M Taylor Fravel
Biographic Data
| ID | 386861 |
|---|---|
| NAME | M Taylor Fravel |
| GIVEN NAMES | M Taylor |
| FAMILY NAME | Fravel |
| SIGNATURE | FRAVEL M T |
| AFFILIATIONS | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 29 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 382 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 29 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1996 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
China’s Potential Lessons from Ukraine for Conflict over Taiwan
The Dynamics of an Entangled Security Dilemma: China's Changing Nuclear Posture
Amid an intensifying rivalry with the United States, China is modernizing and significantly expanding its nuclear forces. These developments fuel concerns that China's traditional nuclear strategy premised on a limited nuclear arsenal for assured retaliation and a no-first-use policy is undergoing a major shift. Using Chinese-language materials, an examination of Chinese debates about China's security environment and the future direction of its n…
China’s military strategy for a ‘new era’: Some change, more continuity, and tantalizing hints
In 2019, China’s Central Military Commission adopted a new strategy for the People’s Liberation Army, titled the ‘military strategic guidelines for the new era.’ This was consistent with the past but framed by Xi’s political consolidation, growing threats from the United States and Taiwan, and a new military structure. This article documents the strategy and asks what would drive a more fundamental adjustment. It concludes that the strategy refle…
Two Paths: Why States Join or Avoid China’s Belt and Road Initiative
Although China’s motives for developing the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) have been well studied, scholars have yet to comprehensively examine why states seek to join the initiative. We fill this gap by examining how and why states join the BRI. Countries join by signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with China on cooperation under the BRI framework. These MOUs create few or no obligations for the states who sign them but increase the poss…
How Much Risk Should the United States Run in the South China Sea
How strenuously, and at what risk, should the United States resist China's efforts to dominate the South China Sea? An identification of three options along a continuum—from increased resistance to China's assertive policies on one end to a partial South China Sea retrenchment on the other, with current U.S. policy in the middle—captures the choices facing the United States. An analysis of China's claims and behavior in the South China Sea and of…
China engages the Arctic: A great power in a regime complex
As global warming accelerates the melting of Arctic ice, opportunities for new transport routes open along with new strategic interests. This article examines how China pursues its interests in the Arctic and, specifically, the degree to which it seeks to work through the existing regime complex versus engaging in bilateral cooperation with Arctic states. China’s willingness to work through the regime complex or use bilateral cooperation depend o…
A “China in the World” Paradigm for Scholarship
China’s “World-Class Military” Ambitions: Origins and Implications
At the Nineteenth Party Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in October 2017, Chinese leader Xi Jinping outlined the party’s goal to “complete national defense and military modernization b
Dangerous Confidence? Chinese Views on Nuclear Escalation
Chinese views of nuclear escalation are key to assessing the potential for nuclear escalation in a crisis or armed conflict between the United States and China, but they have not been examined systematically. A review of original Chinese-language sources and interviews with members of China's strategic community suggest that China is skeptical that nuclear escalation could be controlled once nuclear weapons are used and, thus, leaders would be re…
Active Defense: China's Military Strategy Since 1949
What changes in China's modern military policy reveal about military organizations and strategy Since the 1949 Communist Revolution, China has devised nine different military strategies, which the People's Liberation Army (PLA) calls guidelines. What accounts for these numerous changes? Active Defense offers the first systematic look at China's military strategy from the mid-twentieth century to today. Exploring the range and intensity of threats…
Shifts in Warfare and Party Unity: Explaining China's Changes in Military Strategy
Since 1949, China has adopted nine national military strategies, known as “strategic guidelines.” The strategies adopted in 1956, 1980, and 1993 represent major changes in China's military strategy, or efforts by the People's Liberation Army (PLA) to wage war in a new way. Shifts in the conduct of warfare in the international system offer one explanation for why China, a developing country for most of this period, pursued major change in its mili…
Qualitative investigation of theoretical models: The Value of Process Tracing
Political scientists frequently use qualitative evidence to support or evaluate the empirical applicability of formal models. Despite this widespread practice, neither the qualitative methods literature nor research on empirically evaluating formal models systematically address the topic. This article makes three contributions to bridge this gap. First, it demonstrates that formal models and qualitative evidence are indeed frequently combined in …
Assuring Assured Retaliation: China's Nuclear Posture and U.S.-China Strategic Stability
