Future of the Undersea Deterrent feb2020

Chapter 7 The Role of Nuclear Weapons in China’s National Defence | Fiona S. Cunningham
first strike. China’s choice to instead ride out an adversary first
strike and retaliate at a time of its choosing demonstrates the
sincerity of its no-first-use policy. 18 The low alert status of China’s
land-based nuclear force also avoids the risk that leaders could
accidentally order a retaliatory nuclear strike based on false
warning of an incoming attack. To ensure the survivability of its
arsenal if an adversary tries to carry out a disarming first nuclear
strike, China has invested in the mobility and concealment of its
delivery systems. Examples include its development of DF-31AG
land-based mobile missiles with an off-road capability 19 and missile
force training exercises in underground facilities to simulate
riding out nuclear strikes. 20
The Future of China’s Nuclear Strategy
Will China change its nuclear strategy in the future? In particular,
could China expand the goals of its nuclear strategy to include
the first use of nuclear weapons to gain an advantage over an
adversary in a conventional conflict? Could it expand the size of
its nuclear arsenal to reduce the vulnerability of its second-strike
capability? The answers to these questions depend on the factors
driving China’s nuclear strategy decision-making. Changes to
China’s threat environment are the most likely driver of change
in its nuclear strategy.
In the past, the kinds of wars China envisaged fighting and the
intensity of the threat posed by its nuclear adversaries have
determined the goals and implementation of China’s nuclear
strategy. China’s past nuclear decision-making suggests that
economic and organisational factors are less likely drivers of
change. Despite three decades of impressive economic growth,
China has not expanded the goals or substantially increased
the size of its nuclear arsenal. The dramatic growth of China’s
conventional military power, in comparison to the relative stability
of China’s nuclear arsenal size over the past three decades,
strongly suggests that China’s modest arsenal size is a choice, not
a fiscal necessity. 21 China’s military and strategic missile forces
have also advocated for a more ambitious nuclear strategy and
larger arsenal in the past. 22 However, China’s civilian leaders
have successfully suppressed those organisational drivers of
change. Historically, China’s defence scientific and engineering
community has had much greater influence than the PLA over
nuclear strategy decision-making and force structure planning.
The PLA Rocket Force and its predecessor, the Second Artillery,
in particular, has had little influence over China’s national nuclear
strategy. 23 While it is always possible that China’s leaders could
be swayed by organisational interests of the PLA and its Rocket
Force, those interests are unlikely to drive changes to China’s
nuclear strategy goals in the near future. 24
China’s threat environment has allowed its leaders to maintain a
limited role for its nuclear weapons in its national defence since
1964. Contrary to the example set by NATO during the Cold War,
Russia in the post-Cold War era, France, and Pakistan, 25 China
has not compensated for its conventional military inferiority by
threatening to use nuclear weapons first in a conventional war.
Since the end of the Cold War, Chinese leaders have planned to
fight local wars on their periphery against nuclear powers with
advanced conventional militaries. 26 As China formulated a military
strategy for local wars in the early 1990s, defence leaders
reasoned that China’s nuclear arsenal would prevent adversaries
from coercing China in conventional conflicts with threats to use
nuclear weapons. 27 However, if China could prevent its adversaries’
nuclear coercion with a retaliatory nuclear capability, it
would not gain much leverage from threatening to use nuclear
weapons first either.
18
China’s decision to ride out an attack is, however, more likely due to be a result of its leaders’ desire to maintain strict control of the use of nuclear
weapons than a desire to signal restraint to adversaries. See further Fiona S. Cunningham, “Nuclear Command, Control, and Communications
Systems of the People’s Republic of China,” NAPSNet Special Reports, Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability, July 18, 2019.
19
Alex Lockie, “Watch China Debut an ICBM That Can Hit the US with Multiple Nuclear Warheads,” Business Insider, August 1, 2017, http://www.
businessinsider.com/china-df-31ag-icbm-rollout-parade-2017-7.
20
Kenneth W. Allen and Jana Allen, “Building a Strong Informatized Strategic Missile Force: An Overview of the Second Artillery Force with a Focus
on Training in 2014” (Washington DC: Jamestown Foundation, 2015), 20–21.
21
Fravel and Medeiros, “China’s Search for Assured Retaliation,” 82.
22
Johnston, “China’s New ‘Old Thinking’”; Chase, Erickson, and Yeaw, “Chinese Theater and Strategic Missile Force Modernization,” 94–98.
23
Fravel, Active Defense, chap. 8; Fravel and Medeiros, “China’s Search for Assured Retaliation,” 70–73.
24
Eric Heginbotham et al., “China’s Evolving Nuclear Deterrent: Main Drivers and Issues for the United States” (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation,
2017), 97–118.
25
Charles L. Glaser, Analyzing Strategic Nuclear Policy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990); Vipin Narang, Nuclear Strategy in the
Modern Era (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014).
26
Fravel, Active Defense, chap. 6.
27
Mi Zhenyu, ed., Qian Xuesen Xiandai Junshi Kexue Sixiang [Qian Xuesen’s Thinking on the Modernization of Military Science] (Beijing: Kexue
Chubanshe, 2011), 77.
24