This is the first installment of a three-part series on China’s military decision-making.
The United States has sought to engage China on security and strategic issues for years. These efforts, however, have been largely unsuccessful.
Beijing has long resisted US pressure to join arms control agreements, for instance; a few years ago it rejected Washington’s request to join the United States and Russia in a trilateral arms control arrangement. China has even systematically declined to engage in strategic nuclear dialogue.
Of late, while remaining committed to bringing China into the arms control fold, the United States has managed its expectations, accepting that progress in this area is not currently in the cards. Instead, the United States has prioritized engagement of China in crisis avoidance and crisis management by proposing “guardrails” that build on previous arrangements set up in the 2000s and 2010s.
The idea is that progress in this area, in addition to being important in and of itself, could help pave the way for arms control down the line, as was the case for the US-Soviet relationship during the Cold War.
This push has not yet delivered, but it appears to be an easier lift because, in theory, neither the United States nor China wants their relationship to derail unnecessarily, and both sides are aware that their fierce and intensifying competition has strong escalation potential.
It is unclear, however, how much progress the United States and China can make because each has a different understanding of what a crisis is, how it can and should be managed, what crisis avoidance and crisis management are, and how they can and should be used.
This three-part report seeks to address these issues by analyzing primary sources, notably Chinese strategic and doctrinal documents, as well as drawing on the findings of Track 2 (unofficial) efforts, especially those led by the Honolulu-based Pacific Forum.
The first section today examines Beijing’s views on crises generally and military crises specifically, providing background on how China approaches them and how it defines key terms and concepts.
Part 2 then analyzes Chinese thinking about what China should do when it is faced with a military crisis. Finally, in Part 3, the report closes by discussing the implications of Chinese views for crisis avoidance and crisis management with the United States.
The report’s chief argument is that China views and approaches military crises in a fundamentally different way from the United States and, as a result, the prospects for US-China progress on crisis avoidance and crisis management are dim, especially in the current security environment.
Still, this assessment should not discourage the United States from pursuing cooperation, provided it is clear-eyed about what can be achieved and adapts its goals and priorities accordingly.
A new but established topic
China has a long-standing interest in studying military crises, but that interest has risen considerably in recent years and is now a major focus of the Chinese national security community. This section surveys the evolution of China’s views and considers its current understanding of military crises.
China has always paid attention to crises, particularly military crises. The earliest piece of scholarship was Pan Fei’s Military Crisis of American Imperialism, in 1951. With that being said, scholar Lin Yi stresses that “systematic research” on this topic took time to emerge in China and has gradually grown since the early 1990s.
Still, according to a 2008 study from the RAND Corporation, Chinese writings on crisis and escalation management through 2005 remained “under-theorized and still under development.” An earlier study from 2006 authored by Lonnie Henley had arrived at the same conclusion.
A decade later, two studies reviewing more recent Chinese writings reached similar conclusions. A 2016 study by Alison Kaufman and Daniel Hartnett explains that “PLA views on these issues are evolving,” but that there are still “many critical unknowns.”
In a 2017 study, Burgess Laird, for his part, argues that “the substantive aspects of the treatment of escalation have changed very little over the years,” adding that his review shows that Chinese views “continue to be characterized by the same or similar omissions and silences” noted by the authors of the 2008 RAND study.
To be sure, these two studies make clear that crisis and escalation management had emerged as a topic of major importance in Chinese writings and in unofficial dialogues. Significantly, after having been considered unworthy of discussion by the Chinese side, starting in the mid to late 2010s this issue became a central focus of the Track 1.5 US-China Strategic Nuclear Dynamics Dialogue and subsequent Track 2 initiatives.
Chinese writings have continued to increase in both quantity and quality. The 2020 Science of Military Strategy devotes a full chapter to crisis and escalation titled “Prevention and Handling of Military Crisis.” The justification for this focus is twofold:
- “Crisis has gradually become the normal state of national security.”
- “Military crises have also shown an increasing trend.”
The argument, in other words, is that the deterioration of the security environment demands that China “thoroughly study” the topic. Not doing so would be dangerous because crises could otherwise escalate and lead to wars, which would affect China’s national development.
