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CHINA DEBATES THE FUTURE SECURITY ENVIRONMENT
BY
MICHAEL PILLSBURY
Advance praise for China Debates the Future Security Environment
In this carefully researched and well crafted work, Dr. Michael Pillsbury has made another important contribution to our understanding of Chinas strategic thinking. Those who blithely assume that optimistic American views of global trends are normal and widely shared will be startled and educated. Contemporary Chinese predictions about Japans ascendance and American decline will appear familiar but strangely anachronistic to those who recall the largely discredited American declinist school of the late Cold War. Other views will seem less familiar and even more disturbing, e.g., ideas about the high likelihood of fairly large-scale local wars in the next few decades, and the belief that the weaker local powers can prevail over stronger, more distant ones if the former adopt innovative and active military strategies.
Thomas J. Christensen, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The international politics of the twenty-first century will be shaped to a very considerable degree by the evolving relationship between the United States and the Peoples Republic of China. Yet we know surprisingly little about how Chinas top strategists think about us, about themselves, and about their place in the world. In this fascinating and disturbing book, Michael Pillsbury uses hundreds of recent Chinese books and articles to shed light on these critically important questions. Essential reading for anyone interested in the future of U.S.-China relations.
Aaron L. Friedberg. Princeton University
This volume provides a useful reference for policymakers and scholars alike. It offers an extensive cross-section of Chinese viewpoints and provides a useful map of institutions, individuals, and publications which together form a core part of contemporary Chinese thinking on international security affairs
Bates Gill. The Brookings Institution
Mike Pillsbury has done a terrific job presenting a range of Chinese voices and focusing our attention on bow a combination of ancient historical analogies and traditional realpolitik analysis informs many public arguments about security today. Pillsburys rich database sets an analytical agenda critical to a more nuanced understanding of China: How similar or different are US and Chinese assessments? How does each construct images of the other? How do language and metaphor constrain Chinese debates? How authoritative and influential are individual Chinese institute analysts?
Alastair lain Johnston, Harvard University
This book illustrates very well that open sources can be used to understand crucial intelligence issues like Chinese strategic thinking. For our long-term policy of engaging China, we need to understand Chinese strategic perceptions. Mike Pillsburys book is a major effort in that direction.
The Honorable J. Robert Kerrey, Senate Intelligence Committee
Dr. Pillsbury has performed a public service by highlighting what Chinas experts are saying about the Middle Kingdoms security policies and expectations andequally interestingwho they see as a threat to those expectations ( namely, the United States ) . It is time we stopped pretending China is our strategic partner and focused instead on what the Chinese are saying themselves. This book should be must reading for the next President of the United States and his security advisers.
The Honorable Trent Lott, Senate Majority Leader
Based on the reading of thousands of Chinese documents and on hundreds of hours of Chinese-language Interviews, Pillsburys ingenious account is the best book on Chinese military and strategic thinking of recent years.
Arthur Waldron. University of Pennsylvania
FOREWORD
Dont debate...Once debate begins, things become complicated
Deng Xiaoping
Seek truth from facts
Deng Xiaoping quoting Mao Zedong
The inferior can defeat the superior
Fu Quanyou, Chief of Staff of the Peoples Liberation Army
PREFACE
The Office of Net Assessment, Department of Defense, is attempting to understand the long-term consequences of the rise of China as a major world power. As part of that effort, it seeks to understand the views of the most important Chinese authors who have analyzed the future security environment. Some Americans wrongly believe Chinese views reflect a mirror image of their own. This study suggests instead that the Chinese have their own unique perceptions, which may be difficult to appreciate.
The risk of mirror imaging our own views was an issue also present in the study of the Soviet Union. Andrew Marshall, Director of the Office of Net Assessment, cautioned against assuming that a foreign nations strategic assessment is merely a reflection of Americas: Soviet calculations are likely to make different assumptions about scenarios and objectives...perform different calculations, use different measures of effectiveness, and perhaps use different assessment processes and methods. The result is that Soviet assessments may substantially differ from American assessments. {1} Marshalls cautionary note also applies to understanding Chinese assessments of the future.
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. Conflicting views about the future nevertheless exist and merit attention if we are to understand the premises of Chinas national strategy and set a baseline from which to measure any future change in those premises.
