Speaker: Lyle J. Morris (Center for China Analysis at the Asia Society Policy Institute)
Date: 26 March 2025
Speaker Session Summary
SMA hosted a speaker session with Lyle J. Morris (Center for China Analysis at the Asia Society Policy Institute) as part of its SMA INDOPACOM Speaker Series.
Mr. Morris emphasized that China perceives tensions and competition with the West—particularly the United States—as inevitable due to its growing economic and political power and conflicting strategic objectives. As a result, China has developed a deterrence strategy called “effective control” (youxiao kongzhi), which is meant to guide political and military decisions during an unfolding crisis if US-China tensions were to escalate. China’s deterrence strategy incorporates both compellence, which influences another state’s behavior, and classical deterrence, which seeks to prevent an adversary from acting. For China, deterrence is primarily about minimizing the risk of war until conditions are more favorable for conflict.
The People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) 2013 Military and Science Strategy framed deterrence, compellence, and crisis management as areas that could be scientifically studied and tested. The “effective control” doctrine, which is deeply embedded in Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and PLA thinking, consists of four key elements: effectively shaping the situation, controlling the escalation of the crisis, curbing the war, and winning the war. Effectively shaping the situation involves influencing events through strategic communication with both adversaries and the Chinese public. Controlling the escalation of the crisis allows China to achieve strategic aims while avoiding conventional warfare. Curbing the war includes conducting scaled attacks, such as cyber or infrastructure strikes, to pressure an adversary into submission. Winning the war entails employing all available resources to secure victory in an outright kinetic conflict.
Mr. Morris outlined several policy implications for the United States, stressing the need for US decision-makers to understand China’s approach to “effective control” and the specific language it employs. He suggested preventing China from controlling crisis narratives and assigning blame to its adversaries, demonstrating that China’s gray zone actions carry significant costs, and clearly communicating that the United States and its allies will respond decisively to protect their interests in the Indo-Pacific.
Speaker Session Recording
Briefing Materials
Biography: Lyle J. Morris is Senior Fellow for Foreign Policy and National Security at Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis. Prior to joining ASPI, Lyle was a senior policy analyst at the RAND Corporation leading projects on Chinese military modernization and Asia-Pacific security from 2011-2022. From 2019 to 2021, Morris served in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) as the Country Director for China, advising OSD on defense relations between the Department of Defense and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and on Indo-Pacific maritime security. He received the Office of the Secretary of Defense Medal for Exceptional Public Service for his service. Before joining RAND, Lyle was the 2010–11 Next Generation Fellow at the National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR) and a research intern with the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Lyle has lived and studied in Beijing, China for four years, where he studied Mandarin at the Inter-University Program for Chinese Language Studies (IUP) at Tsinghua University and later worked at Dentsu Advertising and the China Economist Journal. Morris holds an MA in international affairs from the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), earning a Certificate in East Asian Studies from Columbia’s Weatherhead East Asian Institute; and BA in international business from Western Washington University.
Comments