China’s Nuclear Threat Against Japan: Hybrid Warfare and the End of Minimum Deterrence
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By Adam Cabot
August 06, 2021
A video recently released by Chinese media directly threatens Japan with a nuclear first strike. The video states, "When we liberate Taiwan, if Japan dares to intervene by force, even if it only deploys one soldier, one plane and one ship, we will not only return reciprocal fire but also start a full-scale war against Japan. We will use nuclear bombs first”. This is a serious threat against a non-nuclear state coming from a power with a long declared ‘no first use’ nuclear policy. This clearly signals a departure from a strategy of minimum deterrence.
With the level of control possessed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), it would be difficult to argue that the producers of the video went rogue with these threats. According to reports, the video was reposted by a CCP channel, making it likely that the video was intended as a coercive measure. To threaten the use of nuclear weapons in order to achieve a strategic foreign policy objective such as the invasion or "liberation" of a sovereign state is to use the nuclear arsenal potentially as a component of a Hybrid Warfare strategy. This use of nuclear coercion doesn’t align itself with a minimum deterrence strategy that aims to deter military aggression. A state employing a minimum deterrence strategy will generally possess just enough deliverable and survivable nuclear weapons to ensure a successful retaliatory strike.
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2021/08/06/chinas_nuclear_threat_against_japan_hybrid_warfare_and_the_end_of_minimum_deterrence_788893.html
