US, China settle on nuclear terms

How does one define “assassin’s mace”? The expression proved to be one of the most difficult of the 1000 or so terms that a US–China team of nuclear experts had to wrestle with as they assembled a common glossary that can be used in bilateral and international discussions involving nuclear security issues. The two-year project, sponsored by the US National Academy of Sciences’ Committee on International Security and Arms Control (CISAC) and the Chinese Scientists Group on Arms Control of the Chinese People’s Association for Peace and Disarmament, released its product in November; publication had been delayed for two months by the disastrous May earthquake in Sichuan Province.

Most of the glossary entries are simply matched to their equivalents in the other language. But some terms required more nuanced translations. “New thinking,” for example, continues in the Chinese policy lexicon to denote the geopolitical philosophy advanced by Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev two decades ago. “Self-defensive nuclear strategy” is China’s official description of its no-first-use policy for nuclear weapons. Even “nuclear weapon” required four definitions, including one used by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and another by the Russian government. On the other hand, both sides judged the terms “second-generation nuclear weapon” and “theory of low-intensity conflict” to be clear enough to stand alone. “The process was enormously useful,” declared CISAC chair Raymond Jeanloz of the University of California, Berkeley. “The Chinese discussions provided a richer understanding of the ambiguities and implications” of translations.

The Chinese side initially resisted inclusion of assassin’s mace, or shashou jian, dismissing it as US jargon, said Ming-Shih Lu, chair of the CISAC panel that produced the glossary. In US geopolitical parlance, the term describes a Chinese strategy to overcome a superior adversary with a quick technological knockout blow, particularly in connection with a possible US intervention in a conflict between Taiwan and the mainland. When informed that former Chinese president Jiang Zemin had once used the term in a speech, the Chinese agreed to include it. Still, something may have been lost in the translation: Assassin’s mace is defined as “a type of metal weapon” that is thrown unexpectedly at an adversary and as “a metaphor for an adept ability or unique skill used at a critical moment.”

The glossary is available online at http://www7.nationalacademies.org/cisac/Glossary_CISAC.html .