Michael pillsbury director of the hutson Institutes Center on chinese strategy argues that china has a secret plan to supplant the u. S. As the Worlds Largest superpower by 2049. He makes the case in his book, the hundredyear marathon. He recently talked about his book at the hutson institute in washington d. C. This is an our and a half. Good afternoon. I hope all of you can hear me. I am Husain Haqqani the director for south and central asia here at the Hudson Institute and its a pleasure for me today to host this discussion on the hundredyear marathon, the book by Michael Pillsbury who is now a senior fellow and director for chinese strategy here at the Hudson Institute. Hes a distinguished defense policy adviser former highranking government. He served under the reagan and george h. W. Bush administrations. The book which i commend to everyone in the audience preferably properly bought in hardcover, paid for. Actually reveals how the peoples peoples republic of china census funding has had a longtime goal to establish chinas preeminence and michael thinks it is outwitted the United States in the process. Not long ago i wrote a book on pakistaniu. S. Relations passing passing asked after having served and delusions or to make a similar argument. It seems everybody manages to outwit washington d. C. And here is my take as a foreigner. The reason is we assume that the others basically want the same things as they do so there is an assumption that is what they want so therefore if we could just find and they have a relatively simple word in American Foreign policies since americas preeminence after the Second World War and particularly the superpower has been based on a simple binary. Who can we bomb and had kami take out to lunch . So china is a unique country because its a country that is on the mom left to take out to lunch list and of course the lunch has become a minilunch and far more interesting. Before we get started with michaels comments and my own question and answer with him and opened up to questions and answers from all of you we have a message from congressman folks who is the chairman of the china caucus in the house of representatives. He could not join us in person but his message to us and his comments will be relayed by my colleague carolyn stewart. The press secretary of the Hudson Institute. Indeed. While i regret not be able to join in person today is a pleasure to have this opportunity to share some brief thoughts on the the hundredyear marathon and the contributions of dr. Mike pillsbury to this tremendously important debate about the future trajectory of chinese power. Ive long valued dr. Pillsburys insights on china and the asiapacific region. He combines knowledge of chinese history culture and politics with an understanding of u. S. Security interests and the tools required to protect those interests. Whether as a congressional staffer and member of multiple president ial administrations a consultant to the pentagons office of met assessment or Hudson Institute scholar. Dr. Pillsbury has rendered important contributions to our nations understanding of china and its longterm relationship with the United States. Part of what makes the 100 year marathon such a unique contribution to the literature on sinoamerican relations is mikes recounting of evolution of the issue. Rather than simply choosing a camp and sticking comfortably within it as happens far too often on important foreignpolicy issues mike sees on china changed as the facts on the ground change. His intellectual honestly onesy led him to seek china china as the longterm competitiveness is requiring the serious application of longterm competitive strategies. And he has been a powerful voice articulating what the strategy should look like. As we look at the century ahead it is more important than ever that the u. S. Look to the u. S. China relationship holistic weight and in the context of the longterm extended competition that will play out over multiple areas and over the course of many years. Im committed to ensuring that americas presence in the asiapacific particularly in the military realm remains robust and is continually evolving to meet new challenges. Areas like unmanned aviation the u. S. Is enduring advantage in the undersea domain and are banned in emerging technologies like directed energy must be appropriately resourced. I want to thank you all for the worse you do in promoting strong u. S. National defense in a continued u. S. Presence in the asiapacific. It is americas commitment to the region that is done so much to insure peace and prosperity over the last several decades. We have an opportunity today to put in place policies that will allow this presence to endure for another seven decades and beyond. This is an important book by a serious thinker in the field and his recommendations offered much to consider. Thank you for allowing me to share a few thoughts with you and i think Mike Pillsbury for his invaluable contributions. [applause] i would like Michael Pillsbury to start with a few remarks about his book. As i see it michael that particular question in your book is a discussion of the china dream and how the u. S. May have wittingly or unwittingly help fulfill that dream. A good starting point for your conversation with us would be describing the china dream as you have understood over the years and also to answer the critical question that the book attempts to answer which is what if the china dream is to replace us just as america replaced the British Empire without fighting firing a single shot. Michael pillsbury welcome to this discussion. Thank you ambassador haqqani. I would answer your question about the china dream by explaining a few things that are in