Ed Note — This book is available for purchase directly from the publisher, Routledge in hardback or e-book. A limited edition of the book is available for shipping at $50. To purchase the paperback edition please email James Siebens.
“No one should evaluate Chinese coercive tactics from this point without reference to this rich and deeply researched book.”
Dr. Michael Mazarr, Senior Political Scientist, The RAND Corporation
This book analyzes China’s use of its armed forces to coerce other actors in the international system in an effort to achieve policy aims short of armed conflict. Drawing on contributions from primarily next-Generation scholars, the book offers lessons about when, how, why, and to what effect China has used its armed forces in recent decades, to gain insight about China’s intentions and approaches to the use of force in the future.
This book presents the findings from a new statistical analysis of an original dataset based on detailed open-source research on over 200 coercive military operations and actions between 2000-2020, conducted by China. This study is intended to provide guidance to government officials, legislators, students of international affairs, and anyone concerned with US-China relations about the ways, means, and ends of China’s use of its armed forces to deter its adversaries, promote its interests, and assert itself in regional geopolitical competition.
At a time when the United States is confronting the need to compete with a rising China while avoiding war, it is essential to understand how America’s “pacing threat” uses its armed forces short of war.
Summary
Over the past 20 years, China’s international status as a “great power” has become undeniable. China’s “peaceful rise” has included substantial investments in military modernization and an increasingly assertive regional posture. While China has not waged war, it frequently resorts to what the US State Department has called “gangster tactics” – threats, intimidation, and armed confrontation – to advance its strategic aims. China generally presents its uses of force as defensive in nature, purporting that provocations from other states make these activities necessary. However, in recent years China has increasingly used military and paramilitary forces to improve its position in long-standing disputes with other nations. China’s regional ambitions are evident from the ways in which it has asserted itself by drastically increasing its efforts to project military power, intimidate its smaller neighbors, and push back against US military presence and freedom of action in the region.
James A. Siebens and colleagues have conducted a thorough study of China’s use of armed coercion in recent decades to illuminate the ways in which China has employed its military and paramilitary tools to coerce other states through force short of war, and to examine the motivations and specific foreign policy objectives that China has pursued. Building on the approaches developed in Force Without War: US Armed Forces as a Political Instrument (Brookings 1978) and Military Coercion and US Foreign Policy: The Use of Force Short of War (Routledge 2020), this study presents new analysis of an original dataset of 203 coercive military operations and actions undertaken by China’s security forces that are associated with more 460 coercive demands against 13 different targets between 2000-2020.
Siebens has assembled a talented group of primarily next-Gen scholars and practitioners with regional and subject matter expertise to analyze China’s foreign policy objectives and strategic approaches to its neighbors. In addition to new statistical analysis, the book presents a series of historical case studies focused on China’s use of coercive diplomacy and military signaling from the Korean War to the present day, as well as case studies addressing the most consequential examples of China using force to coerce in recent decades, including campaigns targeting Taiwan, Japan, the South China Sea, the United States, and the disputed Himalayan border with India. China’s more assertive behavior has heightened tensions in the region as China has effectively combined military power with diplomatic pressure, economic punishment, and other tools of statecraft. The United States will need to develop strategies that are effective at countering China’s coercive uses of force without triggering escalation to conflict. This study aims to inform the development of such strategies by better understanding the ways, means, and ends of China’s coercive efforts, and contributing to a more historically informed, empirically based understanding of great power competition and deterrence.
Reviews
“China’s Use of Armed Coercion: To Win Without Fighting effectively weaves together historical, political, and military analysis to provide a robust picture of the dynamic threat environment in East Asia. It thoughtfully traces the evolution of China’s approach to coercion in the 21st century, including modern ‘salami-slicing’ through paramilitary, military, and gray-zone warfare. Siebens provides a detailed guide for U.S. and allied policymakers and military leadership considering what Chinese strategy, operations, and tactics in the South China Sea and greater Indo-Pacific region might look like in the coming years.
Admiral James G. Foggo, USN (Ret.), Dean of the Center for Maritime Strategy, Navy League of the United States.