Whether China will abandon its long-standing nuclear strategy of assured retaliation for a first-use posture will be a critical factor in future U.S.-China strategic stability. In the past decade, advances in U.S. strategic capabilities, especially missile defenses and enhanced long-range conventional strike capacity, could undermine China's nuclear retaliatory capability, which is based on a relatively small force and second-strike posture. An e…
Territorial and Maritime Boundary Disputes in Asia
Territorial disputes involve a state’s national sovereignty and territorial integrity-its core interests. Historically, they have been the most common issue over which states collide and go to war. Since 1945, Asia has been more prone to conflict over territory and maritime boundaries than other regions in the world. Asia accounts for the greatest number of disputes over territory that have become militarized and that have escalated into intersta…
Projecting Strategy: The Myth of Chinese Counter-intervention
The article of record as published may be located at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0163660X.2014.1002164
Economic Growth, Regime Insecurity, and Military Strategy: Explaining the Rise of Noncombat Operations in China
Although China's armed forces have yet to complete its ambitious modernization program, its military strategy has begun to emphasize the ability to conduct noncombat operations such as disaster relief and peacekeeping in addition to traditional war fighting. This new component of China's military strategy is best explained by an unexpected relationship between economic growth and regime security. Although growth is key to the legitimacy of leader…
China’s Strategy in the South China Sea
Contemporary Southeast Asia (CSEA) is one of the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute"s flagship publications. Now in its fourth decade of publication, CSEA has succeeded in building up an international reputation as one of Southeast Asia"s premier academic journals. The aim of the peer reviewed journal is to provide subscribers with up to date and in-depth analysis of critical trends and developments in Southeast Asia and the wider Asia-Pacific region.…
China's Search for Assured Retaliation: The Evolution of Chinese Nuclear Strategy and Force Structure
After exploding its first nuclear device in 1964, China did not develop sufficient forces or doctrine to overcome its vulnerability to a first strike by the United States or the Soviet Union for more than three decades. Two factors explain this puzzling willingness to live with nuclear vulnerability: (1) the views and beliefs of senior leaders about the utility of nuclear weapons and the requirements of deterrence, and (2) internal organizational…
The Limits of Diversion: Rethinking Internal and External Conflict
The diversionary hypothesis offers a powerful alternative to rationalist explanations of war based on the state as a unitary actor. Most recently, it has been used to explain why democratizing states are more likely to initiate the use of force. In the past two decades, however, quantitative tests have produced mixed and often contradictory empirical results regarding the relationship between domestic unrest and external conflict. This article us…
Strong Borders, Secure Nation: Cooperation and Conflict in China's Territorial Disputes
China's Search for Military Power
Additional informationNotes on contributorsM. Taylor FravelM. Taylor Fravel is an assistant professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He may be reached at [email protected]. This article draws on a paper presented at the 2007 NIDS International Symposium in Tokyo
Power Shifts and Escalation: Explaining China's Use of Force in Territorial Disputes
Although China has been involved in twenty-three territorial disputes with its neighbors since 1949, it has used force in only six of them. The strength of a state's territorial claim, defined as its bargaining power in a dispute, offers one explanation for why and when states escalate territorial disputes to high levels of violence. This bargaining power depends on the amount of contested land that each side controls and on the military power th…
Strong borders, secure nation cooperation and conflict in China's territorial disputes: Cooperation and Conflict in China's Territorial Disputes
As China emerges as an international economic and military power, the world waits to see how the nation will assert itself globally. Yet, as M. Taylor Fravel shows in Strong Borders, Secure Nation , concerns that China might be prone to violent conflict over territory are overstated. The first comprehensive study of China's territorial disputes, Strong Borders, Secure Nation contends that China over the past sixty years has been more likely to co…
Securing borders: China's doctrine and force structure for frontier defense
The study of military doctrine is one tool that scholars can use to understand a rising power's potential for involvement in interstate war. In its evolving joint operational doctrine, China pursues a defensive approach to securing its land borders and maintaining territorial integrity. Despite the prominence of a Taiwan conflict in China's defense planning, frontier defense remains a core mission for China's armed forces, involving almost half o…
Structural Sources of China's Territorial Compromises
October 01 2006 Structural Sources of China's Territorial Compromises Albert B. Wolf, Albert B. Wolf Albert B.Wolf is a graduate student in the Department of Political Science at The Ohio State University. He wishes to thank Randall Schweller and Frances Wolf for their comments on earlier drafts. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar M. Taylor Fravel M. Taylor Fravel M. Taylor Fravel is Assistant Professor of Politica…
