WSJ: Inside Pentagon, A Scholar Shapes Views of China

sept 8th

sorry only excerpts from this article, wsj copyright.

peaceful rise of china. ROTFL. they wouldnt recognize peaceful if it were presented to them on a platter with watercress around it.

china is the worst imperialist power around, and has been throughout history.

and our fools talk of bhai-bhai.

 

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

PAGE ONE

Secret Weapon

Inside Pentagon,
A Scholar Shapes
Views of China

Beijing, Mr. Pillsbury Says,
Sees U.S. as Military Foe;
An Optimist Turns Gloomy

His Direct Line to Top Aides

By NEIL KING JR.
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
September 8, 2005; Page A1

WASHINGTON -- Michael Pillsbury, influential Pentagon adviser and former China
lover, believes most Americans have China all wrong. They think of the place as
an inherently gentle country intent on economic prosperity.

In that camp he lumps the lower ranks of the State Department, the Central
Intelligence Agency, most U.S. investors and the majority of American China
scholars, whom he chides as "panda huggers." Mr. Pillsbury says his mission is
to assure that the Defense Department doesn't fall into the same trap.

"Beijing sees the U.S. as an inevitable foe, and is planning accordingly,"
warns the 60-year-old China expert. "We'd be remiss not to take that into
account."
[Michael Pillsbury]

Mr. Pillsbury's 35-year China odyssey, from fondness to suspicion, parallels
Washington's own hot and cold relations with Beijing -- from the diplomatic
warming of the 1970s, through the shock and disillusionment of the
post-Tiananmen Square era, to today's growing economic and political tensions.
That's hardly a coincidence: Whether in public or in the policy-making shadows,
Mr. Pillsbury has been a persistent force in shaping official American
perceptions of a nation increasingly seen as the world's fastest-rising power.
...

"Mike's core insight has been to plumb the subterranean anti-American feelings
within China's military," says Daniel Blumenthal, a China specialist at the
Defense Department until late last year and now a scholar at the conservative
American Enterprise Institute. "He takes the Chinese at their word, and that
has given him real influence within the Pentagon."

...

The report laid out five "pathways" that could lead China to develop "more
assertive foreign and security policies" or even provoke small wars to secure
its growing energy needs. U.S. China experts noted that these and other
passages seemed lifted straight from Mr. Pillsbury's scholarly work.

The Chinese government disputes Mr. Pillsbury's assessments, as well as the
Pentagon's assertion that Beijing is dramatically increasing its military
spending. Asked to comment on Mr. Pillsbury, the Chinese Embassy in Washington
said in a statement that "any words or actions that fabricate and drum up
China's military threat are detrimental to regional peace and stability."

...

Mr. Pillsbury, who has nurtured ties with the Chinese military since the early
1970s, insists he remains open-minded. "My core doctrine is that the Chinese
think differently than we think they do and that it's imperative we understand
what motivates them," he says.

...

Following Tiananmen, Mr. Pillsbury's conclusions on China became notably
darker. In one 1993 study, he noted: "China has the advantage that many experts
on Chinese affairs...testify soothingly that China today is a satisfied power
which deeply desires a peaceful environment in which to develop its economy.
They put the burden of proof on others, defying pessimists to prove that China
may ever become hypernationalistic or aggressive."

...

In early 1995, Mr. Marshall sent Mr. Pillsbury to Beijing to gather Chinese
military writings. The Pentagon by then was promoting a new generation of
heavily computerized military hardware, and Mr. Marshall wanted to see what the
Chinese made of this so-called revolution in military affairs.

Mr. Pillsbury interviewed dozens of authors, and returned after several trips
with crates of books and journals, more than 500 volumes in all. The haul
formed the core of his first two books, both published by the Pentagon's
National Defense University.

Hardly light reading, the books got glowing reviews from several
neoconservative thinkers, including Paul Wolfowitz, Mr. Rumsfeld's former top
aide and now president of the World Bank.

In his 1997 "Chinese Views of Future Warfare," Mr. Pillsbury portrays a
military hierarchy fascinated with information warfare and the need for weapons
systems to deliver "acupuncture" strikes and take out satellites. A particular
obsession: what he claims to be the Chinese pursuit of "shashoujian," or a
secret "assassin's weapon" that China can use to surprise a more powerful
opponent.

"Mike can make a good case that the Chinese are developing submarines to sink
our aircraft carriers or missiles to take out our satellites," says James
Lilly, a former CIA station chief who served as ambassador to China in the
early 1990s. "His whole point is, 'Pay attention. Listen to what they are
saying.'" China's long-term strategy, Mr. Pillsbury argues, is to amass its
strengths while attracting as little attention as possible.

He is increasingly convinced that China's military thinkers and strategists
derive much of their guidance and inspiration from China's Warring States
period, an era of pre-unification strife about 2,300 years ago. This is the
thesis of his latest book, "The Future of China's Ancient Strategy," which the
Pentagon plans to publish this fall. Its core assertion is that China's history
and culture posit the existence of a "hegemon" -- these days, the United States
-- that must be defeated over time.


...
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