“As the United States shifts its focus to China, most studies examine a potential conventional war. In contrast, this impressive volume examines China’s actual successes and failures with using military and paramilitary forces to achieve peacetime objectives. Every serious student of China will benefit from the insights it provides.”
Dr. T. X. Hammes, Distinguished Research Fellow, US National Defense University.
“China’s Use of Armed Coercion: To Win Without Fighting is one of the most important analyses to emerge in recent years on China’s coercive behavior both below the threshold of conflict and on the verge of major war. It offers detailed background information on the nature and history of coercion in modern Chinese foreign policy, as well as its use in specific bilateral relationships and a new database and statistical analysis of the outcomes of recent Chinese coercion efforts. No one should evaluate Chinese coercive tactics from this point without reference to this rich and deeply researched book.”
Dr. Michael Mazarr, Senior Political Scientist, The RAND Corporation
“In this excellent volume, Siebens and colleagues underscore how China uses its armed forces—historically and today—to coerce, intimidate, influence, and mess with other countries’ collective minds as much as to fight and win full-fledged wars. This insight is crucial for today’s US strategy debate.”
Dr. Michael O’Hanlon, Senior Fellow and Director of Research in Foreign Policy, Brookings Institution
“Siebens and his colleagues provide a detailed study of China’s past use of coercion and outright force to attain its national goals and protect its interests. The successes and failures of these efforts, and their close association with the defense of specific, long-standing sovereignty claims, call into question the simplistic notion, touted by many in Washington, that Beijing is simply an aggressive power bent on military domination across the board. Siebens argues, correctly, that the proper response to China’s gray-zone, coercive tactics, is to help increase the capacity of more vulnerable states to detect and resist Chinese coercion. A valuable study that should be read by every policy practitioner.”
Dr. Michael Swaine, Senior Research Fellow, East Asia Program, Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft
Recent Media Hits
- March 5, 2024 – “James Siebens on the South China Sea and Armed Coercion,” Security Dilemma
- February 23, 2024 – “The Future of the Chinese Military: A Discussion with James A. Siebens,” New Books Network
- February 22, 2024 – “Charting China’s Use of Armed Coercion: James Siebens,” Korean Kontext
Table of Contents
Preface
James A. Siebens
CH 1. To Win Without Fighting: Coercion in China’s Military Strategy
James A. Siebens and Ryan Lucas
CH 2. China’s Armed Coercion: Patterns and Rationale
Ketian Zhang
CH 3. Assessing China’s Use of Armed Coercion
Barnett Koven, Katy Lindquist, Ryan Lucas, and James A. Siebens
CH 4. China Goes to War: Signaling and Intervention in Korea, India, and Vietnam
Junyang Hu and James A. Siebens
CH 5. One China, Or Else: Military Escalation and Signaling in the Taiwan Strait
Pam Kennedy and James A. Siebens
CH 6. China and Japan: The Return of Rivalry
Jimmy Kan Wang and James A. Siebens
CH 7. Conquering the Commons: Coercion in the South China Sea
Ryan Lucas
CH 8. On the Precipice: Crisis and Confrontation on the China-India Border
Akriti (Vasudeva) Kalyankar, Zoe Jordan, and Brigitta Schuchert
9. China’s Multi-Domain Deterrence of the U.S.
James Siebens and Melanie Sisson
10. Military Operations Other Than War (with Chinese Characteristics)
Jesse Marks and James A. Siebens
11. Conclusion
James A. Siebens
Technical Appendix
James A. Siebens and Ryan Lucas
Chapter Summaries
CH 1. To Win Without Fighting: Coercion and China’s Military Strategy
James Siebens and Ryan Lucas
The introductory chapter is intended to provide an overview of the main themes addressed in the book, and to introduce the reader to the key terms and concepts pertaining to Chinese military strategy. It provides key background and context for the study, including the theoretical framework of coercive operations as understood by Chinese strategists, and outlines each of the chapters. Since its founding in 1949, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has pursued a military strategy and operational doctrine of “active defense,” a defensive strategic orientation rooted in the assumption that the greatest danger to the PRC lies in conflict against a more powerful adversary attempting to invade or intervene in China’s internal affairs. Based on its perceived need to plan for a confrontation with superior enemy forces from a position of relative weakness, China has focused on preparing for, and responding to, outside aggression with the goal of overcoming its material and technological disadvantages through strategy. A core component of its strategy has been to deter such threats from emerging, or to neutralize them when necessary, through the limited or demonstrative use of force.