Strong borders, secure nation cooperation and conflict in China's territorial disputes: Cooperation and Conflict in China's Territorial Disputes
As China emerges as an international economic and military power, the world waits to see how the nation will assert itself globally. Yet, as M. Taylor Fravel shows in Strong Borders, Secure Nation , concerns that China might be prone to violent conflict over territory are overstated. The first comprehensive study of China's territorial disputes, Strong Borders, Secure Nation contends that China over the past sixty years has been more likely to co…
Regime Insecurity and International Cooperation: Explaining China's Compromises in Territorial Disputes
Since the 1995-96 Taiwan Strait crisis, scholars and policymakers have become increasingly concerned about China's territorial ambitions. Yet China has also used peaceful means to manage conficts, settling seventeen of its twenty-three territorial disputes, often with substantial compromises. This article develops a counterintuitive argument about the effects of domestic confict on foreign policy to explain China's behavior. Contrary to the diver…
Assuring Assured Retaliation: China's Nuclear Posture and U.S.-China Strategic Stability
Whether China will abandon its long-standing nuclear strategy of assured retaliation for a first-use posture will be a critical factor in future U.S.-China strategic stability. In the past decade, advances in U.S. strategic capabilities, especially missile defenses and enhanced long-range conventional strike capacity, could undermine China's nuclear retaliatory capability, which is based on a relatively small force and second-strike posture. An e…
Qualitative investigation of theoretical models: The Value of Process Tracing
Political scientists frequently use qualitative evidence to support or evaluate the empirical applicability of formal models. Despite this widespread practice, neither the qualitative methods literature nor research on empirically evaluating formal models systematically address the topic. This article makes three contributions to bridge this gap. First, it demonstrates that formal models and qualitative evidence are indeed frequently combined in …
China's New Diplomacy
The recent crisis over North Korea's nuclear weapons has had at least one unexpected aspect: the crucial -- and highly effective -- intervention of Beijing. China's steady diplomacy is a sign of how much things have changed in the country, which has long avoided most international affairs. Recently, China has begun to embrace regional and global institutions it once shunned and take on the responsibilities that come with great-power status. Just …
China's Search for Assured Retaliation: The Evolution of Chinese Nuclear Strategy and Force Structure
After exploding its first nuclear device in 1964, China did not develop sufficient forces or doctrine to overcome its vulnerability to a first strike by the United States or the Soviet Union for more than three decades. Two factors explain this puzzling willingness to live with nuclear vulnerability: (1) the views and beliefs of senior leaders about the utility of nuclear weapons and the requirements of deterrence, and (2) internal organizational…
China’s Strategy in the South China Sea
Contemporary Southeast Asia (CSEA) is one of the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute"s flagship publications. Now in its fourth decade of publication, CSEA has succeeded in building up an international reputation as one of Southeast Asia"s premier academic journals. The aim of the peer reviewed journal is to provide subscribers with up to date and in-depth analysis of critical trends and developments in Southeast Asia and the wider Asia-Pacific region.…
The Limits of Diversion: Rethinking Internal and External Conflict
The diversionary hypothesis offers a powerful alternative to rationalist explanations of war based on the state as a unitary actor. Most recently, it has been used to explain why democratizing states are more likely to initiate the use of force. In the past two decades, however, quantitative tests have produced mixed and often contradictory empirical results regarding the relationship between domestic unrest and external conflict. This article us…
Two Paths: Why States Join or Avoid China’s Belt and Road Initiative
Although China’s motives for developing the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) have been well studied, scholars have yet to comprehensively examine why states seek to join the initiative. We fill this gap by examining how and why states join the BRI. Countries join by signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with China on cooperation under the BRI framework. These MOUs create few or no obligations for the states who sign them but increase the poss…
Power Shifts and Escalation: Explaining China's Use of Force in Territorial Disputes
Although China has been involved in twenty-three territorial disputes with its neighbors since 1949, it has used force in only six of them. The strength of a state's territorial claim, defined as its bargaining power in a dispute, offers one explanation for why and when states escalate territorial disputes to high levels of violence. This bargaining power depends on the amount of contested land that each side controls and on the military power th…
Securing borders: China's doctrine and force structure for frontier defense
The study of military doctrine is one tool that scholars can use to understand a rising power's potential for involvement in interstate war. In its evolving joint operational doctrine, China pursues a defensive approach to securing its land borders and maintaining territorial integrity. Despite the prominence of a Taiwan conflict in China's defense planning, frontier defense remains a core mission for China's armed forces, involving almost half o…
