The nuclear arsenal of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is undergoing significant transformation, as reported by the 2022 U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) report on China’s military power. In 2021, Beijing accelerated its nuclear expansion, with estimates placing its current stockpile at over 400 warheads, and it is projected to reach 1,500 warheads by 2035, based on a DoD report on China's military power from 2021. In addition, Beijing is also reportedly consolidating its nuclear triad of bombers, submarines, and intercontinental ballistic missiles, as well as moving to a launch-on-warning posture. These quantitative and qualitative improvements are advancing China toward nuclear parity with the United States, significantly impacting strategic calculations in Beijing and Washington, especially during times of heightened instability.

Yet critical gaps remain in understanding how China views nuclear deterrence. Most importantly — and most urgently — there is limited insight into China’s nuclear weapons calculations in potential confrontations with another nuclear power — in this case, the United States. The English-language literature on China’s use of force and crisis management does not focus on PRC nuclear weapons doctrine. The Chinese-language literature on nuclear crisis management is significantly underdeveloped.

To address these critical gaps in understanding, this study, sponsored by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) as part of its Strategic Trends Research Initiative, examines Chinese writings and analyses regarding past crises between nuclear weapons states — including those in which China was involved — to understand what lessons Beijing took from them and how those lessons inform PRC thinking in future crises. Specifically, this report seeks to answer the following questions:

• How do Chinese experts characterize the cause and nature of historical nuclear crises?
• What do Chinese experts view as the major strategic decisions that foreign leaders (or Chinese leaders) made during Cold War nuclear crises, and to what extent did leaders have control over nuclear escalation?
• Do Chinese experts recognize the dangers of dramatic nuclear escalation versus incremental escalation?
• What do Chinese experts identify as the major strategic mistakes or correct decisions that foreign or Chinese leaders make?
• Do Chinese experts view nuclear weapons as mainly useful to deter adversaries from crisis involvement or military escalation, to inflict countervalue or counterforce damage, or for other purposes? 
• What do Chinese experts take from U.S. behavior patterns during historical nuclear crises or escalations?
• What are Beijing’s views of U.S. extended deterrence assurances toward its key allies and partners during conflicts?

This study presents the implications of this research for DTRA and the United States, especially with regard to U.S.-China strategic stability, U.S.-China crisis management, and strategic and conventional deterrence vis-à-vis China.

The study used a case study approach to understand Chinese nuclear thinking. The six major case studies include the Korean War of 1950–53, the First and Second Taiwan Strait Crises of 1954–55 and 1958, the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, the 1969 Sino-Soviet border clashes, and the border conflicts between China and India of 2017–20. It was determined that these six cases best captured the breadth of Chinese views on the nuclear deterrent dynamics in terms of historical significance and in terms of actors with different nuclear capabilities. Some, like the Cuban Missile Crisis, had been the subject of in-depth examination by PRC analysts, but of which little had been written in the English language open-source literature. This study utilizes Chinese-language sources, including official PRC government documents, as well as monographs and journal articles written by authors of Chinese Communist Party–affiliated think tanks and military research institutions. The report is also informed by insights drawn from a private workshop composed of subject matter experts held in Washington, D.C., in January 2024.

Below are the report’s overall findings. The full report and its executive summary are also available for download.

• Nuclear deterrence mattered little in China’s use of force calculus. China assesses that the historical role of nuclear weapons, for the most part, played a minor factor in its calculus to use force and, similarly, in other countries’ decisions to use force.
• Nuclear coercion against China was ineffective after the onset of hostilities. In conflicts involving China, Chinese scholars are fairly uniform in their assessment that after the initial use of force in a conflict, nuclear coercion, or “saber-rattling,” by the adversary was generally not effective in managing escalation.
• Strategic balance calculus was influential in the outcome of certain conflicts. Chinese assessments of the Cuban Missile Crisis stand out for their realpolitik flavor, suggesting that the strategic balance between two adversaries before and during a military conflict matters.
• Fears of nuclear “blackmail” remain a powerful narrative in modern Chinese thinking. Preventing the nuclear “blackmail” of China closely followed the deterrence of nuclear aggression as a strategic objective, in large part because Beijing felt itself victimized by U.S. and Soviet nuclear threats at various moments during the early Cold War when it did not have nuclear weapons.
• Retaining a “minimum means of reprisal” matters to deter adversary behavior. After 1964, Chinese scholars assessed that a minimum nuclear deterrent, by its very presence and irrespective of specific vulnerabilities, serves to induce caution on the part of stronger rivals like the United States and the Soviet Union even during serious crises.
• China’s lack of experience in nuclear escalation may lead to miscalculation. Most Chinese historians conclude that China successfully emerged from crises having achieved its limited war aims while controlling escalation in the nuclear domain. However, such confidence may be misplaced and may fail to account for the myriad factors influencing the decision of foreign actors not to retaliate with nuclear weapons.
• The potential to misread nuclear signals remains worrisome. Several assessments by Chinese scholars who expressed skepticism that Chinese leaders received the intended nuclear signaling by the United States raise questions over a “perception gap” within China’s strategic bureaucracy.

• Fund studies that involve Chinese historians to guide current U.S. government “red team” thinking on Chinese nuclear escalation. DTRA should take the lead in funding studies and tabletop exercises that enable the U.S. government and intelligence community to use Chinese history as a guide to inform “red team” thinking.
• Fund Track 2 dialogues with Chinese institutions about the risks of nuclear escalation. DTRA has a unique history of funding Track 2 dialogues on nuclear dynamics with Chinese think tanks and academic institutes. Given this unique history, and while progress on Track 1 dialogues with China on arms control remains stalled, DTRA should consider funding new Track 2 dialogues with Chinese institutions.
• Push for arms control and risk reduction with China. DTRA should join the various stakeholders within the U.S. government in advocating for arms control with China, bearing in mind that arms control in the future will probably look different from how it evolved with the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
• Invest in more Chinese-language primary source materials. While this study sheds new light on China’s views of nuclear coercion, the continued availability of Chinese-language resources appears more challenging than in the past. DTRA would benefit from taking the lead to fund additional sources of Chinese-language materials for the U.S. government.

This research was sponsored by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency as part of its Strategic Trends Research Initiative as #HDTRA1-23-P-0033 between DTRA and the Asia Society Policy Institute. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of DTRA, the U.S. Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.