China's Use of Force, 1950-96, and Taiwan

The collision of a U.S. EP-3 reconnaissance plane with a Chinese military fighter on April 1, 2001, focused attention anew on Beijing's willingness to risk the use of force in pursuit of political objectives. The effort to deter U.S. intelligence flights over China's exclusive economic zone brought Chinese jets within dangerous proximity of U.S. aircraft. This raised the first tension in the Taiwan Strait since China's missile tests in 1995-96. That had occasioned the dispatch of two U.S. aircraft carrier battle groups toward the vicinity of Taiwan. More recently, China undertook a steady buildup of missiles across from Taiwan. This, together with greater emphasis on East Asian security by George W. Bush and his administration, justifies reexamination of the circumstances under which China used military force for deterrence or coercion from 1950 to 1996. ¹ What patterns, if any, emerged during this period? To what extent are they likely to continue or change with respect to Taiwan in the coming years? How will the advent of high-technology weapons affect China's decision to use force in the future, particularly against Taiwan?

My study, The Chinese Calculus of Deterrence: India and Vietnam, ² addressed some of these questions but was largely inferentially based on intelligence materials. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, newly opened archives in Moscow provided authoritative documents on Sino-Soviet relations, and the Korean War in particular. Recent Chinese collections of primary materials, supplemented by historical accounts, autobiographies, and personal interviews, have enabled American and Chinese scholars to reconstruct decisions made by the Chinese leadership and their implementation during Mao Zedong's reign. These new sources refine and strengthen my earlier work. In addition, China's invasion of Vietnam in 1979 and its 1995-96 Taiwan Strait exercises provide more case studies for comparison. As a final consideration, my earlier optimistic forecast concerning the unlikelihood of conflict over Taiwan is now tempered with recent Chinese military writings that emphasize the implications of the 1991 Persian Gulf War and the 1999 conflict in Kosovo for bringing Taiwan into negotiation with the mainland. ³

My focus is on eight case studies wherein Chinese military actions involved the United States and the Soviet Union or indirect challenges to them via proxy allies: (1) major combat with the United States in Korea, 1950-53; (2) offshore islands operations against Taiwan, 1954-55 and 1958; (3) deterrence deployment opposite Taiwan, 1962; (4) limited combat with India, 1962; (5) support for Vietnam against U.S. intervention, 1965-68; (6) border clashes with the Soviet Union, 1969; (7) limited combat with Vietnam, 1979; and (8) missile firings and joint exercises in the vicinity of Taiwan, 1995-96. China's primary motivations included preemption of perceived attack (Korea), deterrence (the United States in Vietnam and the Soviet Union along the Sino-Soviet border), coercion (India, Vietnam), and coercive diplomacy (Taiwan). ⁴ I first examine military doctrine manifest in historical writings and those of Mao Zedong that emphasize seizing the initiative. I then review verbal warnings and patterns of deployment by the People's Liberation Army (PLA) in each case as indicators of intent to support deterrence and coercive diplomacy. On the basis of limited evidence, I assess the level of deliberate risk taking and risk management. The logic of Chinese threat perception is examined together with the calculation or miscalculation of consequences. The weight given political goals determining PLA action against a militarily superior enemy deserves special attention with respect to Taiwan, where the relevance of past patterns to future action are addressed.

Students of Chinese military affairs find that seizing the initiative is embedded in doctrine as a preferred course of action. An academic analogue to doctrine is the concept of strategic culture variously defined. For my purposes it is composed of formulated military practice reflected as a tendency in combat operations and tactics. This does not...