Politics does not stop at the ‘nuclear edge’: neoclassical realism and the making of China’s military doctrine

The article tries to explain why China, after having launched a crash programme in the 6 mid-1950s to develop a nuclear deterrent, did not formulate a clear operational doctrine with 7 respect to the targeting and employment of atomic weapons until the mid-1980s. Propositions 8 derived from neoclassical realism are used to shed some light on this puzzling aspect of China’s 9 nuclear doctrine. The general hypothesis of the study is that, international predicaments 10 notwithstanding, China’s domestic politics prevented the possibility of articulating a clear and 11 detailed nuclear doctrine during the period following the first nuclear test, when such a doctrine 12 was more necessary.