CICIR's Liu Chong on US-China Nuclear Talks
Chinese scholars worry that if the US is unwilling to accept a China with sufficient nuclear retaliatory capabilities, it could imply that the US might consider a preemptive nuclear strike against it.
Today’s edition opens with an introduction by Jingdong Yuan, Director of SIPRI’s China and Asia Security Programme. Jingdong has a particular interest in nuclear arms control, nonproliferation and, more broadly, China’s international relations. He is the co-author of A Low-Visibility Force Multiplier: Assessing China's Cruise Missile Ambitions and is currently completing a book manuscript on China–South Asia relations. — Thomas
In the current environment, where the United States and China increasingly find themselves in disagreement on a broad range of issues from the Taiwan Strait to the South China Sea, the risks of Sino-US disputes over them escalating into major military conflicts, including nuclear use, require greater attention and efforts in crisis prevention and management. Liu Chong’s observation of the recent track-II bilateral dialogues on arms control and strategic issues provides useful insights into both the challenges and imperatives of seeking common understanding and avenues for potentially one of the most destabilising—and highly consequential—aspects of their relationship.
Three general comments are presented here. First, it is clear that both Beijing and Washington recognise the importance of meaningful and regular dialogues on arms control and strategic issues at both the official and unofficial level. Over the past decades, both sides have engaged in such dialogues, achieving some progress, particularly in the nonproliferation domain.
Secondly, there are major barriers to both levels of dialogues due to their respective approaches to and incentives for sustaining such engagement. For China, a broader political/diplomatic perimeter is required for any meaningful and mutually beneficial dialogues that advance core interests of either or both parties. The numerous disruptions of the process are largely due to what China perceives as persistent US dismissal of, or even deliberate detrimental actions to, China’s fundamental national interests—US arms sales to Taiwan and increasingly frequent official interactions with Taiwanese counterparts, despite the three joint communiqués.
Thirdly, there remain significant divergences in the understanding, interests, and interpretations of key concepts, including what constitutes strategic stability and the role of nuclear weapons, their qualitative and quantitative development, and deployment modes. Analysts are increasingly worried about the lack of crisis communication in the bilateral context, especially where nuclear weapons are concerned, and stress the need to move toward exploring, designing and introducing effective communication channels. Given the rise of critical and disruptive technologies, and their potential applications in strategic systems, including both conventional and nuclear weapons, it becomes even more imperative for both sides to look for ways to respond to and manage these developments.
Liu is clearly cognisant of the risks and the necessity of such engagement, and it is hoped that his insights will resonate with sympathetic audiences in both governments and at the track-II level.
Jingdong Yuan
Key Points
The US and China resumed in-person Track II nuclear arms talks in March for the first time since the pandemic.
However, past understandings are eroding, raising the risk of misconceptions and misjudgments.
For example, the US side seems unwilling to accept that mutual vulnerability requires both countries having second-strike capabilities that ensure mutual destruction.
In their view, strategic stability can only be maintained if the current balance of power remains unchanged.
Chinese scholars disagree and argue that if the US is unwilling to accept a China with a credible nuclear inventory, this could suggest that Washington might one day consider a preemptive nuclear strike against China or use the threat of such a strike as nuclear blackmail.
On account of the current disparity in nuclear arsenals, Chinese scholars also contend that nuclear arms control talks should not be limited to the goal of disarmament alone.
Differences between China and the US are increasing. To address the rising risk of crises and conflicts, the two sides must develop a shared analytical framework.
If Moscow and Washington were able to establish such a framework during the Cold War, it should still be possible for China and the US to do so now.
The Author
Name: Liú Chōng (刘冲)
Age (estimate): 40
Position: Executive Director, Institute of International Security Studies, China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR)
Other: Council member of the China Arms Control and Disarmament Association
Previously: Researcher at CICIR since graduating from Tsinghua University in 2008
Research focus: Strategic security; Arms control policy; International crisis management
Education: BA Tsinghua University (2006); MA Tsinghua University (2008); PhD CICIR (N/A)
Experience abroad: Unknown
IMPRESSIONS FROM PARTICIPATING IN THE CHINA-US TRACK II DIALOGUE ON ARMS CONTROL AND STRATEGY
Liu Chong (刘冲)
Published by World Affairs (世界知识) on 4 September 2024
Translated by Jan Brughmans
(Illustration by OpenAI’s DALL·E 3)
The China-US Track II Dialogue on Arms Control and Strategy is an important channel for think tanks and scholars from both sides to exchange views on nuclear strategy issues. For 20 years, the dialogue has helped both countries understand each other’s strategic concerns and culture. In recent years, as the US unilaterally took to defining the bilateral relationship as one of “great power competition”, it cancelled many Track I dialogues [Note: China suspended talks in July, citing US arms sales to Taiwan]. The Track II Dialogue on Nuclear Strategy was also interrupted. After efforts by think tanks from both countries, the dialogue resumed this March in Shanghai, marking its first in-person session since the pandemic. The event garnered some attention from international media.
