The Hundred-Year Marathon Quotes

“Chinese literature on strategy from Sun Tzu through Mao Tse-tung has emphasized deception more than many military doctrines. Chinese deception is oriented mainly toward inducing the enemy to act inexpediently and less toward protecting the integrity of one’s own plans. In other cultures, particularly Western, deception is used primarily with the intention of ensuring that one’s own forces can realize their maximum striking potential … the prevalent payoff of deception for the Chinese is that one does not have to use one’s own forces.… Chinese tend to shroud their means in secrecy and not publicize the day-to-day activities of those in power; for surprise and deception are assumed to be vital.28”
― Michael Pillsbury, The Hundred-Year Marathon: China's Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower

“I was told—by the same people who had long assured me of China’s interest in only a modest leadership role within an emerging multipolar world—that the Communist Party is realizing its long-term goal of restoring China to its “proper” place in the world. In effect, they were telling me that they had deceived me and the American government. With perhaps a hint of understated pride, they were revealing the most systematic, significant, and dangerous intelligence failure in American history. And because we have no idea the Marathon is even under way, America is losing.”
― Michael Pillsbury, The Hundred-Year Marathon: China's Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower

“The Chinese censorship army is so widespread that June 4 (the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests) is sarcastically known as “Internet maintenance day.”
― Michael Pillsbury, The Hundred-Year Marathon: China's Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower

“Never ask the weight of the emperor’s cauldrons.” In other words, don’t let the enemy know you’re a rival, until it is too late for him to stop you.”
― Michael Pillsbury, The Hundred-Year Marathon: China's Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower

“We now know, from Henry Kissinger’s memoirs, that the decision to pursue an opening with the United States came not from China’s civilian leaders, but instead from a committee of four Chinese generals.6”
― Michael Pillsbury, The Hundred-Year Marathon: China's Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower

“Chinese military and intelligence services use quantitative measurements to determine how China compares with its geopolitical competitors, and how long it will be before China can overtake them.”
― Michael Pillsbury, The Hundred-Year Marathon: China's Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower

“As Napoleon Bonaparte famously said, “Never stop your enemy when he is making a mistake.”
― Michael Pillsbury, The Hundred-Year Marathon: China's Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower

“You can’t improve unless you know what you need to improve. You can’t come from behind in a race against your competitors unless you know the respects in which you have fallen behind.”
― Michael Pillsbury, The Hundred-Year Marathon: China's Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower

“It’s easy to win a race when you’re the only one who knows it has begun.”
― Michael Pillsbury, The Hundred-Year Marathon: China's Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower

“The overall lesson is that a more powerful opponent sometimes can be cleverly persuaded to not use his most powerful advantage against you.”
― Michael Pillsbury, The Hundred-Year Marathon: China's Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower

“This empire “values order over freedom, ethics over law, and elite governance over democracy and human rights.”
― Michael Pillsbury, The Hundred-Year Marathon: China's Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower

“kill with a borrowed sword”
― Michael Pillsbury, The Hundred-Year Marathon: China's Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower

“The Chinese planned to use the Americans as they had used the Soviets—as tools for their own advancement, all the while pledging cooperation against a third rival power.”
― Michael Pillsbury, The Hundred-Year Marathon: China's Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower

“Whereas Americans tended to favor direct action, those of Chinese ethnic origin were found to favor the indirect over the direct, ambiguity and deception over clarity and transparency. Another conclusion was that Chinese literature and writings on strategy prized deception.27”
― Michael Pillsbury, The Hundred-Year Marathon: China's Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower

“Deceive the heavens to cross the ocean.”
― Michael Pillsbury, The Hundred-Year Marathon: China's Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower

“Just as America has its camps of hawks and doves, its so-called neoconservatives, interventionists, realists, and isolationists, Chinese elites are divided. The difference, of course, is that those debates rarely occur in view of the Chinese public and the Western press. There is no Congress of elected representatives or truly open forums to discuss such matters.”
― Michael Pillsbury, The Hundred-Year Marathon: China's Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower

“The Chinese invented mercantilism (zhong-shang), and the country’s leaders reject the West’s contention that mercantilism has been rendered obsolete by the success of free markets and free trade.10”
― Michael Pillsbury, The Hundred-Year Marathon: China's Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower

“In 1991, China’s leaders secretly used a Warring States proverb, tao guang, yang hui. When the document containing this phrase leaked, Beijing translated it as the cryptic and generic “bide your time, build your capabilities.”4 But in its proper context, the proverb actually alludes to overturning the old hegemon and exacting revenge, but only once the rising power has developed the ability to do so.”
― Michael Pillsbury, The Hundred-Year Marathon: China's Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower

“Establish and employ metrics for measuring your status relative to other potential challengers. Chinese strategy places a high premium on assessing China’s relative power, during peacetime and in the event of war, across a plethora of dimensions beyond just military considerations. The United States, by contrast, has never attempted to do this.”
― Michael Pillsbury, The Hundred-Year Marathon: China's Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower

“I was among those encouraged to visit China to witness the emergence of “democratic” elections in a village near the industrial town of Dongguan. While visiting, I had a chance to talk in Mandarin with the candidates and see how the elections actually worked. The unwritten rules of the game soon became clear: the candidates were allowed no public assemblies, no television ads, and no campaign posters. They were not allowed to criticize any policy implemented by the Communist Party, nor were they free to criticize their opponents on any issue.”
― Michael Pillsbury, The Hundred-Year Marathon: China's Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower

“From thwarting reconstruction efforts and economic development in war-ravaged Afghanistan to offering lifelines to embattled anti-Western governments in Sudan and North Korea, China has opposed the actions and goals of the U.S. government. Indeed, China is building its own relationships with America’s allies and enemies that contradict any peaceful or productive intentions of Beijing.”
― Michael Pillsbury, The Hundred-Year Marathon: China's Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower

“A dangerous implication of this emerges when China expects the United States to behave like an aggressive hegemon eager to retain its dominant position; when the Americans instead promote détente, the UN Charter, and democracy and human rights for all, China gets suspicious. What are the Americans really up to? Perhaps some among China’s moderates and reformists understand America’s good intentions. The hawks, however, see only American deception.”
― Michael Pillsbury, The Hundred-Year Marathon: China's Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower

“When capable, feign incapacity.”
― Michael Pillsbury, The Hundred-Year Marathon: China's Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower

“The implicit deal of working in China seems to be this: you may report on China’s fantastic growth, but if you start criticizing the Communist Party or its top officials you will be kicked out of the country.”
― Michael Pillsbury, The Hundred-Year Marathon: China's Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower

“the Airpocalypse didn’t inspire China to change its environmental tune. Beijing refuses to abide by any international agreement that might force it to prioritize environmentally responsible, long-term sustainable growth.”
― Michael Pillsbury, The Hundred-Year Marathon: China's Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower

“There is still no available accounting of all the activities funded by the U.S. government to aid China. Not only is America funding its own chief opponent; it doesn’t even keep track of how much is being spent to do it.”
― Michael Pillsbury, The Hundred-Year Marathon: China's Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower

“It has been foolish to accept stories about China’s overwhelming obstacles to growth only to discover that China’s economy has tripled in size between 1997 and 2007 alone,”
― Michael Pillsbury, The Hundred-Year Marathon: China's Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower

“know what the opponent is trying to make you think about his nature; do not accept appearances at face value.”
― Michael Pillsbury, The Hundred-Year Marathon: China's Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower

“Sun Tzu and Confucius agreed on the necessity of discerning appearance from reality.”
― Michael Pillsbury, The Hundred-Year Marathon: China's Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower

“The China that Beijing’s leaders want us to see is not the real China. America’s political and opinion leaders need to distinguish between the “messages” they are sent by the Chinese versus the underlying reality.”
― Michael Pillsbury, The Hundred-Year Marathon: China's Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower