Skip to main content
  • Sections
  • Search

Center for Strategic & International Studies

User menu

  • Subscribe
  • Sign In

Topics

  • Climate Change
  • Cybersecurity and Technology
    • Cybersecurity
    • Data Governance
    • Intellectual Property
    • Intelligence, Surveillance, and Privacy
    • Military Technology
    • Space
    • Technology and Innovation
  • Defense and Security
    • Counterterrorism and Homeland Security
    • Defense Budget
    • Defense Industry, Acquisition, and Innovation
    • Defense Strategy and Capabilities
    • Geopolitics and International Security
    • Long-Term Futures
    • Missile Defense
    • Space
    • Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation
  • Economics
    • Asian Economics
    • Global Economic Governance
    • Trade and International Business
  • Energy and Sustainability
    • Energy, Climate Change, and Environmental Impacts
    • Energy and Geopolitics
    • Energy Innovation
    • Energy Markets, Trends, and Outlooks
  • Global Health
    • Family Planning, Maternal and Child Health, and Immunizations
    • Multilateral Institutions
    • Health and Security
    • Infectious Disease
  • Human Rights
    • Building Sustainable and Inclusive Democracy
    • Business and Human Rights
    • Responding to Egregious Human Rights Abuses
    • Civil Society
    • Transitional Justice
    • Human Security
  • International Development
    • Food and Agriculture
    • Governance and Rule of Law
    • Humanitarian Assistance
    • Human Mobility
    • Private Sector Development
    • U.S. Development Policy

Regions

  • Africa
    • North Africa
    • Sub-Saharan Africa
  • Americas
    • Caribbean
    • North America
    • South America
  • Arctic
  • Asia
    • Afghanistan
    • Australia, New Zealand & Pacific
    • China
    • India
    • Japan
    • Korea
    • Pakistan
    • Southeast Asia
  • Europe
    • European Union
    • NATO
    • Post-Soviet Europe
    • Turkey
  • Middle East
    • The Gulf
    • Egypt and the Levant
    • North Africa
  • Russia and Eurasia
    • The South Caucasus
    • Central Asia
    • Post-Soviet Europe
    • Russia

Sections menu

  • Programs
  • Experts
  • Events
  • Analysis
    • Blogs
    • Books
    • Commentary
    • Congressional Testimony
    • Critical Questions
    • Interactive Reports
    • Journals
    • Newsletter
    • Reports
    • Transcript
  • Podcasts
  • iDeas Lab
  • Transcripts
  • Web Projects

Main menu

  • About Us
  • Support CSIS
    • Securing Our Future
Report
Share
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Email
  • Printfriendly.com

Nuclear Weapons and U.S.-China Relations

A Way Forward

March 12, 2013

This report addresses the increasingly important set of issues surrounding the nuclear forces of the United States and China. It focuses on a series of policy and posture recommendations for the United States, but it does so with an eye toward U.S. allies in the region and Chinese audiences. The report also includes two appendixes—one detailing the Working Group’s assessment of China’s nuclear strategy, policy, decisionmaking, posture, and capabilities, and one summarizing the Working Group’s discussions in Beijing in September 2012.

For over a century, the United States has maintained a strong and enduring presence in the Asia-Pacific region, buttressed by a number of alliances and partnerships and undergirded by a robust military capability, ultimately including U.S. nuclear forces. It remains committed to this approach to the Asia-Pacific region and has redoubled its focus through its recent “rebalance” toward the region. The United States has long seen China as a central factor in its strategy in Asia. Since the 1970s, U.S. policy has sought to encourage China’s economic reforms and development and to integrate China into the existing international political and economic order. While hopeful that China will develop into a constructive stakeholder, the United States and much of the Asia-Pacific region share continuing concerns about some aspects of China’s behavior that, it is feared, could undermine regional stability and U.S. interests in the Asia-Pacific.

Unfortunately, significant sources of tension and disagreement between the United States and its allies, on the one hand, and China, on the other, remain. These sources of discord could, in the worst case, lead to conflict. Needless to say, a large-scale conventional war between the United States and China would be incredibly dangerous and likely tremendously damaging. Nuclear war between the two would be devastating for all involved. Even though a conventional war between the two nations currently seems unlikely and nuclear war even more so, the possibility that war could break out, posing dramatic dangers and damage, clearly indicates that active steps should be taken to avoid conflict and successfully manage U.S.-China nuclear dynamics.

Downloads
Download PDF file of "Nuclear Weapons and U.S.-China Relations"
Elbridge A. Colby and Abraham M. Denmark, cochairs; John K. Warden, executive director
PONI Working Group on U.S.-China Nuclear Issues
Media Queries
Contact H. Andrew Schwartz
Chief Communications Officer
Tel: 202.775.3242

Contact Paige Montfort
Media Relations Coordinator, External Relations
Tel: 202.775.3173
Related
China, China Next Generation Working Group, Defense Strategy and Capabilities, Defense and Security, Geopolitics and International Security, International Security Program, Project on Nuclear Issues, The Next Generation Working Group
Footer menu
  • Topics
  • Regions
  • Programs
  • Experts
  • Events
  • Analysis
  • Web Projects
  • Podcasts
  • iDeas Lab
  • Transcripts
  • About Us
  • Support Us
Contact CSIS
Email CSIS
Tel: 202.887.0200
Fax: 202.775.3199
Visit CSIS Headquarters
1616 Rhode Island Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20036
Media Queries
Contact H. Andrew Schwartz
Chief Communications Officer
Tel: 202.775.3242

Contact Paige Montfort
Media Relations Coordinator, External Relations
Tel: 202.775.3173

Daily Updates

Sign up to receive The Evening, a daily brief on the news, events, and people shaping the world of international affairs.

Subscribe to CSIS Newsletters

Follow CSIS
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • YouTube
  • Instagram

All content © 2022. All rights reserved.

Legal menu
  • Credits
  • Privacy Policy
  • Reprint Permissions