Will a rising China maintain the international order, negotiate adjustments on the margins, or directly challenge the U.S. place in the world? This pressing foreign policy question animates scholars, journalists, and practitioners alike in addressing how Washington should best prepare for each possibility. The latest contribution to the debate, The Hundred-Year Marathon: China’s Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower, will no doubt be controversial because of its vague evidence to support the author’s statement about hostile Chinese intentions and how Beijing has been able to hide its revisionism. Despite the author’s intent to sound a clarion call to American readers that cuts through Chinese deception, the book undermines its purpose through sloppy use of evidence and inadequate policy prescriptions to the challenge the author purports to identify.
Although the book is largely an analysis of Chinese intentions and how Beijing deceived U.S. interlocutors, The Hundred-Year Marathon is also part memoir reflecting on the author’s experience with China inside the Beltway. The author, Michael Pillsbury, is himself no stranger to controversy—being simultaneously lauded as a strategic thinker and vilified as a self-serving leaker—and this book will not settle his reputation. The recounting of meetings and people lends credence to Pillsbury’s description of U.S. government thinking while at the same time raising questions about his actual role.
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