Limited Deterrence: The Emerging (Preferred) Chinese Deterrence Strategy

This article explores how Chinese culture influences the Communist Party of China (CPC) leaders’ decision-making and policy setting to predict future CPC decisions and better control escalation. We investigate the question, ‘Which Chinese cultural values influence the CPC’s understanding and application of deterrence strategies to meet their cultural objectives?’ We argue that cultural influences principally explain CPC nuclear build-up and, by extension, the policy shift from minimum to limited deterrence within the CPC. During this process, we discover that the two most prominent deterrence policies in the consciousness of the CPC leadership are minimum and limited deterrence and that the CPC nuclear arsenal is expanding, which may reflect a shift in the CPC policy. To test our hypothesis, we conduct a content analysis of the 2013 and 2020 editions of the Science of Military Strategy and the 2019 Ministry of Defence white paper. We found links between deterrence strategy trends and cultural philosophies, concluding that the CPC deterrence policy has shifted.