the book that i think is new evidence about chinas secret strategy for what china calls the 100 year marathon. This is not my idea. Its a chinese book and i would also point out that today the chinese believe i think correctly that we are in year 65 of the 100 year marathon. That means there are 34 more years to go so there are a lot of things on the american side that i proposed in the last chapter that we could do and one of them is related to what the china dream is because to some degree what you might call the American Dream and the china dream are compatible. Its not a zerosum you cant have your dream if i want to have my dream. The overlap is the focus of a number of organizations here in washington d. C. That i not only praise, i say we have to expand the budget and they have to do more. Its like lighting a a candle instead of praising the darkness and the candle that is already going and several in the recommendations, number one the National Endowment for democracy has done a great deal in china and has to do a great deal more. Its budget began very low. Has the same president it has always had. Hes like a lifetime president for the National Endowment for democracy and a number of speeches about democracy in china he has seens budget grow i think 10 times bigger than i was in the beginning. He attended the oslo ceremony when received the Nobel Peace Prize and was not there because he was in jail. I say a lot in here about the china dream and when i first met him in 1989 when he was at the Tiananmen Square demonstration, acting ambassador at the time. I drove down Tiananmen Square with the flags going. We got out of the car and went to see the students. No one knew of course its very important, no one knew what was going to happen. It appeared to be a peaceful demonstration at Tiananmen Square against corruption of all things. We met with him and the others. I still remember he was a chain smoker. He had aviation glasses on. When the president of the National Endowment for democracy went to oslo he and many other countries who were either there or not theyre true attention from china. The china dream is in fact to have what they call the harmonization or harmony in the world and their position is when this happens by 2049 if not sooner all countries will get along and there wont be organizations like the National Endowment for democracy. There also will not be trouble from the Human Rights Watch from the Amnesty International especially not from radio free asia. I see some people here and around helps me create radio free asia in 1989 as it was resisted strongly by the state department who testified against it. This will destroy u. S. China relations if we broadcast in mandarin about human rights and democracy and various things. So i dont want to give all these organizations names. The u. S. Chamber of commerce has recently joined up. They issued a report about the gangster is a nation of American Companies in china. Trade secrets being stolen Chinese Companies being treated in a very veritable way and American Companies not. The china dream seems to be quite comprehensive. They thought a lot about it. They say dont worry, china will not be a hegemony. There will not be a tyrannical country in moving the way america has been and i wanted to mention a couple of chinese names i hope you will all remember and keep with you. They are in the book and they are important to understand chinese thinking. They are both in the fourth town town, thus falling tone. One of them is pa. It also means tyrant. Its the way america leads the world but china when it has double or triple our Economy Today it has surpassed us according to the World Bank Last month. The chinese economist by 2030 it will be double. This is part of the china dream. The chinese economy will be double us by 2030 and by 2049 the end of the 100 year marathon from the books title chinas economy will be triple or more our economy. But they say china will not be a ba. China will use its virtue, its soft power comments natural attractiveness and perhaps military forces when there is disharmony and countries do not go along with the virtuous leadership. But this is all part of their vision of the china dream that in some books they actually talk openly about the american model how america surpassed england and Great Britain without firing a shot by a series of techniques techniques. The chinese believe their studies of american and british relations have shown. There is one book in particular called the eclipse of britain by a british professor who explains that in london for this 100 year marathon the americans ran against england. There was an antiamerican faction that said dont let these americans get out of hand. We have to crush them or use force against them in the caribbean for example and that mama during the time of Theodore Roosevelt but there was also a proamerican faction that said no america is just like us. They are surpassing us and its no big deal because they are us and the chinese view seems to be the 100 year marathon should not have the use of force as part of it ideally and they are quite sensitive in their writings to who is to in washington d. C. Who is the healthy forests. A friend of china someone who needs to be supported and praised and visit beijing and who was an unhealthy force. Who is trying to set back this 100 year marathon process and that is a whole chapter i give him what i call the message place the Message Police that is becoming more and more difficult. The reason i wrote the book come its becoming more and more difficult to get just the straight facts about u. S. China relations because there is so much spin applied by either the Chinese Government itself or americans who