⭐ The Hundred-Year Marathon by Pillsbury
| Full Title | The Hundred-Year Marathon: China’s Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower |
|---|---|
| Authors | Michael Pillsbury |
| Year Published | 2015 |
| Date Read | April 01, 2019 |
| Rating | 1/5 stars |
Listened to about 2 hours of this. There are two key problems with the book.
The first is that it seems like almost all of the content depends on just one source, the author. There are a bunch of red flags in the text that point to this, like the conspiratorial language that’s used, the author’s insistence that other China experts don’t understand Chinese nearly as well as he does (and so should be ignored), or claims that others have been successfully ‘duped’ by China’s public statements but that Pillsbury has spoken to former USSR operatives and knows what’s really going on. Having a single source doesn’t always mean a book is problematic; philosophical or autobiographical texts tend to have this same attribute and can work fine. But when you make a bunch of claims about a nation of over a billion people based on only personal experience and a claimed better understanding of Mandarin, I think it’s fair to cry foul.
The second deals with the thesis of the book.
Throughout the beginning chapters, Pillsbury keeps talking about how China wants to overtake the US, how they’re not OK playing second-fiddle, how China has tried to deceive the US into thinking they don’t have world leader ambitions, etc. The language and tone in which the author presents these ideas is meant to evoke fear, concern, and surprise on the side of the reader. But this is totally unsurprising to me: wouldn’t it make sense that China intends to be #1, especially when it has the greatest population? Becoming the world’s leading power is a very reasonable long-term goal for any nation-state. Pillsbury’s presentation is akin a basketball coach telling his players things like “the other team wants to beat us!” and “you don’t get it, they want to be the champions, they’re not OK taking second place!” I think most people would be confused that the coach would think players need to be reminded of this key attribute of any competition.
Not recommended.