Nuclear Posture and Nuclear Posturing: A Conceptual Framework for Analyzing China's Nuclear Weapons Policy

Abstract: The arrival of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on the world stage as a full-spectrum “near-peer” competitor to the United States is creating a situation in which the United States will, before long, face two major nuclear powers as strategic competitors and potential adversaries.  This makes it imperative to understand how China thinks about nuclear weapons, the most destructive tools available to mankind.  It is difficult to have confidence in assessments of Chinese nuclear thinking, however, for PRC officials offer little meaningful detail on such matters and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) propaganda posturing on the subject can sometimes be all but impenetrable. 

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