The Dynamics of an Entangled Security Dilemma: China's Changing Nuclear Posture
Amid an intensifying rivalry with the United States, China is modernizing and significantly expanding its nuclear forces. These developments fuel concerns that China's traditional nuclear strategy premised on a limited nuclear arsenal for assured retaliation and a no-first-use policy is undergoing a major shift. Using Chinese-language materials, an examination of Chinese debates about China's security environment and the future direction of its n…
Dangerous Confidence? Chinese Views on Nuclear Escalation
Chinese views of nuclear escalation are key to assessing the potential for nuclear escalation in a crisis or armed conflict between the United States and China, but they have not been examined systematically. A review of original Chinese-language sources and interviews with members of China's strategic community suggest that China is skeptical that nuclear escalation could be controlled once nuclear weapons are used and, thus, leaders would be re…
Projecting Strategy: The Myth of Chinese Counter-intervention
The article of record as published may be located at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0163660X.2014.1002164
China's Search for Military Power
Additional informationNotes on contributorsM. Taylor FravelM. Taylor Fravel is an assistant professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He may be reached at [email protected]. This article draws on a paper presented at the 2007 NIDS International Symposium in Tokyo
China's Attitude toward U.N. Peacekeeping Operations since 1989
Research Article| November 01 1996 China's Attitude toward U.N. Peacekeeping Operations since 1989 M. Taylor Fravel M. Taylor Fravel Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Asian Survey (1996) 36 (11): 1102–1121. https://doi.org/10.2307/2645638 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon …
How Much Risk Should the United States Run in the South China Sea
How strenuously, and at what risk, should the United States resist China's efforts to dominate the South China Sea? An identification of three options along a continuum—from increased resistance to China's assertive policies on one end to a partial South China Sea retrenchment on the other, with current U.S. policy in the middle—captures the choices facing the United States. An analysis of China's claims and behavior in the South China Sea and of…
A “China in the World” Paradigm for Scholarship
Towards Civilian Supremacy: Civil-Military Relations in Taiwan's Democratization
While Taiwan has rapidly democratized, civil-military relations have never been viewed as an independent variable that explains this success. Adopting Aguero's notion of civilian supremacy over the military, this article examines Taiwan's progress in the arenas of political neutrality, democratic control, and social impartiality of the armed forces. As the article demonstrates, Taiwan has made considerable progress toward achieving civilian supre…
China’s “World-Class Military” Ambitions: Origins and Implications
At the Nineteenth Party Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in October 2017, Chinese leader Xi Jinping outlined the party’s goal to “complete national defense and military modernization b
China engages the Arctic: A great power in a regime complex
As global warming accelerates the melting of Arctic ice, opportunities for new transport routes open along with new strategic interests. This article examines how China pursues its interests in the Arctic and, specifically, the degree to which it seeks to work through the existing regime complex versus engaging in bilateral cooperation with Arctic states. China’s willingness to work through the regime complex or use bilateral cooperation depend o…
Shifts in Warfare and Party Unity: Explaining China's Changes in Military Strategy
Since 1949, China has adopted nine national military strategies, known as “strategic guidelines.” The strategies adopted in 1956, 1980, and 1993 represent major changes in China's military strategy, or efforts by the People's Liberation Army (PLA) to wage war in a new way. Shifts in the conduct of warfare in the international system offer one explanation for why China, a developing country for most of this period, pursued major change in its mili…
Economic Growth, Regime Insecurity, and Military Strategy: Explaining the Rise of Noncombat Operations in China
Although China's armed forces have yet to complete its ambitious modernization program, its military strategy has begun to emphasize the ability to conduct noncombat operations such as disaster relief and peacekeeping in addition to traditional war fighting. This new component of China's military strategy is best explained by an unexpected relationship between economic growth and regime security. Although growth is key to the legitimacy of leader…
China’s Potential Lessons from Ukraine for Conflict over Taiwan
China’s military strategy for a ‘new era’: Some change, more continuity, and tantalizing hints
In 2019, China’s Central Military Commission adopted a new strategy for the People’s Liberation Army, titled the ‘military strategic guidelines for the new era.’ This was consistent with the past but framed by Xi’s political consolidation, growing threats from the United States and Taiwan, and a new military structure. This article documents the strategy and asks what would drive a more fundamental adjustment. It concludes that the strategy refle…
China's Attitude toward U.N. Peacekeeping Operations since 1989
Research Article| November 01 1996 China's Attitude toward U.N. Peacekeeping Operations since 1989 M. Taylor Fravel M. Taylor Fravel Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Asian Survey (1996) 36 (11): 1102–1121. https://doi.org/10.2307/2645638 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon …
Towards Civilian Supremacy: Civil-Military Relations in Taiwan's Democratization
While Taiwan has rapidly democratized, civil-military relations have never been viewed as an independent variable that explains this success. Adopting Aguero's notion of civilian supremacy over the military, this article examines Taiwan's progress in the arenas of political neutrality, democratic control, and social impartiality of the armed forces. As the article demonstrates, Taiwan has made considerable progress toward achieving civilian supre…
China's New Diplomacy
The recent crisis over North Korea's nuclear weapons has had at least one unexpected aspect: the crucial -- and highly effective -- intervention of Beijing. China's steady diplomacy is a sign of how much things have changed in the country, which has long avoided most international affairs. Recently, China has begun to embrace regional and global institutions it once shunned and take on the responsibilities that come with great-power status. Just …
Regime Insecurity and International Cooperation: Explaining China's Compromises in Territorial Disputes
Since the 1995-96 Taiwan Strait crisis, scholars and policymakers have become increasingly concerned about China's territorial ambitions. Yet China has also used peaceful means to manage conficts, settling seventeen of its twenty-three territorial disputes, often with substantial compromises. This article develops a counterintuitive argument about the effects of domestic confict on foreign policy to explain China's behavior. Contrary to the diver…
Structural Sources of China's Territorial Compromises
October 01 2006 Structural Sources of China's Territorial Compromises Albert B. Wolf, Albert B. Wolf Albert B.Wolf is a graduate student in the Department of Political Science at The Ohio State University. He wishes to thank Randall Schweller and Frances Wolf for their comments on earlier drafts. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar M. Taylor Fravel M. Taylor Fravel M. Taylor Fravel is Assistant Professor of Politica…
Securing borders: China's doctrine and force structure for frontier defense
The study of military doctrine is one tool that scholars can use to understand a rising power's potential for involvement in interstate war. In its evolving joint operational doctrine, China pursues a defensive approach to securing its land borders and maintaining territorial integrity. Despite the prominence of a Taiwan conflict in China's defense planning, frontier defense remains a core mission for China's armed forces, involving almost half o…
Strong Borders, Secure Nation: Cooperation and Conflict in China's Territorial Disputes
China's Search for Military Power
Additional informationNotes on contributorsM. Taylor FravelM. Taylor Fravel is an assistant professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He may be reached at [email protected]. This article draws on a paper presented at the 2007 NIDS International Symposium in Tokyo
Power Shifts and Escalation: Explaining China's Use of Force in Territorial Disputes
Although China has been involved in twenty-three territorial disputes with its neighbors since 1949, it has used force in only six of them. The strength of a state's territorial claim, defined as its bargaining power in a dispute, offers one explanation for why and when states escalate territorial disputes to high levels of violence. This bargaining power depends on the amount of contested land that each side controls and on the military power th…
Strong borders, secure nation cooperation and conflict in China's territorial disputes: Cooperation and Conflict in China's Territorial Disputes
As China emerges as an international economic and military power, the world waits to see how the nation will assert itself globally. Yet, as M. Taylor Fravel shows in Strong Borders, Secure Nation , concerns that China might be prone to violent conflict over territory are overstated. The first comprehensive study of China's territorial disputes, Strong Borders, Secure Nation contends that China over the past sixty years has been more likely to co…
China's Search for Assured Retaliation: The Evolution of Chinese Nuclear Strategy and Force Structure
After exploding its first nuclear device in 1964, China did not develop sufficient forces or doctrine to overcome its vulnerability to a first strike by the United States or the Soviet Union for more than three decades. Two factors explain this puzzling willingness to live with nuclear vulnerability: (1) the views and beliefs of senior leaders about the utility of nuclear weapons and the requirements of deterrence, and (2) internal organizational…
The Limits of Diversion: Rethinking Internal and External Conflict
The diversionary hypothesis offers a powerful alternative to rationalist explanations of war based on the state as a unitary actor. Most recently, it has been used to explain why democratizing states are more likely to initiate the use of force. In the past two decades, however, quantitative tests have produced mixed and often contradictory empirical results regarding the relationship between domestic unrest and external conflict. This article us…
Economic Growth, Regime Insecurity, and Military Strategy: Explaining the Rise of Noncombat Operations in China
