This is the second article in the TL;DR section. These will be published sporadically, becoming a library over time that underpins the geopolitical and technological currents covered in the feature essays on the Home Page.
This is the American hawk’s red book on Chinese hawks.
The Hundred-Year Marathon: China’s Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower. By Michael Pillsbury (2015)
“The first step, recognizing that there is a Marathon, may be the most difficult to take, but it is also the most important. America 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.”
p. 233
The Read
The Hundred-Year Marathon is written by a former intelligence official who, for decades, played a role in Sino-American relations, often meeting with key Chinese party and military officials. The book reads as part-reportage, part-memoir and part-analysis, and covers principally the period of the 1970s rapprochement to 2015.
A main part of the text explores the concept of shi as driving China’s strategic orientation towards the United States. This is partly rooted in the Warring States period. Overall, the book critically views China’s outreach efforts over the decades as a form of deception in a long marathon that will culminate in 2049.
Overall, the chapters explore covert weapons development, the charade of Chinese capitalism, and the attempts to project Chinese influence abroad. The final part of the text provides high-level recommendations for American policy officials.
Between the Lines
Pillsbury’s book was controversial when it was published, but today it seems quaint. It is now widely accepted that China and the United States are rivals and that China is openly ready for confrontation with America, at the very least as a contingency. But when it was released, there was still the thought that China could be part of an American-led global order, and economic integration was getting tighter, not being driven apart.
In that sense, The Hundred-Year Marathon is a seminal book because of its timing. It reoriented the thinking on China and firmly rooted a skepticism in some corners of Washington about Chinese intentions. Regardless of the veracity of the book’s claims, it makes for one of the more unique reads on the world’s rising power.
Long or Short?
Go long on The Hundred Year Marathon, but make sure you read it with more contemporaneous texts, including those with opposing views.