Under the Nuclear Shadow: China's Information-Age Weapons in International Security

Fiona Cunningham, Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania

Wednesday, January 29, 2025
12:30 PM (Pacific Time)

ABOUT THE WEBINAR

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ABOUT THE BOOK

How can states use military force to achieve their political aims without triggering a catastrophic nuclear war? Among the states facing this dilemma of fighting limited wars, only China has given information-age weapons such a prominent role. While other countries have preferred the traditional options of threatening to use nuclear weapons or fielding capabilities for decisive conventional military victories, China has instead chosen to rely on offensive cyber operations, counterspace capabilities, and precision conventional missiles to coerce its adversaries. In Under the Nuclear Shadow, Fiona Cunningham examines this distinctive aspect of China’s post–Cold War deterrence strategy, developing an original theory of “strategic substitution.” When crises with the United States highlighted the inadequacy of China’s existing military capabilities, Cunningham argues, China pursued information-age weapons that promised to rapidly provide credible leverage against adversaries.

Drawing on hundreds of original Chinese-language sources and interviews with security experts in China, Cunningham provides a rare and candid glimpse from Beijing into the information-age technologies that are reshaping how states gain leverage in the twenty-first century. She offers unprecedented insights into the trajectory of China’s military modernization, as she details the strengths and weaknesses of China’s strategic substitution approach. Under the Nuclear Shadow also looks ahead at the uncertain future of China’s strategic substitution approach and briefly explores too how other states might seize upon the promise of emerging technologies to address weaknesses in their own military strategies.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Fiona S. Cunningham is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania. She is also a Faculty Fellow at Perry World House and affiliated with the Center for the Study of Contemporary China and the Christopher H. Browne Center for International Politics at the University of Pennsylvania.

Cunningham’s research interests lie the intersection of technology and conflict, with an empirical focus on China. Her first book Under the Nuclear Shadow: China’s Information-Age Weapons in International Security (Princeton University Press, 2024) examines China’s distinctive approach to the dilemma of coercing an adversary under the shadow of nuclear war, which relies on substitutes for nuclear threats.

Her research has appeared in academic and policy-oriented outlets including International Security, Security Studies, and The Washington Quarterly. She has held fellowships at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University, the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University, and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She has conducted fieldwork at the Renmin University of China, supported by a China Confucius Studies Program research fellowship. Her research has also been supported by the Korea National Commission for UNESCO, Ploughshares Fund, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, Asia-Pacific Foundation of Canada, Stanton Foundation, and the Smith Richardson Foundation.

Fiona S. Cunningham is a research affiliate with the MIT Security Studies Program and holds nonresident affiliations with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and National Security College at the Australian National University.

She received her Ph.D. in Political Science from MIT in 2018. She holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of New South Wales and a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Sydney, both with first class honors. Previously, she was an Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at the George Washington University.

ABOUT THE MODERATOR

Margaret Peters is Associate Director of the UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations and a Professor in the Department of Political Science and the Chair of the Global Studies major at UCLA. She is also a non-resident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Her research on the political economy of migration. She is currently working on a book project on how the process of forced displacement affects migrants’ sense of dignity and how these dignity concerns affect decisions of whether to move from the crisis zone, where to move, and when to return. She is additionally writing a book on how dictators use migration, including forced migration, to remain in power. Her award-winning book, Trading Barriers: Immigration and the Remaking of Globalization, argues that the increased ability of firms to produce anywhere in the world combined with growing international competition due to lowered trade barriers has led to greater limits on immigration, as businesses no longer see a need to support open immigration at home.