claimed to have an enlightened understanding of u. S. China relationship. Thats kind of a long answer but if i were an ambassador or i would have given such a long answer but i have tried to get into why rock the boat how the chinese think, how much i borrowed from their own writings to explain in a sympathetic way this is their dream. Some countries and some americans and some organizations are in the way of the hundred year marathon so they have harsh treatment in mind for those organizations. Grades. The first chapter of your book is entitled Wishful Thinking and it starts off with the incident with the chinese artist. I am trying to correct the pronunciation but i am becoming more like americans. You know how they say if you know several languages you are multilingual and if you know two languages you are bilingual and if you are american you are so tell us that incident and what led you to lead your book with it. Its an example of my wife and i admire in and loving chinese art. We have a lot of chinese dynasty sculptures and sometimes chinese delegations come to our home and say if you truly loved china you could give it back to the motherland but since china now has 150 billionaires chinese art is going up in value this particular artists performed something called the exploding Christmas Tree. About a month before christmas my wife susan have been the cochair of the gala that raised 2 million per National Asian art museum and the next day secretary of state clinton gave an award and there was a big payment made to this artist to blow up an American Christmas tree on the National Mall. Everybody applauded including me. It was a big crowd. Senior officials and he was given a medal to contributing to diplomacy for the arts and i wondered how can this be . Why are we paying so much money to blow up a Christmas Tree so close to christmas on the National Mall . As i say i was applauding. Then with the help of one of the defectors, six defectors in the book. One of the defectors helped me check out the artists and i found all kinds of things about them on line that i had not known and i dont think the smithsonian or the state department knew either that he is quite a nationalistic guy. He talked about 9 11 as an autistic spectacle to behold and he said his Favorite Book was a book called unrestricted warfare about how to use terrorism and cyberattacks to bring america to its knees by two chinese colonels who i talk about in the book. They are in the socalled hawk faction so i thought by beginning with that story i would show how susan and i try to help chinese art how we go in good faith to see the show and then how we learn oh my god theres a bigger story here than we realized. Anyways he is having a little fun with us. We pay him and is part of a larger story than in our own traditions marc twain has a great novel called adventures of tom sawyer and one of tom sawyers immortal tricks is very close to chinese strategy. He has to whitewash a fence hes being punished for it. Its very bad and scary hot but he scary scary hot but he tricks his friends and depending the fence for him. How does he do that quickly appeal to them. Only the best person can take this fence. You cant have the brush. They all do what in chinese is called nonaction to control the nonaction. As part of another concept that we can all say today sure, like you sure are smart. Sure is a flux for situation doing things earlier than the other guy can do them so tom sawyer getting his friends to paint the fence for him is all part of the same idea. You should other countries for support technology to win the 100 year marathon and i tried to show in here how some of the defectors told us this is what china has been doing. An extract from a book, the Americans Still dont see china the way it sees us a condition that has persisted for decades. The answer lies in ancient that says cross the sea in full view or in more practical terms hide in plain sight. As one of the 36 stratagems and essays from ancient chinese folklore. All of these stratagems are designed to defeat a more powerful opponents by using the opponents own strength against him. Explain. Will what part of the reason the title of the book the hundredyear marathon and the subtitle is chinas secret strategy to replace america as the global superpower this is not an openly declared strategy. In fact i use a line from american movie called the fight club and the first rule in the fight club you dont talk about the fight club. China does not openly describe the strategy. In fact they are very sensitive about being exposed. It goes back to his secret quote that chairman mao himself told other leaders in 1955 and repeated a couple of more times. He had a hard time getting this quote out of the chinese. One of the hawks reveal that in 2010. That quote from mao is you know chinas greatest contribution to all mankind is going to be to catch up and then surpass america. Mao tells his colleagues, this will take us from 50 to 75 years but we have got to do it and he begins to pull away from the soviet model and then he tries the communes. 20 to 40 Million People die and they get on to the new approach of the secret strategy. They need to follow many aspects of the american model. We need to get the americans to paint our fence for us. How can we do that . They do a lot of analysis and they begin to realize Science Technology investment exports to america getting companies to come in and provide hightech to china all of this big package we have got to get if we are going to implement chairman mau maus concept so they begin to do that in 1969 with four chinese generals writing them memo to mao. Mao was still alive. They say we need to follow the example of three king