President’s Message: Seeking China-U.S.

Strategic Nuclear Stability

Seeking China-U.S. Strategic Nuclear Stability

By Charles D. Ferguson, Ph.D.

“To destroy the other, you have to destroy part of yourself. To deter
the other, you have to deter yourself,” according to a Chinese nuclear
strategy expert. During the week of February 9th, I had the privilege to
travel to China where I heard this statement during the Ninth China-
U.S. Dialogue on Strategic Nuclear Dynamics in Beijing. The Dialogue
was jointly convened by the China Foundation for International
Strategic Studies (CFISS) and the Pacific Forum Center for Strategic and
International Studies (CSIS). While the statements by participants were
not-for-attribution, I can state that the person quoted is a senior
official with extensive experience in China’s strategic nuclear planning.

The main reason for my research travel was to work with Bruce
MacDonald, FAS Adjunct Senior Fellow for National Security Technology, on a project examining the
security implications of a possible Chinese deployment of strategic ballistic missile defense. We had
discussions with more than a dozen Chinese nuclear strategists in Beijing and Shanghai; we will
publish a full report on our findings and analysis this summer. FAS plans to continue further work on
projects concerning China-U.S. strategic relations as well as understanding how our two countries can
cooperate on the challenges of providing adequate healthy food, near-zero emission energy sources,
and unpolluted air and water.

During the discussions, I was struck by the gap between American and Chinese perspectives. As
indicated by the quote, Chinese strategic thinkers appear reluctant to want to use nuclear weapons
and underscore the moral and psychological dimensions of nuclear strategy. Nonetheless, China’s
leaders clearly perceive the need for such weapons for deterrence purposes. Perhaps the biggest gap
in perception is that American nuclear strategists tend to remain skeptical about China’s policy of no-
first-use (NFU) of nuclear weapons. By the NFU policy, China would not launch nuclear weapons first
against the United States or any other state. Thus, China needs assurances that it would have enough
nuclear weapons available to launch in a second retaliatory strike in the unlikely event of a nuclear
attack by another state.

American experts are doubtful about NFU statements because during the Cold War the Soviet Union
repeatedly stated that it had a NFU policy, but once the Cold War ended and access was obtained to

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President’s Message: Seeking China-U.S. Strategic Nuclear Stability

the Soviets’ plans, the United States found out that the Soviets had lied. They had plans to use nuclear
weapons first under certain circumstances. Today, given Russia’s relative conventional military
inferiority compared to the United States, Moscow has openly declared that it has a first-use policy to
deter massive conventional attack.

Can NFU be demonstrated? Some analysts have argued that China in its practice of keeping warheads
de-mated or unattached from the missile delivery systems has in effect placed itself in a second strike
posture. But the worry from the American side is that such a posture could change quickly and that as
China has been modernizing its missile force from slow firing liquid-fueled rockets to quick firing
solid-fueled rockets, it will be capable of shifting to a first-use policy if the security conditions dictate
such a change.

The more I talked with Chinese experts in Beijing and Shanghai the more I felt that they are sincere
about China’s NFU policy. A clearer and fuller exposition came from a leading expert in Shanghai who
said that China has a two-pillar strategy. First, China believes in realism in that it has to take
appropriate steps in a semi-anarchic geopolitical system to defend itself. It cannot rely on others for
outside assistance or deterrence. Indeed, one of the major differences between China and the United
States is that China is not part of a formal defense alliance pact such as the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO) or the alliance the United States has with Japan and South Korea. Although in
the 1950s, Chairman Mao Zedong decried nuclear weapons as “paper tigers,” he decided that the
People’s Republic of China must acquire them given the threats China faced when U.S. General
Douglas MacArthur suggested possible use of nuclear weapons against China during the Korean War.
In October 1964, China detonated its first nuclear explosive device and at the same time declared its
NFU policy.

