Economic deterrence playbook (adversary)

The economic deterrence playbook (adversary) is the characterisation, developed in RAND Corporation analysis, of China's calibrated approach to economic coercion: selecting targets and sectors so that coercion imposes meaningful cost on the adversary while minimising cost to China itself, and avoiding measures that would damage sectors vital to China's own economy. The concept reframes Chinese coercion as a deterrence system with a discernible strategic calculus, rather than as ad hoc retaliation.

The calculus

RAND's analysis of China's economic deterrence playbook examines how Beijing chooses coercive targets: sectors are selected where China's leverage is asymmetric, where substitutes exist for Chinese buyers but not for the target's sellers, and where the domestic cost of restriction is low. The pattern is visible across the documented cases. In the coercion of Australia from 2020, restrictions swept coal, wine, barley, lobster, and other substitutable imports while leaving iron ore, on which Chinese steel production depended, untouched. In the THAAD retaliation against South Korea, pressure concentrated on tourism, consumer goods, and the Lotte group rather than on semiconductor imports China needed. The playbook is thus an application of asymmetric dependency: coerce through the relationships the target needs more than you do, a state-level operationalisation of weaponised interdependence.

Origin of the characterisation

The playbook reading emerged from the accumulation of cases through the 2010s and early 2020s, as analysts moved from cataloguing individual episodes toward inferring the selection logic behind them. RAND's analysis formalised that inference, but it did not establish a published Chinese doctrine. Australian and European Union records state their governments' allegations and legal positions; they do not by themselves establish China's motive or a final WTO finding.

Deterrent function

The playbook's object is as much deterrence as punishment. Each demonstration against one state signals to all others the price of crossing Chinese interests, so that most deterrence operates silently through anticipated reaction; the economy-wide erasure of Lithuania's exports after the 2021 Taiwan office decision functioned as a signal to larger European states. Calibration also preserves deniability: much of the pressure runs through informal instruments, customs delays, regulatory findings, state-signalled consumer boycotts, that avoid formal attribution and WTO exposure, the pattern treated at Coordinated economic coercion.

Contestation and limits

The playbook characterisation is an analytic reconstruction, not a published Chinese doctrine, and its coherence is debated: sceptics note that outcomes have been mixed enough, Australia's coercion was absorbed and largely defeated by trade diversion, Lithuania did not reverse course, to question how well calibrated the system is. The record suggests the playbook reliably imposes cost and signals resolve but has, in the documented great-power cases, seldom compelled policy reversal, consistent with the wider sanctions effectiveness debate.

Evaluation should separate four questions: whether a measure was imposed, whether it created material cost, whether the target understood the signal and whether policy changed because of it. Cost imposition without reversal may communicate resolve, but it does not establish compellence or deterrence.

See also

Coordinated economic coercion · Economic deterrence · Economic coercion · China's trade restrictions on Australia and alleged economic coercion (2020-2024) · China's trade pressure on Lithuania over the Taiwanese Representative Office (2021-2025) · China's informal economic pressure on South Korea over THAAD (2016-2017) · Weaponised interdependence · Consumer boycott (state-orchestrated) · Economic statecraft

Sources

• Francesca Ghiretti, Nicholas Taylor and Conlan Ellis, *China's Economic Deterrence Playbook* (RAND Europe, 2025).
• Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, "WTO Trade Policy Review: China, Australian Statement" (2021; accessed 30 July 2026).
• European Commission, "WTO Dispute DS610: China, Measures Concerning Trade in Goods and Services" (accessed 30 July 2026).
• Australian Productivity Commission, *Trade and Assistance Review 2019-20* (accessed 30 July 2026).