{"id":34426,"date":"2023-01-07T16:34:31","date_gmt":"2023-01-07T17:34:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peymantaeidi.net\/stem-cell\/?p=34426"},"modified":"2023-01-07T18:37:10","modified_gmt":"2023-01-07T18:37:10","slug":"communist-china-on-track-with-plan-to-replace-us-as-superpower-michael-pillsbury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peymantaeidi.net\/stem-cell\/2023\/01\/07\/communist-china-on-track-with-plan-to-replace-us-as-superpower-michael-pillsbury\/","title":{"rendered":"Communist China On Track With Plan to Replace US as Superpower: Michael Pillsbury"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Soviets once warned the United States about China<\/a>: \u201cChina has betrayed us in Moscow. And you are next. They\u2019re going to squeeze you dry, and then they\u2019re going to turn on America.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s according to Michael Pillsbury, director for Chinese strategy at the conservative think tank The Hudson Institute, who sounded the warning in an interview<\/a> on EpochTV\u2019s \u201cAmerican Thought Leaders\u201d program.<\/p>\n

The warning came in 1969; Pillsbury was at his first job at the United Nations (U.N.) after completing a doctorate in Chinese studies at Columbia University. One of his assignments was to read Central Intelligence Agency materials about Russia\u2019s view of China.<\/p>\n

Years earlier, relations between the two communist powers had ruptured to the point of complete estrangement.<\/p>\n

Through these classified documents, Pillsbury learned the Soviets\u2019 perspective: \u201cChina had global ambitions to take off the communist movement, first from the Soviet Union, and then dominate the whole world.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, the Soviets\u2019 warning wasn\u2019t taken seriously then by Pillsbury or the United States.<\/p>\n

It \u201csounded to me like a boyfriend talking about his ex-girlfriend, warning that she\u2019d break my heart like she broke his,\u201d Pillsbury wrote in his book<\/a> \u201cThe Hundred-Year Marathon: How China\u2019s Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower.<\/p>\n

Driven by wishful thinking or what Pillsbury in his book describes as \u201cfalse assumptions,\u201d such as that fragile China needed help, China was on the path to democracy, and \u201cChina wants to be\u2014and is\u2014just like us,\u201d the U.S. government ignored the Soviets\u2019 warning.<\/p>\n

\"Epoch
\"Epoch U.S. President Joe Biden meets with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the G20 leaders\u2019 summit in Bali, Indonesia, on Nov. 14, 2022. (Kevin Lamarque\/Reuters)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Such wishful thinking has persisted in the decades since, with a temporary pause during the Trump administration.<\/p>\n

Chinese communist leaders have been able to achieve this, according to Pillsbury, through a strategy of \u201cinducing complacency to avoid alerting [the] opponent\u201d of Beijing\u2019s real intentions.<\/p>\n

Winning a race is easier when your opponent doesn\u2019t know that the race has begun, Pillsbury noted in his book. And Chinese leaders want to keep it this way as long as possible.<\/p>\n

As a result of this strategy, the Chinese regime is still on track with their plan to take over the world, the author said in the interview.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ultimate mistake is activating the enemy whom you could have stolen from, [who] could have fueled your power to rise to number one,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s why Xi Jinping has been so careful,\u201d Pillsbury added, referring to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader who recently secured an unprecedented third term in power.<\/p>\n

\u201cXi Jinping has avoided giving the Americans a Sputnik moment or a Pearl Harbor attack that would galvanize our country.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018The Hundred-Year Marathon\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The hundred-year marathon, the title of Pillsbury\u2019s book, refers to communist China\u2019s long-term effort to realize its \u201cstrong nation dream,\u201d mentioned in Xi\u2019s maiden speech in his new role as the CCP general secretary in 2012. The plan is built around a narrative highlighting the West\u2019s humiliation of China in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Against this backdrop, China seeks to rise to become the new hegemon, replacing the incumbent: America. The aim is to achieve this goal by 2049<\/a>, the 100th anniversary of the Party\u2019s takeover of China.<\/p>\n

In the book, Pillsbury said the CCP learned many strategies from China\u2019s history, especially the Warring States period, a tumultuous era of 200 years that ended when the Qin Dynasty first unified China in 221 BC. During that period, seven states fought one another through alliances and betrayals.<\/p>\n

The central theme of this era, according to the CCP\u2019s historical interpretation, is that one state would rise above and rule the world. Hiding one\u2019s strength until the optimal striking moment was thus essential to achieve that objective. Pillsbury described the Warring States framework as a major underpinning of the Chinese communist playbook for dominating the world.<\/p>\n

According to him, America needs to map the current competitive situation with China, and take specific actions to address the challenge posed by the communist regime. He called the extremely tough rhetoric utilized by some U.S. officials and scholars, such as those calling for a complete decoupling from China, a \u201choax\u201d because he didn\u2019t think super hawks\u2014those who take a hardline approach to China\u2014were focused enough on legislation and policies that can make a difference. Blanket hawkish rhetoric without specifics is unlikely to win votes in Congress, Pillsbury said.<\/p>\n

