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The Hundred-Year Marathon: China’S Secret Strategy to Replace Ame Naval War College Review Volume 68 Article 11 Number 3 Summer 2015 The undrH ed-Year Marathon: China’s Secret Strategy to Replace Americaas the Global Superpower, by Michael Pillsbury Arthur Waldron Follow this and additional works at: https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review Recommended Citation Waldron, Arthur (2015) "The undrH ed-Year Marathon: China’s Secret Strategy to Replace Americaas the Global Superpower, by Michael Pillsbury," Naval War College Review: Vol. 68 : No. 3 , Article 11. Available at: https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol68/iss3/11 This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Naval War College Review by an authorized editor of U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Waldron: The Hundred-Year Marathon: China’s Secret Strategy to Replace Ame BOOK REVIEWS A BIT OF A MAVERICK Pillsbury, Michael� The Hundred-Year Marathon: China’s Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower� New York: Henry Holt, 2015� 319pp� $30 The Hundred-Year Marathon is the He is the author of original and defini- culmination of a lifetime’s work on tive books about the People’s Liberation Chinese security policy by Dr� Michael Army� He is also a bit of a maverick: a Pillsbury (1945–), an independent one-man show, rarely part of a team� China analyst based in Washington, Long a proponent of pro-China policies, D�C� The book is popular, not academic� including sale of weapons to Beijing in That said, it is by and large accurate the 1980s and 1990s, he has, as he tells and must be read and digested� it, changed his mind as he has learned At the outset, though, two issues must be more� While a “panda hugger” he was raised� One is the title� The other is the well treated and given much “access”— author� The title suggests, with no evi- which means access to people whose job dence, that somehow a secret Masonic is to deceive you, as well as hospitality� cabal has existed in China for a century, In 2006, however, he published an article having as its purpose the overthrow in the Wall Street Journal decisively of the United States as leading world repudiating his previous views—and felt power� Taken literally that would mean the back of Beijing’s hand until 2013� planning got under way in 1915, under Then he was able to return to China, President Yuan Shikai, continued during as Beijing sought to shore up support, Chiang Kai-shek’s watch, and then on faced with the South China Sea crisis, through Mao Zedong and beyond— to be discussed below (pages 129–30)� which, bluntly put, is not history at all, Pillsbury is not to be believed without but classic tinfoil-hat conspiracy theory� question� He has had numerous run- China’s changing international behavior ins with counterintelligence officials over the last century is indeed difficult owing to his seemingly uncontrol- to explain, but it is most certainly not lable proclivity to leak secrets—to this the product of some arcane “Protocols reviewer, for example, in the passenger for the Replacement of America�” seat of his vintage Jaguar motorcar� As for Pillsbury, he is well-trained, hard- Here, however, we are reviewing neither working, and independently wealthy� the sales strategy nor the author of this book, but rather its argument� Published by U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons, 2015 1 Summer2015Review.indb 148 4/21/15 1:50 PM Naval War College Review, Vol. 68 [2015], No. 3, Art. 11 BOOK REVIEWS 149 The book makes two fundamental distinct culture belonging to the Chinese contentions� First, Pillsbury states people must not be underestimated� that the Asian region and the United If one were to undertake a compre- States currently face the problem of hensive study of the view of force an unexpectedly aggressive China� within this cultural tradition, the first BOOK REVIEWS Second, he argues that this unpleasant consideration would be the extreme surprise is no more than the product pacifism expressed in the classics of of decades of official self-delusion Confucianism, created two millennia about Beijing, even when confronted in the past, and long official orthodoxy� with mountains of facts that supported The mainstream of Chinese thought— A BIT OF A MAVERICK opposite conclusions� This reviewer not a pretense but a conviction—sees agrees with these two points, albeit with superior virtue and civilization as the Pillsbury, Michael� The Hundred-Year Marathon: China’s Secret Strategy to Replace America as the many academic caveats that will be way to genuine power, as is testified Global Superpower� New York: Henry Holt, 2015� 319pp� $30 spared� Disagreement arises only when by the vast corpus of