CH 2. China’s Armed Coercion: Patterns and Rationale
Ketian Zhang
This chapter explains the role of military coercion as a critical element of China’s foreign policy strategy, and identifies many of the most prominent examples of China using its military opportunistically for purposes of political signaling and coercion in recent decades. The chapter addresses China’s views on coercion and escalation, and outlines the broad patterns of China’s employment of coercion, including military signaling, operations, and other means of non-kinetic coercion. It offers an expert analysis of when China actually uses military coercion and why, drawing on recent examples to derive a political science explanation of the theoretical assumptions behind China’s coercive behavior and a brief examination of the outcomes of coercion, and the ways, means, and ends of China’s use of coercive force short of war.
CH 3. Assessing China’s Use of Armed Coercion
Barnett Koven, Katy Lindquist, Ryan Lucas, and James A. Siebens
This chapter presents what is perhaps the most comprehensive empirical examination to date focusing specifically on China’s use of military and paramilitary force for purposes of coercion. Using an original dataset of 203 military operations and actions associated with more 460 coercive demands targeting 13 different countries (including Taiwan) between 2000-2020, the authors conducted a series of rigorous statistical analyses to empirically assess the extent to which, and under what conditions, China’s coercive efforts have met with policy success or failure. This chapter seeks to ascertain not just the underlying policy motivations for China’s decisions to use coercive force, but also to identify where and under what conditions China has actually achieved its goals using armed coercion. The dataset relies on several dozen variables to account for the military, economic, political, diplomatic, and historical conditions to contextualize actions and provide descriptive features of which conditions may make the outcome more or less likely to succeed.
CH 4. China Goes to War: Signaling and Intervention in Korea, India, and Vietnam
Junyang Hu and James A. Siebens
This chapter draws on primary and secondary literature concerning the last three instances when China’s leaders decided to use large-scale military force (i.e., war) to address their foreign policy concerns: China’s intervention in the Korean War in 1950, the 1962 Sino-Indian War, and the Sino-Vietnamese War in 1979. The chapter traces the diplomatic and military events preceding, or leading to, China’s decision to go to war, and makes the case that in all three instances, China clearly communicated its threat to use military force under certain conditions, and in all three instances it followed through on its threats when its demands were not met. This chapter sets the stage for the methodological approaches used in subsequent empirical chapters which measure China’s diplomatic messaging and stated aims with respect to the countries it has targeted with armed coercion.
CH 5. One China, Or Else: Military Escalation and Signaling in the Taiwan Strait
Pam Kennedy and James A. Siebens
This chapter presents a case study of China’s efforts to coerce Taiwan, including during the 1995-96 “Third Taiwan Strait Crisis,” the 1999 crisis, and China’s military activities targeting Taiwan and, to a lesser extent, the United States, during a period of acute tensions in 2020-2021. These three sequential case studies trace the process of political and military events leading to China’s use of military signaling in each instance to elucidate the goals and motivations behind China’s use of military exercises, patrols, and other demonstrations of force directed at Taiwan.
CH 6. China and Japan: The Return of Rivalry
Jimmy Kan Wang and James A. Siebens
This chapter presents a case study of China’s efforts to coerce Japan and, to a lesser extent, South Korea over conflicts of interest in and around the East China Sea. These issues range from competing territorial claims, resource extraction, and military posture and posture. The chapter argues that China has used a gradual “salami slicing” approach to increasing China’s military presence and operations aimed at encroaching on its neighbors in the region, and posits that China has largely gone unpunished for its actions. The chapter gives particular attention to competing territorial and economic claims, especially the dispute over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, as well as tensions surrounding overlapping air defense identification zones (ADIZ) in the East China Sea.
