New Paper | China’s Views on Escalation and Crisis Management and Implications for the United States

Wednesday, January 22 – The Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis (CCA) has published “China’s Views on Escalation and Crisis Management and Implications for the United States.” The paper, written by Lyle Morris, CCA Senior Fellow on Foreign Policy and National Security, offers a preliminary assessment of how China thinks about military escalation and what it refers to as “war control.”
“China lacks experience dealing with military crises and has attempted to compensate by investing considerable intellectual capital to develop theories and strategies for managing escalation with potential adversaries,” writes Morris.
Chinese military strategists believe that if a crisis breaks out, it can be “controlled” and escalation “managed” by applying a theoretical framework called “effective control” (youxiao kongzhi). According to Morris, Chinese overreliance on theoretical underpinnings could make leaders overconfident in their ability to prevail in a conflict, thus increasing the risk of escalation in a military confrontation between China and the United States.
“A chain reaction could unfold in which China pursues an ‘active defense’ strategy — escalating a conflict to show resolve and restore deterrence — while assuming that its actions are readily understood by the adversary as defensive in nature,” writes Morris. “The adversary, however, may interpret China’s actions as hostile or provocative and escalate in kind, leading to counter moves by both sides that could spiral the crisis beyond control.”
Read the paper here. Members of the media interested in interviewing Morris should contact [email protected].