Before the pandemic, scholars from both sides were able to deepen mutual understanding and reached a number of points of consensus during these dialogues. However, my overall impression from the recent Shanghai dialogue is that [these] past consensuses are weakening, whilst the perception gap with regards to facts are growing. This has increased the risk of misunderstandings and misjudgments.
One area of disagreement is what constitutes “mutual vulnerability” [相互脆弱性]. “Mutual vulnerability” is the basis of strategic stability [战略稳定], achieved when both sides possess second-strike capabilities that ensure mutual destruction, thereby maintaining crisis stability [危机稳定性]. In past dialogues, American scholars argued that the US could accept its “vulnerability” to China, though it would not declare this openly. However, in this [year’s] dialogue, a well-known American scholar redefined “mutual vulnerability” by stating that the US could accept “vulnerability” to China—meaning China’s ability to conduct a second strike with a few nuclear warheads—but not an “existential threat” [生存性威胁] involving a second strike with dozens or even hundreds of warheads, comparable in scale to the mutual assured destruction of the US and the Soviet Union.
A closely related disagreement concerns the concept of “strategic stability”, which the United States expressed a willingness to pursue with China as far back as the Obama administration. The key question is whether this “strategic stability” refers to a “stable state” where the current balance of power and structure remain unchanged, or if it is based on a “stability logic” [稳定逻辑] aimed at enhancing strategic stability. Remarks from American scholars suggest that the US interpretation aligns more closely with the former, which leads to resistance towards China’s expanding its nuclear arsenal. However, Chinese scholars worry that if the US is unwilling to accept a China with sufficient nuclear retaliatory capabilities [核报复能力], it could imply that the US might consider a preemptive nuclear strike against China, or use the threat of such a strike as nuclear blackmail [核讹诈]. If the US harbours no such intentions, then even an increase in China’s nuclear capabilities—sufficient to pose a so-called “existential threat”—would significantly reduce America’s motivation for a preemptive strike against China’s nuclear forces, without increasing the likelihood of China launching a preemptive strike against the US. This outcome would evidently bolster strategic stability. However, if the US cannot accept this scenario, does it not suggest that it plans to use its nuclear capabilities to coerce [胁迫] China in times of crisis or conflict?
Another point of contention centres on the interplay between nuclear disarmament and nuclear arms control. Some American scholars posit that China cannot continue modernising its nuclear capabilities while simultaneously resisting participation in nuclear arms control negotiations. Chinese scholars, however, argue that nuclear arms control should not be equated solely with nuclear disarmament. Recently, Former US Deputy Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller acknowledged that China has shown a proactive stance in addressing challenges within some multilateral nuclear arms control forums, countering claims that China is “opposed to nuclear arms control”. Moreover, given the considerable disparity in nuclear arsenals between the United States, Russia and China, calling for trilateral nuclear disarmament talks among these three countries is unfair. In practice, the principal aim of nuclear arms control is to mitigate nuclear risks. Under the current international conditions, arms control frameworks that do not necessarily entail nuclear disarmament might hold greater significance. China has made active contributions to both the P5 Mechanism and the review process of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). At China’s initiative, the leaders of the P5 issued the well-received “Joint Statement on Preventing Nuclear War and Avoiding Arms Races” in January 2022, affirming that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought” [核战争打不赢也打不得]. The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs also released a series of policy papers in July, including the “No-first-use of Nuclear Weapons Initiative” focusing on reducing nuclear risks.
Additionally, there were significant disagreements [in this year’s Track II dialogue] regarding the impact on strategic stability among major powers of the revolutionary developments in strategic capabilities in such areas as artificial intelligence, hypersonic weapons, space and cyber. There was however a general agreement that emerging strategic technologies have the potential to accelerate crisis escalation and complicate crisis management, thereby increasing the difficulty of future crisis prevention and management between China and the US.
Overall, as strategic differences between China and the US increase, the lack of a shared analytical framework could result in both sides having vastly different interpretations of the same phenomena, each holding firmly to their own views. This could lead both sides to assume the worst and prepare for worst-case scenarios, thereby deepening strategic misunderstandings and increasing the risks of crises and conflict.
In fact, whether as partners, competitors, or adversaries, it is possible to establish a shared analytical framework. The theory of strategic stability during the US-Soviet Cold War is one such example. Without such a framework, it would have been unlikely for the two superpowers to sign anti-ballistic and intermediate-range missile treaties, as well as other nuclear arms control agreements.
Arms control exchanges and policies alone are clearly insufficient to resolve all the differences between China and the United States. However, the essence of arms control is cooperative and requires identifying mutual security interests in order to reach compromises, foster cooperation and alleviate security dilemmas. At least in terms of preventing nuclear and large-scale conflicts, I believe that the interests of China and the United States align. Scholars from both countries need to conduct in-depth research, engage in extensive dialogue and establish a shared analytical framework.
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