This point is of utmost importance to Beijing. For example, the 2020 Science of Military Strategy underscores that the outbreak of a war would have “a major impact and interference on the peaceful development of our country, and even destroy the hard-won achievements of reform and opening up.”
Chinese writings, as well as discussions in unofficial dialogues, leave little doubt that Beijing is primarily concerned by the potential for the outbreak of a crisis between China and the United States, be it over Taiwan, the Korean Peninsula or the East or South China Sea.
At a recent Track 2 dialogue, for instance, Chinese participants accused the United States of launching a “multidimensional assault” meant to “suppress China at all levels,” adding that the odds of a US-China crisis emerging were thus increasing rapidly.
The 2020 Science of Military Strategy makes the same assessment, stating that the “intensified strategic competition between major powers is the main cause of frequent military crises.”
The Taiwan question is by far the center of attention for Beijing, with Chinese scholars such as Cao Qun writing long essays accusing the United States of playing the “Taiwan card.”
Still, past discussions have suggested that China is also increasingly concerned about the emergence of crises with a few other countries, notably India.
Current views
How does China today view and think about crises, notably military crises? In its chapter on the topic, the 2020 Science of Military Strategy provides specific language about key terms and concepts. It defines a military crisis as “a special phenomenon and form of struggle in international relations,” stressing that such crises “are the crossroads of war and peace.”
The white paper also points to the 2011 edition of the Chinese publication “Military Language,” which defines a military crisis as “a dangerous state that may lead to armed conflict or war between countries or political groups.”
It further argues that military crises are composed of three factors:
- first, “the major strategic interests” of the involved parties must be threatened;
- second, there is uncertainty about the course of events and “the time for decision-making, response, and communication is urgent”; and
- third, there is a “relatively major risk that the crisis is out of control and escalates to war.”
In other words, the 2020 Science of Military Strategy defines military crises as situations that the involved parties cannot ignore, that are highly volatile and that present a significant danger of escalation, with the real possibility of war.
Chinese scholars echo this characterization. Lin Yi, for instance, writes that military crises refer to “emergencies and states of emergency that occur between specific countries or political groups, threaten one or both parties, and may lead to war or military conflict.”
Quoting the Modern Chinese Dictionary, Xu Zhou stresses that a crisis is “a critical moment of serious difficulties” and a military crisis is “a special social phenomenon between peace and war.”
The 2020 Science of Military Strategy goes beyond simple definitions, distinguishing among “main types” of military crises and identifying their “main features.”
In describing the main types, it differentiates among:
- traditional and nontraditional military crises, with the traditional being caused by territorial/maritime, resource, ethnic/religious, or geopolitical disputes or conflicts and the nontraditional by terrorism, pirate attacks, or proliferation;
- accidental and deliberate crises;
- low-, medium-, and high-intensity crises, with the first two defined as “quasi-crises” and the last as “quasi-wars”;
- sudden and gradual crises; and
- those that involve the major powers, other countries, or groups.
In describing the main features, the document argues that military crises often combine:
- chance and inevitability,
- progressiveness and suddenness,
- confrontation and controllability and
- risks and opportunities.
All in all, the idea is that military crises are “struggles,” distinct but not completely removed from the normal course of events. Significantly, as mentioned earlier, the 2020 Science of Military Strategy deems the status quo to be increasingly characterized by crises.
So, if the new normal is now a crisis-prone environment – or, worse, an environment in crisis – then military crises are the first stage along a continuum of conflict, with the last stage being total war. The suggestion, then, is that China now more than ever believes that it will likely be confronted with military crises and that it should actively prepare for them.
Next, Part 2: In a crisis, China’s primary objective is to win
David Santoro PhD is President and CEO of the Honolulu-based Pacific Forum, where he specializes in strategic deterrence, nonproliferation and the geopolitics of Asia and Europe.
This is an abridged version of chapter 1 of the new book China’s Military Decision-Makiing in Times of Crisis and Conflict, edited by Roy D Kamphausen and published by the National Bureau of Asian Research, a Seattle-based non-profit institution. Republished with kind permission. Download the entire volume free.