"How To Out-Deter China" - By CWP Alum Joel Wuthnow
In January 1996, in the midst of a crisis brought about by a series of Chinese missile tests conducted in Taiwan’s waters, a Chinese general grimly alluded to a potential nuclear response to any U.S. intervention in defense of the island. “The American people,” he warned a U.S. official, “care more about Los Angeles than Taipei.” Such saber rattling, however, belied the fact that China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) knew it did not have the military strength to deter the United States from intervening in a war over Taiwan. At the time, the costs and risks
How to Out-Deter China: Washington Must Make Beijing Understand the Costs of a Conflict Over Taiwan
By Joel Wuthnow March 24, 2023 - https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/deter-china-taiwan
Dr. Joel Wuthnow is a senior research fellow in the Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs within the Institute for National Strategic Studies at NDU. His research areas include Chinese foreign and security policy, Chinese military affairs, U.S.-China relations, and strategic developments in East Asia. In addition to his duties in INSS, he also serves as an adjunct professor in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.
His recent books and monographs, all from NDU Press, include Gray Dragons: Assessing China's Senior Military Leadership (2022), Crossing the Strait: China's Military Prepares for War with Taiwan (2022, lead editor), The PLA Beyond Borders: Chinese Military Operations in Regional and Global Context (2021, lead editor), System Overload: Can China's Military Be Distracted in a War over Taiwan? (2020), and Chairman Xi Remakes the PLA: Assessing Chinese Military Reforms (2019, co-editor). His research and commentary has also appeared in outlets such as Asia Policy, Asian Security, China Leadership Monitor, The China Quarterly, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Joint Force Quarterly, Journal of Contemporary China, Journal of Strategic Studies, Korean Journal of Defense Analysis, Naval War College Review, and in edited volumes.
Prior to joining NDU, Dr. Wuthnow was a China analyst at CNA, a postdoctoral fellow in the China and the World Program at Princeton University, and a pre-doctoral fellow at The Brookings Institution. His degrees are from Princeton University (A.B., summa cum laude, in Public and International Affairs), Oxford University (M.Phil. in Modern Chinese Studies), and Columbia University (Ph.D. in Political Science). He is proficient in Mandarin.
Photo Credit: By William Ide - http://www.voanews.com/media/video/china-announces-troop-cuts-at-world-war-two-parade/2943575.html, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=43339299
