China’s Nuclear Arms Posture Examined in
New Book from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
May 16, 2007
CAMBRIDGE, MA - In October
1964, China simultaneously announced the success of its first nuclear test and
pledged to the international community that it would never be the first country
to use nuclear weapons. For more than 40 years, this “no-first-use” doctrine
has guided China’s nuclear policy, resulting in a nuclear arsenal much smaller
than those of the world’s four other major nuclear powers.
Yet United States military policy to develop and deploy
space-based missile defense systems threatens China’s confidence in its ability
to deter a nuclear attack, argues arms control expert Jeffrey Lewis in a new
book from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The Minimum Means of
Reprisal: China’s Search for Security in the Nuclear Age documents the
history, development and principles behind China’s nuclear policy, and
discusses China’s concerns about U.S. defense policy. Although internal factors
continue to drive China’s decisions about its nuclear forces, Lewis suggests
that the United States is passing up an opportunity to reassure Chinese leaders
in favor of preparations for the preemptive use of nuclear weapons that Chinese
leaders will find increasingly difficult to ignore.
Lewis reasons that while a major buildup of strategic
forces in China is possible, China is more likely to acquire asymmetric means
of hampering U.S. preemptive capabilities. These means may include
countermeasures to defeat U.S. missile defenses, such as anti-satellite
weapons, which China successfully tested earlier this year. Lewis argues that
China’s longstanding policy of maintaining the minimum nuclear force necessary
to deter attack is “fundamentally in the interest of the United States,” and
that U.S. policymakers should, among other measures, commit to a bilateral
no-first-use pledge rather than to space-based weapons and defense systems that
undermine China’s security.
The Minimum Means of Reprisal is part of the
American Academy’s Reconsidering the Rules of Space project,
which is directed by the Academy’s Committee on International Security Studies.
The project convenes experts from diverse fields to propose an international
framework for the future use of space —commercial, scientific, and military.
Other papers consider the physical laws governing the pursuit of security in
space, United States space policy, Chinese and Russian perspectives on U.S.
space plans, and the possible elements of a more comprehensive space security
system. The project is supported by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of
New York. More information about the project and about the Committee on
International Security Studies is available online, at
www.amacad.org/projects/space.aspx.
Jeffrey Lewis is Director of the Nuclear Strategy and
Nonproliferation Initiative at the New America Foundation, a nonprofit,
post-partisan, public policy institute in Washington, D. C. He is a research
affiliate with and former executive director of the Project on Managing the
Atom at Harvard University. Lewis is a member of the Editorial Advisory Board
of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. He created and maintains the
leading blog on nuclear arms control and nonproliferation, ArmsControlWonk.com.
Founded in 1780, the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences is an independent policy research center that conducts
multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. Current Academy
research focuses on science and global security; social policy; the humanities
and culture; and education. With headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the
Academy’s work is advanced by its 4,600 elected members, who are leaders in the
academic disciplines, the arts, business and public affairs from around the
world. (www.amacad.org)
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