Although China's armed forces have yet to complete its ambitious modernization program, its military strategy has begun to emphasize the ability to conduct noncombat operations such as disaster relief and peacekeeping in addition to traditional war fighting. This new component of China's military strategy is best explained by an unexpected relationship between economic growth and regime security. Although growth is key to the legitimacy of leader…
China’s Strategy in the South China Sea
Contemporary Southeast Asia (CSEA) is one of the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute"s flagship publications. Now in its fourth decade of publication, CSEA has succeeded in building up an international reputation as one of Southeast Asia"s premier academic journals. The aim of the peer reviewed journal is to provide subscribers with up to date and in-depth analysis of critical trends and developments in Southeast Asia and the wider Asia-Pacific region.…
Territorial and Maritime Boundary Disputes in Asia
Territorial disputes involve a state’s national sovereignty and territorial integrity-its core interests. Historically, they have been the most common issue over which states collide and go to war. Since 1945, Asia has been more prone to conflict over territory and maritime boundaries than other regions in the world. Asia accounts for the greatest number of disputes over territory that have become militarized and that have escalated into intersta…
Projecting Strategy: The Myth of Chinese Counter-intervention
The article of record as published may be located at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0163660X.2014.1002164
Assuring Assured Retaliation: China's Nuclear Posture and U.S.-China Strategic Stability
Whether China will abandon its long-standing nuclear strategy of assured retaliation for a first-use posture will be a critical factor in future U.S.-China strategic stability. In the past decade, advances in U.S. strategic capabilities, especially missile defenses and enhanced long-range conventional strike capacity, could undermine China's nuclear retaliatory capability, which is based on a relatively small force and second-strike posture. An e…
Qualitative investigation of theoretical models: The Value of Process Tracing
Political scientists frequently use qualitative evidence to support or evaluate the empirical applicability of formal models. Despite this widespread practice, neither the qualitative methods literature nor research on empirically evaluating formal models systematically address the topic. This article makes three contributions to bridge this gap. First, it demonstrates that formal models and qualitative evidence are indeed frequently combined in …
Shifts in Warfare and Party Unity: Explaining China's Changes in Military Strategy
Since 1949, China has adopted nine national military strategies, known as “strategic guidelines.” The strategies adopted in 1956, 1980, and 1993 represent major changes in China's military strategy, or efforts by the People's Liberation Army (PLA) to wage war in a new way. Shifts in the conduct of warfare in the international system offer one explanation for why China, a developing country for most of this period, pursued major change in its mili…
Dangerous Confidence? Chinese Views on Nuclear Escalation
Chinese views of nuclear escalation are key to assessing the potential for nuclear escalation in a crisis or armed conflict between the United States and China, but they have not been examined systematically. A review of original Chinese-language sources and interviews with members of China's strategic community suggest that China is skeptical that nuclear escalation could be controlled once nuclear weapons are used and, thus, leaders would be re…
Active Defense: China's Military Strategy Since 1949
What changes in China's modern military policy reveal about military organizations and strategy Since the 1949 Communist Revolution, China has devised nine different military strategies, which the People's Liberation Army (PLA) calls guidelines. What accounts for these numerous changes? Active Defense offers the first systematic look at China's military strategy from the mid-twentieth century to today. Exploring the range and intensity of threats…
China’s “World-Class Military” Ambitions: Origins and Implications
At the Nineteenth Party Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in October 2017, Chinese leader Xi Jinping outlined the party’s goal to “complete national defense and military modernization b
China engages the Arctic: A great power in a regime complex
As global warming accelerates the melting of Arctic ice, opportunities for new transport routes open along with new strategic interests. This article examines how China pursues its interests in the Arctic and, specifically, the degree to which it seeks to work through the existing regime complex versus engaging in bilateral cooperation with Arctic states. China’s willingness to work through the regime complex or use bilateral cooperation depend o…
A “China in the World” Paradigm for Scholarship
How Much Risk Should the United States Run in the South China Sea
How strenuously, and at what risk, should the United States resist China's efforts to dominate the South China Sea? An identification of three options along a continuum—from increased resistance to China's assertive policies on one end to a partial South China Sea retrenchment on the other, with current U.S. policy in the middle—captures the choices facing the United States. An analysis of China's claims and behavior in the South China Sea and of…
Political science (27 works) · Law (24 works) · China (23 works) · Law (20 works) · International Relations and Foreign Policy (17 works) · Political economy (17 works) · Politics (15 works) · Economics (14 works) · Sociology (14 works) · Computer Science (8 works)