Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T16:42:10.713Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Politics does not stop at the ‘nuclear edge’: neoclassical realism and the making of China’s military doctrine

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 May 2017

Paolo Rosa  and
Paolo Foradori
Paolo Rosa*
Affiliation:
School of International Studies, University of Trento, Trento, Italy
Paolo Foradori
Affiliation:
School of International Studies, University of Trento, Trento, Italy
*
*E-mail: [email protected]
Get access

Abstract

The article tries to explain why China, after having launched a crash programme in the mid-1950s to develop a nuclear deterrent, did not formulate a clear operational doctrine with respect to the targeting and employment of atomic weapons until the mid-1980s. Propositions derived from neoclassical realism are used to shed some light on this puzzling aspect of China’s nuclear doctrine. The general hypothesis of the study is that, international predicaments notwithstanding, China’s domestic politics prevented the possibility of articulating a clear and detailed nuclear doctrine during the period following the first nuclear test, when such a doctrine was more necessary.

Keywords

neoclassical realismnuclear doctrineChinafactional politics
Type
Research Article
Information
Italian Political Science Review / Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica , Volume 47 , Issue 3 , November 2017 , pp. 359 - 384
Copyright
© Società Italiana di Scienza Politica 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allen, K. and Kivlehan-Wise, M. (2005), ‘Implementing PLA second artillery doctrinal reforms’, in Mulvenon J. and Finkelstein D. (eds.) (2005), China’s Revolution in Doctrinal Affairs: Emerging Trends in the Operational Art of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, Santa Monica Ca, RAND Corporation and The CNA Corporation: 159–220.Google Scholar
Art, R.J. and Greenhill, K.M. (eds) (2015), The Use of Force. Military Power and International Politics, Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.Google Scholar
Buzan, B. and Herring, E. (1998), Arms Dynamics in World Politics, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishing.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ching, J. (2004), ‘Confucianism and weapons of mass destruction’, in S.H. Hashmi and S.P. Lee (eds) (2004), Ethics and Weapons of Mass Destruction, New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Deillos, R. (1994), ‘Chinese strategic culture’. Research paper no. 1 and 2, Centre for East-West Cultural and Economic Studies, Robina, Australia.Google Scholar
Elman, C. (1996), ‘Horses for courses: why not neorealist theories of foreign policy?’, Security Studies 6(1): 7–53.Google Scholar
Evangelista, M. (1988), Innovation and the Arms Race: How the United States and the Soviet Union Develop New Military Technologies, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Feng, H. (2005), ‘The operational code of Mao Zedong: defensive or offensive realist?’, Security Studies 14(4): 637–662.Google Scholar
Fravel, M.T. and Medeiros, E.S. (2010), ‘China’s search for assured retaliation. The evolution of Chinese nuclear strategy and force structure’, International Security 35(2): 48–87.Google Scholar
Freedman, L. (1989), The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy, London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Garver, J. (1986), ‘China’s response to the strategic defense initiative’, Asian Survey 26(11): 1220–1239.Google Scholar
Gill, B. and Mulvenon, J. (2002), ‘Chinese military-related think tanks and research institutes’, The China Quarterly 171: 617–624.Google Scholar
Godwin, P.H.B. (1996), ‘From continent to periphery: PLA doctrine, strategy, and capability towards 2000’, The China Quarterly 146: 464–487.Google Scholar
Goldstein, A. (1991), From Bandwagon to Balance of Power Politics. Structural Constraints and Politics in China, 1949–1976, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Gottlieb, T. (1977), Chinese Foreign Policy Factionalism and the Origins of the Strategic Triangle, Santa Monica, CA: RAND.Google Scholar
Gurtov, M. and Hwang, B.M. (1980), China Under Threat: The Politics of Strategy and Diplomacy, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Harding, H. (1997), ‘The Chinese state in crisis, 1966–9’, in R. MacFarquhar (ed.), The Politics of China, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 148–247.Google Scholar
Harding, H. and Gurtov, M. (1971), The Purge of Lo Jui-Ch’Ing: The Politics of Chinese Strategic Planning, Santa Monica, CA: RAND.Google Scholar
Hsieh, A.L. (1962), Communist China’s Strategy in the Nuclear Era, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Huang, J. (2008), Factionalism in Chinese Communist Politics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hymans, J.E.C. (2012), Achieving Nuclear Ambitions: Scientist, Politicians, and Proliferation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ivanhoe, P.J. (2004), ‘“Heaven’s mandate” and the concept of war in early Confucianism’, in S.H. Hashmi and S.P. Lee (eds), Ethics and Weapons of Mass Destruction, New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Joffe, E. (1987), ‘People’s war under modern conditions: a doctrine for modern war’, The China Quarterly 112: 555–571.Google Scholar
Johnston, A.I. (1995/96), ‘China’s new “old thinking”: the concept of limited deterrence’, International Security 20(3): 5–42.Google Scholar
