Redefining strategic stability in a changing world: a Chinese view

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Notes

According to the estimate of the Institute for Strategic Studies in London, the United States deployed 294 ICBMs, 155 SLBMs, and 600 strategic bombers; the Soviet Union deployed 75 ICBMs, 75 SLBMs and 190 strategic bombers. See Wang Zhongchun and Wen Zhonghua, The Undissipated Nuclear Clouds [in Chinese] (Beijing: NDU, 2000), p.75.

Tang Jiaxua, at the opening ceremony of the International Conference on a Disarmament Agenda for the 21st Century, sponsored by the United Nations and the People's Republic of China, Beijing, 2 April 2002.

Camille Grand, Ballistic Missile Threats, Missile Defenses, Deterrence, and Strategic Stability, Occasional Paper No.5, (Monterey, CA and Southampton: Monterey Institute of International Studies and Mountbatten Centre for International Studies, March 2001), p.6.

According to one estimate, the United States had deployed 9,376 operational nuclear warheads and 5,000 non-operational nuclear warheads; Russia deployed 9,196 operational nuclear warheads and 13,500 non-operational nuclear warheads by January 2001. See Hans M. Kristensen, ‘The Unruly Hedge: Cold War Thinking at the Crawford Summit,’ Arms Control Today (Dec. 2001), pp.8–12.

For detailed description of these armed conflicts, see SIPRI Yearbooks in the 1990s.

See Charles E. Morrison, ‘Globalization, Vulnerability and Adjustment’, PacNet Newsletter, No.32 (11 August 2000). Morrison pointed out that ‘it is widely argued that globalization increases economic disparities between those better able to take advantage of globalizing forces and those unprepared for it. The relative income gaps between and within countries are widening. The income ratio of the richest fifth of the world's population and its poorest fifth have increased from 30 to 1 in 1960, to 60 to 1 in 1990, and 74 to 1 by 1997.’

See Zhu Yangming Asia-Pacific Security Strategy (Beijing: The Military Science Publishing House, 2000), pp.181–2.

See Paul Stares ‘New’ Or ‘Non-Traditional’ Challenges, paper presented at a conference on The United Nations and Global Governance in the New Millennium, Tokyo, 19–21 January 2000, available at ⟨http://www.unu.edu/millennium/stares.pdf⟩. Stares said that ‘the range of conceivable security concerns broaden dramatically–some would argue limitlessly–to include a host of economic, social, political, environmental, and epidemiological problems. Whether they emanate from outside or inside the boundaries of the state is immaterial to their consideration as security threats. Likewise, whether they are the product of the deliberate or inadvertent acts is irrelevant. The harmful impact on the individual or the surrounding ecosystem is what matters. What makes problem “new” or “non-traditional” threats, therefore, is not that they are truly phenomena or products but rather that they are now treated as security concerns.’

For more information on China's security concept, see the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, New Concept of Security Advocated by China, ⟨http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/5053.html⟩, April 2002.