategy (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1988)
Anne Gilks and Gerald Segal, China and the Arms Trade (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1985)
Paul H. B. Goodwin, ed., The Chinese Defense Establishment: Continuity and Change (Boulder: Westview Press, 1983)
June T. Dreyer, China’s Military Power in the 1980s (Washington, DC: China Council of the Asia Society, 1982)
Harlan W Jencks, From Muskets to Missiles: Politics and Professionalism in the Chinese Army, 1945–1981 (Boulder: Westview Press, 1982)
Harvey Nelson, The Chinese Military System (Boulder: Westview Press, 1980)
Morton H. Halperin, China and the Bomb (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1967)
Alice Langley Hsieh, Communist China’s Strategy in the Nuclear Era (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1962).
Kenneth Allen and Maryanne Kiviehan-Wise, “Implementing PLA Second Artillery Doctrinal Reforms,” in James Mulvenon and David Finkelstein, eds., China’s Revolution in doctrinal Affairs: Emerging Trends in then Operational Art of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corp., 2003), 159–160
Alastair Iain Johnston, “Prospects for Chinese Nuclear Force Modernization: Limited Deterrence Versus Multilateral Arms Control,” The China Quarterly, Vol. 146 (June 1996): 548–576
Alastair Iain Johnston, “China’s New ‘Old Thinking’: The Concept of Limited Deterrence,” International Security, Vol. 20, No. 3 (Winter 1995/1996): 5–42
John Lewis and Hua Di, “China’s Ballistic Missile Programs: Technologies, Strategies, Goals,” International Security, Vol. 17, No. 2 (Fall 1992): 5–40
John W Lewis, Hua Di, and Xue Litai, “Beijing’s Defense Establishment: Solving the Arms-Export Enigma,” International Security, Vol. 15, No. 4 (Spring 1991): 87–109
John Lewis and Litai Xue, “Strategic Weapons and Chinese Power: The Formative Years,” The China Quarterly, Vol. 112 (December 1987): 541–554
Paul Godwin, “Changing Concepts of Doctrine, Strategy and Operations in the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, 1978–1987,” The China Quarterly, Vol. 112 (December 1987): 572–590
This “obsession” is clearly seen in the West’s study of Chinese military and security policies and behavioral patterns. See Robert Ash, David Shambaugh, and Seiichiro Takagi, eds., China Watching: Perspectives from Europe, Japan and the United States (London: Roudedge, 2007), 231–235.
John L. Gaddis, The Long Peace (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987).
At the July 1945 Potsdam Conference, US president Truman hinted to Stalin that the United States possessed a new destructive weapon. Stalin immediately instructed to speed up Soviet atomic program. See Walter LaFeber, America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1945–2006, 10th ed. (Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2008), 27–28.
For comparison of the Communist and Nationalist forces on the eve of the 1946–1949 Civil War, see Tang Yilu [History of the National Liberation War of the People’s Liberation Army, Vol. 1] (Beijing: [Military Science Press], 1993), 323–338
Richard M. Nixon, “Asia after Viet Nam,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 46, No. 1 (October 1967): 111–125.
John Garver and Feiling Wang, “China’s Anti-encirclement Struggle,” Asian Security, Vol. 6, No. 3 (2010): 238–261.
Major powers such as China, India, Germany, and Russia “cannot augment their military capabilities so as to balance the United States without simultaneously becoming an immediate threat to their neighbors.” Stephen Brooks and William Wohiforth, “American Primacy in Perspective,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 81, No. 4 (July/ August 2002): 24.
Litai Xue, “Evolution of China’s Nuclear Strategy,” in John Hopkins and Weixing Hu, eds., Strategic Views from the Second Tier: The Nuclear Weapons Policies of France, Britain, and China (London: Transaction Publishers, 1995), 168
Henry Kissinger, “The Future of U.S.-Chinese Relations,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 91, No. 2 (March/April 2012): 44–55.
See Brad Roberts, Robert A. Manning, and Ronald N. Montaperto, “China: the Forgotten Nuclear Power,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 79, No. 4 (July/August 2000): 53–63.
Keir Lieber and Daryl Press, “The Rise of U.S. Nuclear Primacy,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 85, No. 2 (March/April 2006): 42–54.
Steven Hook, US Foreign Policy: The Paradox of World Power (Washington DC: CQ Press, 2005), 296.
See Samuel P. Huntington, “The West Unique, Not Universal,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 75, No. 6 (November/December 1996): 28–46.
Joshua Cooper Ramo, The Beijing Consensus (London: The Foreign Policy Center, 2004)
Fred Bergsten, The United States and the World Economy (Washington DC: Peterson Institute, 2005)
Niall Ferguson, Civilization: The West & the Rest (New York: Penguin ress, 2011).
Adam Liptak, “Inmate Count in U.S. Dwarfs Other Nations: Tough Laws and Long Terms Create Gap,” New York Times, April 23, 2008,1. Also see Godfrey Hodgson, The Myth of American Exceptionalism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), chapter 5, 128–154.
According to Kenneth Lieberthal, the extraordinary length of time of die Chinese traditional system had lasted, from the first unified dynasty of Qin (221-206 BC), to the last Qing (1911 AD), “as if, in Western terms, the Roman empire had evolved but neverdie-less survived into die twentieth century.” See Kennedi Lieberdial, Governing China: From Revolution Through Reform, 2nd ed. (New York: W W Norton, 2004), 4.
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© 2015 G. John Ikenberry, Wang Jisi, and Zhu Feng
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Yu, B. (2015). In Search of Security and Self-Identity: Promise and Paradox of China’s Nuclear Weapons. In: Ikenberry, G.J., Jisi, W., Feng, Z. (eds) America, China, and the Struggle for World Order. Asia Today. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137508317_13
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137508317_13
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