CH 7. Conquering the Commons: Coercion in the South China Sea
Ryan Lucas
This chapter aims to critically evaluate China’s coercive actions in the South China Sea in the 21st century, with a specific focus on the use of military and paramilitary force. The chapter provides an overview of China’s strategic objectives in the South China Sea and the policy actions taken in the late 20th century and early 21st century to accomplish its goals. Second, the chapter discusses China’s increased use of paramilitary coercion in the South China Sea, specifically the role of the Chinese Coast Guard and China’s “maritime militia” in asserting and enforcing China’s territorial and jurisdictional claims. The chapter concludes with an evaluation of current trends in the use of the Chinese Coast Guard, the increased role of the PLA, and the future trajectory of the use of force in the region.
CH 8. On the Precipice: Crisis and Confrontation on the China-India Border
Akriti (Vasudeva) Kalyankar, Zoe Jordan, and Brigitta Schuchert
This chapter examines the escalation of border tensions between China and India in the past two decades, focusing on the actions and motivations of each side, and assessing the extent to which actions on the ground aligned with each side’s broader aims. Four Sino-Indian border standoffs are examined in detail: the 2013 Daulat Beg Oldie (or Depsang) standoff; the 2014 Chumar standoff during Xi Jinping’s visit to India; the 2017 Doklam standoff at the trijunction of China, Bhutan, and India; and the ongoing eastern Ladakh standoff that began in spring 2020. Beginning with a review of the history of the India-China border dispute and how each sides’ intentions and capabilities have evolved over time, the authors evaluate each of the four border incidents as narrative case studies focusing on pivotal military moves, statements by leadership, and outcomes. The chapter concludes by situating these border crises within broader trends in the Sino-Indian relationship and the implications for future faceoffs and the overall border dispute.
CH 9. China’s Multi-Domain Deterrence of the U.S.
James Siebens and Melanie Sisson
This chapter addresses the evolution of China’s military modernization efforts in the direction of high-technology and “informationized” warfare. It argues that China has vigorously pursued the development of the tools and techniques that fall under the rubric of “command, control, communications, and computers” (C4) as well as military intelligence, reconnaissance, surveillance (ISR), based on a recognition that these have proven to be the most decisive elements in the conduct of modern warfare. Between 1991 and 2021 the PLA substantially adapted its force readiness, doctrine, and organizational structure to support its own acquisition and use of wartime information through C4ISR. These developments have enabled China to potentially use advanced weapons systems and platforms, along with cyber and other non-kinetic tools, to disrupt US C4ISR, with the apparent aim of deterring US interference or intervention against China. In the event of hostilities, the US must also anticipate that China will use its offensive cyber capabilities to disrupt domestic public and commercial infrastructure and to conduct information and psychological operations to affect US citizens. The United States must therefore include in its calculus of the costs of going to war with China not only battlefield losses, but also the probability of population effects – disruptions of civil society that create fear, that degrade trust, and that can result in the destruction of property and the loss of life.
CH 10. Military Operations Other Than War (with Chinese Characteristics)
Jesse Marks and James A. Siebens
This chapter analyzes the adoption and adaptation of the “Military Operations Other Than War” (MOOTW) framework in Chinese miliary doctrine and practice. Since its adoption in the early 21st Century, the concept of MOOTW has been embedded in China’s military strategy and embraced as a critical avenue for the PLA to safeguard Chinese interests overseas, enhance their own operational experience, and augment Chinese diplomatic and politics lines of effort. The doctrine envisions the PLA strengthening China’s bilateral relations through security cooperation, military diplomacy, joint security exercises, basing agreements, and counter-terrorism cooperation, and helping to elevate China’s international standing through greater participation in multilateral security missions such as UN Peacekeeping Operations. The PLA has since played a leading role in projecting Chinese power abroad to secure China’s interests and conduct military diplomacy, and has calibrated its domestic mission set to address not only wartime defense preparations, but also peacetime military operations.
