Book Review - China's use of Armed Coercion
To Win Without Fighting
by James A Siebens (ed.)
New York: Routledge, Asian Security Series, 2024, 286 pp.
Hardcover ISBN 9781032481838
eBook ISBN 9781003387770
Reviewed by: Gregory Raymond
Security in the Indo-Pacific region is rarely discussed without mention of China. Its military spending, expanding naval capabilities, investment in new technologies and assertiveness in the maritime domain guarantee its continued attention from journalists, policymakers and security studies scholars. So what might this book add? Among an abundance of blogs, articles and short reports, there is a need for scholarly publications that narrow their gaze to particular aspects of Chinese military matters, in order to discern enduring patterns and characteristics.
China’s Use of Armed Coercion: To Win Without Fighting represents a key contribution to the literature on China’s use of its military in the 21st century. In 11 chapters, with contributions from various China experts (many employed at the Defense Strategy and Planning program at the Stimson Center in the United States), this collected volume examines China’s (mainly) non-lethal use of armed force along its borders. In particular, it explains how China has bluffed, intimidated, deterred, and demonstrated resolve in the domains of the South China and East China seas, at its land border with India and in its reunification efforts with Taiwan over the last two decades.
Conceptually the book uses Thomas Schelling’s definition of coercion as ‘compelling another political actor to either do something (compellence), or not do something (deterrence)’, and assesses how China employs military force in situations short of war. As well as employing strategic concepts such as compellence, the book undertakes longitudinal analysis of how China has acted over extended periods of time, using Chinese doctrinal sources and case study examinations of particular episodes such as the well-known Hai Yang Shi You 981 oil rig incident between China and Vietnam in 2014.
Although mostly employing qualitative analysis, one chapter is quantitative in nature. ‘Assessing China’s Use of Armed Coercion’ analyses patterns in a dataset of over 200 Chinese military and paramilitary coercive actions between 2000 and 2020, to assess how often China failed or succeeded to achieve its compellence and deterrence objectives. Particular tactical and strategic actions such as patrols, interceptions and exercises are also examined. Among the interesting findings here is that China has a very poor record in using coercion to advance its territorial aims (such as getting other states to accept its claims in the South China Sea). It further shows that ‘interposition’ strategies (in which Chinese maritime and air forces manoeuvre near target forces) are also highly unsuccessful. An example is China’s 2013 declaration of an air defence identification zone (ADIZ) for the East China Sea, which demanded that all aircraft flying into the ADIZ declare their flight plan, identity and other data. Until today, the United States, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan have never complied. China’s record in deterring other states from changing the status quo is more successful, however; for example, China has deterred Taiwan’s leaders from declaring independence or interfering with its fishing fleets. The chapter also contains recommendations for US policymakers. Reminding readers that China generally avoids escalation to violence, it suggests that the US develop diverse and calibrated responses, and that it limit the employment of US military capabilities in order to avoid escalation. Instead, it ought to support allies and partners in more nuanced ways, such as through provision of maritime intelligence capabilities.
While this statistical chapter may be a challenging read for those not accustomed or inclined to follow quantitative political science or statistical analysis, there are nevertheless many other useful qualitative chapters that drill down into the dynamics of China’s armed coercion in particular theatres. Each of these offers valuable insights into China’s statecraft and how it has combined its diplomacy and its use of military coercion. They also provide very useful historical background to the territorial disputes, making the book a valuable resource for military planners, policymakers and scholars wanting to quickly reacquaint themselves with the basics of a particular long-running dispute.
The chapter on India’s northern land border confrontation with China’s forces, ‘On the Precipice: Crisis and Confrontation on the China-India Border’, was one this reviewer found particularly intriguing. In accounts of border incidents beginning with a 2013 standoff at Daulat Beg Oldie, proceeding through the 2017 Doklam incident and concluding with the tragic 2020 Galwan Valley encounter in which scores of people brutally died in subzero conditions, the authors set out the objectives of each side as well as what ultimately transpired. This chapter demonstrates that, beyond the unresolved boundaries, the immediate causes of crises were frequently based on the perception of either side that the other’s development of strategic infrastructure (such as roads or troop garrisons) could confer military advantage in a ‘hot’ conflict. It also portrays how India’s desire to compartmentalise the dispute means that the leaders of these two Asian giants can agree to economic cooperation contemporaneously with tactical-level stoushes at the border. Indeed, it is now an established pattern that Chinese leaders ‘coincidentally’ visit New Delhi at the same time as crises manifest in India’s northern reaches.
Another chapter that traces recent crises through time concerns the Indo-Pacific region’s most dangerous flashpoint—the status of Taiwan. ‘One China, Or Else: Military Escalation and Signaling in the Taiwan Strait’ begins with an account of the 1995–1996 crisis, known as the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis, triggered when former Taiwanese president Lee Teng-hui visited Cornell University for an alumni reunion in 1995. The chapter details how the 13-month crisis unfolded through diplomatic statements, PLA missile tests and finally the 1995 election, in which Taiwanese voters ignored China’s pressure and re-elected Lee. While there is yet to be a formally designated ‘Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis’, the piece depicts two other candidate episodes, the 1999 ‘two state’ crisis and the 2022 ‘Pelosi’ crisis.
Other chapters in the book assess what has come to be known as China’s ‘hybrid or ‘grey-zone’ warfare, especially the use of paramilitary forces, the multi-domain deterrence of the US (often labelled anti-access/area denial or A2/AD) and China’s increasing involvement in military operations other than war, such as peacekeeping operations. Some of the book’s overarching findings are that China shows considerable integration in its foreign policy goals, diplomatic outreach and military actions, and that China prefers to use coercive actions short of war to extract recognition of its territorial claims, while seeking positive diplomatic and trade relations in its dealings with neighbours. A final observation is sobering in the context of the continued potential for a war over Taiwan: China, like the US, has historically made a point of backing up its words with actions.
Overall, this book is compelling and necessary reading for those who wish to grapple with the subject of China’s military coercion from a stance that is objective, measured and historically grounded.