The second pillar is based on morality. Chinese strategists understand the moral dilemma of nuclear
deterrence. On the one hand, a nuclear-armed state has to show a credible willingness to launch
nuclear weapons to deter the other’s launch. But on the other hand, if deterrence fails, actually
carrying out the threat condemns millions to die. According to the Chinese nuclear expert, China
would not retaliate immediately and instead would offer a peace deal to avert further escalation to
more massive destruction. As long as China has an assured second strike, which might consist of only
a handful of nuclear weapons that could hit the nuclear attacker’s territory, Beijing could wait hours to
days before retaliating or not striking back in order to give adequate time for cooling off and
stopping of hostilities.

Because China has not promised to provide extended nuclear deterrence to other states, Chinese
leaders would also not feel compelled to strike back quickly to defend such states. In contrast,
Federation of American Scientists | Public Interest Report | Winter 2015 Volume 68 Number 1
President’s Message: Seeking China-U.S. Strategic Nuclear Stability

because of U.S. deterrence commitments to NATO, Japan, South Korea, and Australia, Washington
would feel pressure to respond quickly if it or its allies are under nuclear attack. Indeed, at the
Dialogue, Chinese experts often brought up the U.S. alliances and especially pointed to Japan as a
concern, as Japan could use its relatively large stockpile of about nine metric tons of reactor-grade
plutonium (which is still weapons-usable) to make nuclear explosives. Moreover, last July, the
administration of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced a “reinterpretation” of the Article 9
restriction in the Japanese Constitution, which prohibits Japan from having an offensive military. (The
United States imposed this restriction after the Second World War.) The reinterpretation allows
Japanese Self-Defense Forces to serve alongside allies during military actions. Beijing is opposed
because then Japan is just one step away from further changing to a more aggressive policy that
could permit Japan to act alone in taking military actions. Before and during the Second World War,
Japanese military forces committed numerous atrocities against Chinese civilians. Chinese strategists
fear that Japan is seeking to further break out of its restraints.

Thus, Chinese strategists want clarity about Japan’s intentions and want to know how the evolving
U.S.-Japan alliance could affect Chinese interests. Japan and the United States have strong concerns
about China’s growing assertive actions near the disputed Diaoyu Islands (Chinese name) or Senkaku
Islands (Japanese name) between China and Japan, and competing claims for territory in the South
China Sea. Regarding nuclear forces, some Chinese experts speculate about the conditions that could
lead to Japan’s development of nuclear weapons. The need is clear for continuing dialogue on the
triangular relationship among China, Japan, and the United States.

Several Chinese strategists perceive a disparity in U.S. nuclear policy toward China. They want to know
if the United States will treat China as a major nuclear power to be deterred or as a big “rogue” state
with nuclear weapons. U.S. experts have tried to assure their Chinese counterparts that the strategic
reality is the former. The Chinese experts also see that the United States has more than ten times the
number of deliverable nuclear weapons than China. But they hear from some conservative American
experts that the United States fears that China might “sprint for parity” to match the U.S. nuclear
arsenal if the United States further reduces down to 1,000 or somewhat fewer weapons. 1 According to
the FAS Nuclear Information Project, China is estimated to have about 250 warheads in its stockpile
for delivery. 2 Chinese experts also hear from the Obama administration that it wants to someday
achieve a nuclear-weapon-free world. The transition from where the world is today to that future is

1
Henry Sokolski, Underestimated: Our Not So Peaceful Nuclear Future (Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, January
2015).
2
Hans M. Kristensen and Robert S. Norris, “Chinese Nuclear Forces, 2013,” Nuclear Notebook, Bulletin of the Atomic
Scientists, November 2013, http://thebulletin.org/2013/november/chinese-nuclear-forces-2013
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President’s Message: Seeking China-U.S. Strategic Nuclear Stability

fraught with challenges: one of them being the mathematical fact that to get to zero or close to zero,
nuclear-armed states will have to reach parity with each other eventually.

Charles D. Ferguson, Ph.D.

President, Federation of American Scientists

Federation of American Scientists | Public Interest Report | Winter 2015 Volume 68 Number 1