An introduction to the works of authoritative and innovative Chinese authors whose writings focus on the future of the Chinese military. These carefully selected, representative essays make Chinese military thinking more accessible to western readers. It reveals, for example, China's keen interest in the Revolution in military affairs. This volume is an important starting point for understanding China's future military modernization. "Must reading for every executive of every Western firm doing business in China." "Readers will be impressed by China's ambitions in space, information warfare, stealth, and robots, in future warfare." Photos.
Michael Pillsbury's new book ... is must reading for every executive of every Western firm doing business in China, and every Member of Congress.... Readers will be impressed ... by China's ambitions in space, information warfare, stealth, and robots, in future warfare.... No one with serious interests in East Asia can afford not to have read this book." Robert Ellsworth, Former Deputy Defense Secretary "American relations with the People's Republic of China have now become the single most critical bilateral relationship in the world. On it rests the stability of East Asia, and it represents the most significant challenge to the effectiveness of U.S. foreign policy, Yet far too little is known about China, and in particular how the Chinese military think about the future. Michael Pillsbury has performed a signal service in selecting, translating, and interpreting these revealing and hard-to-obtain writings by senior Chinese officers, The reader is in for a surprise. Rather than parading the tired slogans of People's War, these analysts examine a military future marked by 'information deterrence', 'crippling attacks on information systems' and similar notions and by a search for 'new measures of effectiveness.' The future remains uncertain, but the best preparation--- as Sun Tzu might say--- is to understand the mind of those with whom we must deal." James Schlesinger, Former Director of Central Intelligence and Former Secretary of Defense "This book reflects the keen interest that its sponsor, the Director of Net Assessment, Andy Marshall, has shown in Chinese views of a potential revolution in military affairs. The translation and publication of these articles enhance our understanding of how some of China's authoritative military strategists see the revolution in military affairs in the 21st century." William Perry Former Secretary of Defense
This study offers over 600 selected quotations from the writings of over 200 Chinese authors published from 1994 to 1999. Analysis and interpretation are kept to a minimum so that the Chinese may speak for themselves. Many Chinese scholars assisted with this study by providing hard-to-get books and articles unfamiliar to most Westerners. Half the authors were interviewed in China. They explained some of the viewpoints in recent debates about the future security environment. Debates in China are generally concealed, and frequently authors pretend they do not exist. However muted they may be, China's debates about the future nevertheless exist and merit attention if we are to understand the premises of China's national strategy and set a baseline from which to measure any future change in these premises.
China's explosive economy has financed her recent modernization program. Not only is China modernizing her armed forces but many of her senior military authors are advocating a RMA and expounding on its potential value to future warfare. Due to China's existing technology gap, there are skeptics in the United States who doubt that she will be able to keep pace with the American conception of RMA. However, the Chinese view of RMA may be completely different from the Western view. With a regional strategic and operational focus and employing the fruits of RMA, the Chinese may be able to develop highly complex, asymmetrical capabilities and operational techniques that deny area access to a U.S. military force, thus limiting American ability to influence the situation. The results of this analysis suggest that even though China will be unable to completely technically with America for a least a decade and maybe longer, nevertheless, the U.S. needs to develop plans, concepts, and countermeasures to defeat future Chinese asymmetrical warfare that is based on rapid advances in technology.
"Four essays ... analyze broad trends in Chinese military modernization. While they treat strategic capabilities ... the essays analyze considerably more. They look at the whole pattern of Chinese military modernization-- strategy, doctrine, information warfare, ground, naval and air forces. The essays come to ... much the same conclusion: that while the PLA ... is acquiring "pockets" of modern capabilities through a variety of legal and illegal endeavors, these selective acquisitions do not offset the overall obsolescence of most of China's armed forces."
One of the U.S. government's leading China experts reveals the hidden strategy fueling that country's rise – and how Americans have been seduced into helping China overtake us as the world's leading superpower. For more than forty years, the United States has played an indispensable role helping the Chinese government build a booming economy, develop its scientific and military capabilities, and take its place on the world stage, in the belief that China's rise will bring us cooperation, diplomacy, and free trade. But what if the "China Dream" is to replace us, just as America replaced the British Empire, without firing a shot? Based on interviews with Chinese defectors and newly declassified, previously undisclosed national security documents, The Hundred-Year Marathon reveals China's secret strategy to supplant the United States as the world's dominant power, and to do so by 2049, the one-hundredth anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic. Michael Pillsbury, a fluent Mandarin speaker who has served in senior national security positions in the U.S. government since the days of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, draws on his decades of contact with the "hawks" in China's military and intelligence agencies and translates their documents, speeches, and books to show how the teachings of traditional Chinese statecraft underpin their actions. He offers an inside look at how the Chinese really view America and its leaders – as barbarians who will be the architects of their own demise. Pillsbury also explains how the U.S. government has helped – sometimes unwittingly and sometimes deliberately – to make this "China Dream" come true, and he calls for the United States to implement a new, more competitive strategy toward China as it really is, and not as we might wish it to be. The Hundred-Year Marathon is a wake-up call as we face the greatest national security challenge of the twenty-first century.