classical writings, speculation begins about the future� memorized by scholars for generations For roughly forty years, from the Nixon and not forgotten today, as well as the diplomacy of the 1970s to about 2010, volumes of official memorandums on the idea that China could pose a threat foreign policy, in which opposition to militarily was considered so mistaken force is regularly the winning argument� as to be effectively beyond toleration Pillsbury, however, makes no claim to be in either academic or governmental writing about “China” in general or even circles� The insistent conviction was that broadly about today’s People’s Republic� “engagement” would transform China He says little about Confucianism be- into a strong economy, a friend, even an cause others have said much, and focus- ally, and most likely a democracy as well es instead on the all-but-forbidden tradi- (page 7)� Among the few in Washington tion of writers on military topics, the not convinced by these arguments was bingjia whose heyday was also two mil- the longtime head of the Pentagon’s lennia ago, but whose influence has con- Office of Net Assessment, Andrew Mar- tinued, like an underground stream, ever shall, who did much to support Pills- since, to emerge today in what Pillsbury bury’s work through contract research� calls “the Chinese hawks,” or yingpai� China is of course a new country� The Seemingly overlooked by official Ameri- first states having that word as part of can estimates, these hawks have no truck their official names were founded in with engagement, are deeply antiforeign the last century: the Republic of China and anti-American, and seek Chinese in 1911; then after the Chinese civil hegemony to be achieved through war, the People’s Republic of China in deception, strategic dominance, and the 1949� Before that a myriad of states, use of particularly effective weapons some ethnically Chinese, some not, usually called in English, rather awk- rose and fell on the East Asian plain� wardly, “assassins’ maces” (shashoujian)� To lump them all together as a politi- They do not lack influence� cal “China” to be treated as a histori- Pillsbury has come to know and un- cal entity having thousands of years of derstand this group by employing the history is a profound error, as specialists most elementary but often neglected now recognize� Still, the continuity of a methods of information gathering: https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol68/iss3/11 2 Summer2015Review.indb 149 4/21/15 1:50 PM 150 NAVALWaldron: WAR COLLEGE The Hundred-Year REVIEW Marathon: China’s Secret Strategy to Replace Ame namely, reading their work and having closest ally, in favor of China� (Japan long conversations with them (he speaks was of course kept in the dark�) But excellent Chinese)� The results of years Mao was bored and somnolent as the of such research, by Pillsbury and others, two leaders spoke� Neither he nor any effectively upend the conventional wis- other Chinese ever took up this offer� dom of nearly half a century� The ques- How could so unrealistic an Ameri- tions that follow are: First, how did we can policy plan have come into being? go wrong? And second, what to do now? The answer is by wishful thinking and To answer the first question, “what went self-deception: in this case, aided by the wrong,” requires going back to President rigorously selective limitation of sources Richard Nixon and his national security to those that supported the policy adviser, Henry Kissinger� That China already adopted� Only a tiny secret would reenter the international system team knew of the plan� The books they was long a near certainty in their time� read were uniformly from the strongly Maoism was beginning to be recognized pro-Mao school of writing then current internally as having been an unmitigated (Kissinger, White House Years [Boston: catastrophe, not only for the Chinese Little, Brown, 1979], p� 1051)� Other people, but also for the military—though books, many by better scholars, existed many foreigners still idolized the man� but were not consulted� Likewise, the The Soviet Union moreover presented speaker invited to the White House to China with a threat requiring a coun- enlighten the Americans was the erratic terweight� The only question was how Frenchman André Malraux� Others exactly China would return� Sadly, these were incomparably more knowledge- two Americans devised an utterly unre- able and available—to name but two, alistic plan that set our diplomacy on a the American Foreign Service officer course that, unsurprisingly, has brought Edward E� Rice and the Berlin profes- unexpected and baleful consequences� sor Jürgen Domes—but they were not Nixon and Kissinger seem to have even contacted� Thus, information
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