3 Items

A security guard stands near a sculpture of the Chinese Communist Party flag at the Museum of the Communist Party of China on May 26, 2022, in Beijing.

AP Photo/Ng Han Guan

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

Strategic Substitution: China’s Search for Coercive Leverage in the Information Age

    Author:
  • Fiona Cunningham
| Summer 2022

After the mistaken U.S. bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade in 1999, China turned to information-age weapons to create a risk of escalation to nuclear war with the United States. This shift helps compensate for its conventional military inferiority.

Military vehicles carry DF-31A intercontinental ballistic missiles during a parade in Beijing, September 3, 2015.

AP

Policy Brief - Quarterly Journal: International Security

Why China Won't Abandon Its Nuclear Strategy of Assured Retaliation

    Authors:
  • Fiona Cunningham
  • M. Taylor Fravel
| December 2015

China's continuing commitment to a nuclear strategy of assured retaliation indicates that it will prioritize avoiding a nuclear arms race with the United States. Nevertheless, leaders and militaries in both countries will need to be exceptionally careful to avoid nuclear escalation in a crisis.

Military vehicles carrying DF-31A intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) march past the Tiananmen Rostrum during a military parade, September 3, 2015.

Wei Yao/ AP

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

Assuring Assured Retaliation: China’s Nuclear Posture and U.S.-China Strategic Stability

    Authors:
  • Fiona Cunningham
  • M. Taylor Fravel
| Fall 2015

Many analysts worry that recent advances in U.S. military capabilities could cause China to abandon its nuclear strategy of assured retaliation and its no-first-use doctrine. The writings and statements of Chinese nuclear experts, however, suggest that such fears are misplaced.