China Security, Autumn 2006, Issue #4

7 February 2007

Author: Eric Hagt, WSI China Director

Coping with a Nuclear North Korea -- North Korea's Strategic Significance to China -- Shifting Tides: China and North Korea -- The Fallacy of Nuclear Primacy -- Paper Tiger with Whitened Teeth -- Beyond MAD -- Situation Report: Xinjiang Oil Industry Development.

www.wsichina.org 

In this current issue, China Security returns to the subject of nuclear proliferation and nuclear policies. The first three articles provide an in-depth analysis of China's policy choices and strategic considerations regarding a nuclear North Korea. North Korea's recent missile and nuclear tests present a number of critical challenges to China and the international community. China's approach to North Korea will be instrumental in reining in Pyongyang, and defining the future security structure in East Asia.

In the second set of articles, nuclear experts from the United States, China and Russia respond to the debate on U.S. nuclear primacy that was recently initiated by Keir Lieber and Daryl Press in Foreign Affairs earlier this year. The authors challenge many of the particular ideas and assumptions put forth in the Lieber/Press thesis, but they also go beyond that to define why this debate has recently emerged and its deeper strategic significance for each respective country.

China Security is a policy journal that brings diverse Chinese perspectives to Washington on vital traditional and non-traditional security issues that impact China's strategic development and its relations with the United States.

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Nuclear North Korea

• Coping with a Nuclear North Korea, by Zhang Liangui

"China is the biggest loser with a nuclear North Korea." Zhang Liangu is professor of international strategic research at the Party School of the China Communist Party Central Committee.

• North Korea's Strategic Significance to China, by Shen Dingli 

"What kind of security situation will China face if one day North Korea signs a treaty with the United States, following in Libya's footsteps?" Shen Dingli is the executive director and a professor of the Institute of International Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai.

• Shifting Tides: China and North Korea, by Zhu Feng (PDF)

"The nuclear test was no less than a slap in China's face." Zhu Feng is a professor of the School of International Studies and director of the International Security Program in Peking University.

Rebuttals: U.S. Nuclear Primacy

• The Fallacy of Nuclear Primacy, by Bruce G. Blair and Chen Yali 

"The United States is easily deterred by any nuclear armed state, even by the most primitive and diminutive of nuclear arsenals." Bruce G. Blair is the President of the World Security Institute. Chen Yali is the editor in chief of Washington Observer.

• Paper Tiger with Whitened Teeth, by Li Bin

"The authors [Keir Lieber/Daryl Press] mistakenly link preventive capability in peacetime to coercive power in crisis." Li Bin is the Director of the Arms Control Program and Professor of the Institute of International Studies at Tsinghua University.

• Beyond MAD, by Ivan Safranchuk

"The temptation to escape the logic of mutually assured destruction may be too powerful to resist." Ivan Safranchuk is the director of the Moscow office of the World Security Institute.

Eric Hagt, Editor
China Security
World Security Institute China Program
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