\"TOPSHOT-CHINA-POLITICS-CONGRESS\"
\"TOPSHOT-CHINA-POLITICS-CONGRESS\" China\u2019s President Xi Jinping (R) talks to former president Hu Jintao as he is assisted to leave from the closing ceremony of the 20th Chinese Communist Party\u2019s Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Oct 22, 2022. (Noel Celis\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Chinese Politics \u2018Obscure and Secretive\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n

During the regime\u2019s all-important 20th Party Congress in October, a twice-a-decade meeting during which Xi secured his bid for a third term as CCP leader, one particular incident drew considerable attention.<\/p>\n

On the first day of the weeklong event, former CCP leader Hu Jintao was escorted out<\/a> of a meeting in front of all present media.<\/p>\n

Chinese state-run media would later say Hu was removed for health reasons. The statement was posted only on Twitter, which is inaccessible in China.<\/p>\n

Many, though, were unconvinced by the official explanation.<\/p>\n

Pillsbury said he, too, like many others, watched the video clip of Hu\u2019s removal several times. He interpreted it as \u201ca sign of Xi Jinping\u2019s power that even a former president can be dismissed with a wave of the hand.\u201d<\/p>\n

This recent incident reminded Pillsbury of the \u201cobscure and secretive\u201d nature of Chinese politics. The opacity of Party\u2019s inner workings was such that the U.S government wouldn\u2019t find out about the significant power struggles within the CCP until well after the fact, Pillsbury observed.<\/p>\n

He recalled that as a China expert at the think tank RAND Corporation, the first-ever memo he wrote to then-national security advisor Henry Kissinger in 1973 was about 10 significant internal CCP power struggles and how the Americans only learned about them afterwards through the storytelling of the winners.<\/p>\n

The policy issues at play in these power struggles, Pillsbury said, are \u201creally quite chilling.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are debating whether or not to take a really serious, aggressive step. And sometimes the moderates win; sometimes the hawks win. But this is all obscured to the outside world,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"Epoch
\"Epoch US president Nixon\u2019s special advisor, Henry Kissinger (5 CL) and Prime Minister Zhou Enlai (6 CL)pose with their delegations for a group photo, on October 22, 1971, in Beijing. U.S. Security Advisor Henry Kissinger traveled to China to meet with Prime Minister Zhou Enlai to set the stage for President Richard M. Nixon\u2019s historic visit in 1972. (-\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Pillsbury gave an example during Kissinger\u2019s second trip to China in October 1971, a month after Mao Zedong\u2019s second-in-command Lin Biao died in an airplane crash: \u201cThey [the Chinese] had already killed off their vice president, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, quite a few military leaders, and Kissinger is taking his motorcade to go see the Chinese Prime Minister, and he does not know this has happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his book, Pillsbury detailed how the American government was unaware of the CCP infighting and underestimated the strength and influence of the Chinese hawks.<\/p>\n

He listed \u201cChina\u2019s hawks are weak\u201d as one of five false assumptions underlying America\u2019s wishful thinking on China, along with the more commonly known notion that \u201cengagement brings complete cooperation.\u201d Over the decades, the United States had hoped that Beijing would, through engagement, cooperate with Washington, and ultimately be assimilated into the Western-led global order.<\/p>\n

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pointed out that same mistaken assumption in his China policy speech<\/a> at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library in California in July 2020, four years after the book\u2019s publishing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe imagined engagement with China would produce a future with bright promise of comity and cooperation,\u201d Pompeo said at the time. \u201cBut today\u2014today we\u2019re all still wearing masks and watching the pandemic\u2019s body count rise because the CCP failed in its promises to the world. We\u2019re reading every morning new headlines of repression in Hong Kong and in Xinjiang.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Epoch
\"Epoch The tower of the headquarters of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) is seen in Basel, Switzerland, on March 18, 2021. (REUTERS\/Arnd Wiegmann)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

America Aided Communist China\u2019s Rise<\/strong><\/h2>\n

According to Pillsbury, the United States showed China the way to become a superpower despite Beijing\u2019s initial reluctance.<\/p>\n

An example was the Bank of International Settlements, the prestigious club of rich countries\u2019 central banks. China joined the club in 1996. According to Pillsbury, China didn\u2019t want to do it initially. \u201cWe are not a capitalist country. We are not going to the Bank of International Settlements,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n

Yet the United States persuaded them by explaining the benefits, \u201cYou will learn what all the other central banks are planning for the coming year in terms of interest rates, reserves, and so forth,\u201d he said.  And in the same way, Washington helped Beijing with entering the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and other U.N. specialized agencies, said Pillsbury.<\/p>\n

The World Bank played an integral role in assisting China\u2019s rise. Pillsbury, in his book, wrote that at a meeting with former CCP leader Deng Xiaoping in 1983, World Bank executives \u201csecretly agreed that a team of economists would study China intensively and, looking ahead twenty years, recommended how China could catch up to the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n