Johnston, A.I. (1995), Cultural Realism: Strategic Culture and Grand Strategy in Chinese History, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Johnston, A.I. (1996a), ‘Cultural realism and strategy in Maoist China’, in P. Katzenstein (ed.), The Culture of National Security, New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Johnston, A.I. (1996b), ‘Prospects for Chinese nuclear modernization: limited deterrence versus multilateral arms control’, The China Quarterly 146: 548–576.Google Scholar
King, G., Keohane, R.O. and Verba, S. (1994), Designing Social Inquiry, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Kirshner, J. (2015), ‘The economic sins of modern IR theory and the classical realist alternative’, World Politics 67(1): 155–183.Google Scholar
Kitchen, N. (2010), ‘Systemic pressures and domestic ideas: a neoclassical realist model of grand strategy formation’, Review of International Studies 36(1): 117–143.Google Scholar
Lewis, J. (2007), The Minimum Means of Reprisal. China’s Search for Security in the Nuclear Age, Chicago, IL: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, J. (2014), Paper Tigers: China’s Nuclear Posture, Adelphi Book No. 446. London.Google Scholar
Lewis, J.W. and Xue, L. (1988), China Builds the Bomb, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Lewis, J.W. and Hua, D. (1992), ‘China’s ballistic missile programs: technologies, strategies, goals’, International Security 17(2): 5–40.Google Scholar
Lewis, J.W. and Xue, L. (2006), Imagined Enemies: China Prepares for Uncertain War, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Lin, C. (1988), China’s Nuclear Weapons Strategy, Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Lobell, S.E. (2009), ‘Threat assessment, the state, and foreign policy: a neoclassical realist model’, in S.E. Lobell, N.M. Ripsman and J.W. Taliaferro (eds), Neoclassical Realism, the State, and Foreign Policy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lobell, S.E., Ripsman, N.M. and Taliaferro, J.W. (eds) (2009), Neoclassical Realism, the State, and Foreign Policy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lovejoy, D. and Watson, B. (eds) (1986), China’s Military Reforms, Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
MacFarquhar, R. (1997), ‘The succession to Mao and the end of Maoism, 1969–82’, in R. MacFarquhar (ed.), The Politics of China, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Nathan, A.J. (1973), ‘A factionalism model for CCP politics’, The China Quarterly 53: 34–66.Google Scholar
Nie, Rongzhen (1988), Inside the Red Star: The Memoirs of Marshal Nie Rongzhen, Beijing: New World Press.Google Scholar
Petersson, M., Slensvik, T. and Ydstebø, P. (2016), ‘Understanding military doctrine’, Journal of Strategic Studies 36(2): 159–314.Google Scholar
Pollack, J.D. (1983), ‘Rebuilding China’s Great Wall: Chinese security in the 1980s’, in Godwin, P.H.B. (ed.) (1983), The Chinese Defense Establishment, Boulder Co., Westview Press: 3–20.Google Scholar
Posen, B. (1984), The Sources of Military Doctrine, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Powell, R. (2015), ‘Nuclear brinkmanship, limited war, and military power’, International Organization 69(3): 589–626.Google Scholar
Pye, L. (1981), The Dynamics of Chinese Politics, Cambridge: Oelgeschlager, Gunn & Hain, Publishers, Inc.Google Scholar
Ra’anan, U. (1968), ‘Peking’s foreign policy debate, 1965–66’, in T. Tsou (ed.), China in Crisis, Vol. 2, Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press, pp. 23–71.Google Scholar
Reed, T.C. and Stillman, D.B. (2010), The Nuclear Express: A Political History of the Bomb and its Proliferation, Minneapolis, MN: Zenith Press.Google Scholar
Ripsman, N.M., Taliaferro, J.W. and Lobell, S.E. (2016), Neoclassical Realist Theory of International Politics, New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Rose, G. (1998), ‘Neoclassical realism and theories of foreign policy’, World Politics 51(1): 144–172.Google Scholar
Rosenberg, D. (1983), ‘The origins of overkill: nuclear weapons and American strategy, 1945–1960’, International Security 7(4): 3–71.Google Scholar
Schweller, R. (2004), ‘Unanswered threats. A neoclassical realist theory of underbalancing’, International Security 29(2): 159–201.Google Scholar
Schweller, R. (2006), Unanswered Threats: Political Constraints on the Balance of Power, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Scobell, A. (2003), China’s Use of Military Force: Beyond the Great Wall and the Long March, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Shambaugh, D. (2002), Modernizing China’s Military, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Teiwes, F.C. (1984), Leadership, Legitimacy, and Conflict in China: From a Charismatic Mao to the Politics of Succession, Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.Google Scholar
Tretiak, D. (1979), ‘China’s Vietnam war and its consequences’, The China Quarterly 80: 740–767.Google Scholar
Tsou, T. (2002), ‘Chinese politics at the top: factionalism or informal politics? Balance-of-power or a game to win all?’, in Unger, J. (ed.) (2002), The Nature of Chinese Politics. From Mao to Jiang, Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.Google Scholar
Waltz, K. (1979), Theory of International Politics, Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Xu, J. (2015), ‘Analysis of 1969’s “order number one”’, in Z. Xingxing (ed.) Selected Essays on the History of Contemporary China, Leiden: Brill, pp. 168–193.Google Scholar
Yahuda, M. (1972), ‘Kremlinology and the Chinese strategic debate, 1965–66’, The China Quarterly 49: 32–75.Google Scholar
Zagoria, D. (1968), ‘The strategic debate in Peking’, in T. Tang (ed.) China in Crisis, Vol. 2, Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press, pp. 237–268.Google Scholar
Zhu, M. (1997), ‘The evolution of China’s nuclear nonproliferation policy’, The Nonproliferation Review 4(2): 40–48.Google Scholar