The World Bank team, he wrote, made a series of private recommendations in 1985, consciously endorsing the CCP\u2019s socialist approach with \u201cno genuine effort to advocate for a true market economy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Decades later during the pandemic, the United States would continue to give China a free pass, Pillsbury noted. In August 2021, the U.S. intelligence community issued an inconclusive report at the end of a 90-day COVID origin investigation ordered by President Joe Biden. According to the report, the Chinese regime would need to fully cooperate with an investigation to determine whether or not the virus came from a laboratory in Wuhan.<\/p>\n

\"Epoch
\"Epoch The P4 laboratory on the campus of the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, on May 13, 2020. (Hector Retamal\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWhat wishful thinking it is to think we can stroll into the Wuhan laboratory and say, \u2018Please show us your books. Please show us your samples. Please show us your experiments,\u2019\u201d said Pillsbury.<\/p>\n

Earlier in April 2020, Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin revealed<\/a> that U.S. diplomats and officials warned in a 2018 cable\u2014two years before the pandemic\u2014about the \u201cgrave safety concerns\u201d at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), a biosafety level 4 lab specializing in the study of bat coronaviruses.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd what do we say about it being unsafe? Condemn this lab or close it down? Get a team in there to see if the PLA [People\u2019s Liberation Army] is making nerve gas or not. No. The recommendation was to give money to the lab to upgrade its safety,\u201d said Pillsbury.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur government officials still see China as a friend and an ally,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Personal Wake-up Call<\/strong><\/h2>\n

In his book, Pillsbury wrote that he bought into such wishful thinking for many years, and was himself a member of the U.S. team that aided China\u2019s rise, having held postings in the Department of Defense and State Department.<\/p>\n

In 1997, he started questioning the story that China was on the road to democracy. That year, he visited a village near Dongguan in southern China\u2019s Guangdong Province to witness the emerging \u201cdemocratic\u201d elections. Through conversations with locals in Mandarin, Pillsbury discovered the unwritten rules of the game: candidates were not allowed any public rallies, advertisements, or campaign posters.<\/p>\n

The candidates were also prohibited from criticizing any CCP policies. \u201cThe only thing a candidate could do was to compare his personal qualities to those of his opponent. Violations of these rules were treated as crimes,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

Pillsbury, in the interview, mentioned another critical moment in the past decades: Beijing complained that the United States was slow in sharing new scientific discoveries with China: they hadn\u2019t received information about a nanotechnology discovery published in the journal Scientific American. As a result, America created a minister counselor for science and technology in the U.S. embassy to facilitate scientific transfers to China.<\/p>\n

Recommendations<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Pillsbury said his first policy recommendation to counter Beijing\u2019s designs was to document the current competitive landscape. \u201cWe\u2019ve got to get the public to understand how close China is to surpassing us now, sector by sector,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In the interview, he also mentioned \u201ca huge challenge over the defense of Taiwan,\u201d the democratic self-ruled island that Beijing views as its own territory. Pillsbury considered the Taiwan Policy Act of 2022<\/a>\u2014a bill that provides almost $4.5 billion security assistance to Taiwan in the next four years and stipulates severe sanctions to deter China from escalating hostile actions against the island\u2014very important, describing it as a \u201cnew focus on Taiwan policy.\u201d While the bill may not pass during this Congress, it has a shot when the Republicans take over the House in 2023, according to Pillsbury.<\/p>\n

The author made 12 policy recommendations in his book, but the first he considers the most important. He ended the book with:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first step, recognizing that there is a marathon, may be the most difficult to take, but it is also the most important.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmerica may fail to recognize the problem and may refuse to face the long-term scenario of China not only surpassing us but also growing to double and then triple the size of our economy, by 2049. Then China will have won, by default.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\"Terri<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n

Terri Wu is a Washington-based freelance reporter for The Epoch Times covering education and China-related issues. Send tips to terri.wu@epochtimes.com.\n<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\"Jan<\/a><\/p>\n
\n

Senior Editor<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Jan Jekielek is a senior editor with The Epoch Times and host of the show, “American Thought Leaders.” Jan\u2019s career has spanned academia, media, and international human rights work. In 2009 he joined The Epoch Times full time and has served in a variety of roles, including as website chief editor. He is the producer of the award-winning Holocaust documentary film “Finding Manny.”<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Soviets once warned the United States about China: \u201cChina has betrayed us in Moscow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34428,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peymantaeidi.net\/stem-cell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34426"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peymantaeidi.net\/stem-cell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peymantaeidi.net\/stem-cell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peymantaeidi.net\/stem-cell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peymantaeidi.net\/stem-cell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34426"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/peymantaeidi.net\/stem-cell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34426\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34436,"href":"https:\/\/peymantaeidi.net\/stem-cell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34426\/revisions\/34436"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peymantaeidi.net\/stem-cell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peymantaeidi.net\/stem-cell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peymantaeidi.net\/stem-cell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peymantaeidi.net\/stem-cell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}