I have written several articles on postings related to politics. A list of links have been provided at bottom of this article for your convenience. This article will, however address different aspects on these political events.

In 1995, Michael Pillsbury, an expert on China who has worked with every US president since Nixon and has, he writes, “arguably had more access to China’s military and intelligence establishment than any other Westerner,” was reading an article written by “three of China’s preeminent military experts” about “new technologies that would contribute to the defeat of the United States.” It was in this article that Pillsbury first saw the term “Assassin’s Mace,” which refers to a weapon from Chinese folklore that guarantees a small combatant victory over a larger, more powerful opponent.

The article described goals including “electromagnetic combat superiority” that would allow for “naval victory,” and “tactical laser weapons” that would “be used first in anti-missile defense systems.” They also discussed jamming and destroying radar and various communications systems, and the use of computer viruses.

In time, Pillsbury began seeing the term “Assassin’s Mace” with regularity in Chinese documents. “In the military context,” he writes, “Assassin’s Mace refers to a set of asymmetric weapons that allow an inferior power to defeat a seemingly superior adversary by striking at an enemy’s weakest point.” The Assassin’s Mace, he came to believe, was part of a cunning and much broader strategy, a 100-year-long effort to overtake the US as the world’s superpower. The point of Assassin’s Mace — which, Pillsbury learned, the Chinese were already spending billions of dollars to develop — was to “make a generational leap in military capabilities that can trump the conventional forces of Western powers,” but to do so incrementally, so that by the time they achieved their goal, it would be too late for the US to respond to, much less reverse.

In a sense, the book “The Hundred-Year Marathon” is Pillsbury’s mea culpa. “Looking back, it was painful that I was so gullible,” he writes. Pillsbury notes that he and many other China experts were taught early on to view China as “a helpless victim of Western imperialists” and that as such, assistance should be provided almost unquestioningly. Now, he says, he has come to consider this view — which he now believes came about as a result of intentional deception and misdirection on the part of the Chinese — as “the most systemic, significant and dangerous intelligence failure in American history.” “For decades,” Pillsbury adds, “the US government has freely handed over sensitive information, technology, military know-how, intelligence and expert advice to the Chinese. Indeed, so much has been provided for so long that . . . there is no full accounting. And what we haven’t given the Chinese, they’ve stolen.”

Part of what Pillsbury sees as America’s naiveté on the issue derived from fundamental misunderstandings about the nature of Chinese culture. Pillsbury now believes that since the time of Mao Zedong, China has been engaged in an effort to establish China as the world’s premier superpower by 2049, the 100th anniversary of the Communist Revolution. The reason this has been so little known, he says, is that the Chinese consider physical battles just one minor aspect of warfare. China’s main weapon, he says, is deception — the constant appearance of achieving less than they really have and needing our help more than they actually do.

China’s secret plan to topple the US as the world’s superpower

By Larry Getlen

February 8, 2015 | 6:00am

It was in this article that Pillsbury first saw the term “Assassin’s Mace,” which refers to a weapon from Chinese folklore that guarantees a small combatant victory over a larger, more powerful opponent.

In time, Pillsbury began seeing the term “Assassin’s Mace” with regularity in Chinese documents.

“In the military context,” he writes, “Assassin’s Mace refers to a set of asymmetric weapons that allow an inferior power to defeat a seemingly superior adversary by striking at an enemy’s weakest point.”

At first, Pillsbury writes, he considered these statements aspirational. But as US intelligence analysts translated documents over time, he came to see otherwise. The Assassin’s Mace, he came to believe, was part of a cunning and much broader strategy, a 100-year-long effort to overtake the US as the world’s superpower.

The point of Assassin’s Mace — which, Pillsbury learned, the Chinese were already spending billions of dollars to develop — was to “make a generational leap in military capabilities that can trump the conventional forces of Western powers,” but to do so incrementally, so that by the time they achieved their goal, it would be too late for the US to respond to, much less reverse.

China duped us

In a sense, the new book “The Hundred-Year Marathon” is Pillsbury’s mea culpa. He readily admits that, as a key influencer of US government policy toward China for the past four decades, he had long been one of many in the federal government pushing the US toward full cooperation with China, including heavy financial and technological support, under the belief that the country was headed in a more democratic, free-market direction.

“Looking back, it was painful that I was so gullible,” he writes.

Pillsbury notes that he and many other China experts were taught early on to view China as “a helpless victim of Western imperialists” and that as such, assistance should be provided almost unquestioningly.

Now, he says, he has come to consider this view — which he now believes came about as a result of intentional deception and misdirection on the part of the Chinese — as “the most systemic, significant and dangerous intelligence failure in American history.”

“We believed that American aid to a fragile China whose leaders thought like us would help China become a democratic and peaceful power without ambitions of . . . global dominance,” he writes.

“We underestimated the influence of China’s hawks. Every one of the assumptions behind that belief was wrong — dangerously so.”

“For decades,” Pillsbury adds, “the US government has freely handed over sensitive information, technology, military know-how, intelligence and expert advice to the Chinese. Indeed, so much has been provided for so long that . . . there is no full accounting. And what we haven’t given the Chinese, they’ve stolen.”

A superpower by 2049

Part of what Pillsbury sees as America’s naiveté on the issue derived from fundamental misunderstandings about the nature of Chinese culture.

Pillsbury now believes that since the time of Mao Zedong, China has been engaged in an effort to establish China as the world’s premier superpower by 2049, the 100th anniversary of the Communist Revolution.

The reason this has been so little known, he says, is that the Chinese consider physical battles just one minor aspect of warfare. China’s main weapon, he says, is deception — the constant appearance of achieving less than they really have and needing our help more than they actually do.

Pillsbury believes this philosophy’s origins derive from a book — the title of which translates to “The General Mirror for the Aid of Government” — that Mao brought with him on his long march in the 1930s. Described as “a statecraft manual with lessons from history that have no Western counterpart,” one section of the book “centers on stratagems of the Warring States period in China, and includes stories and maxims dating as far back as 4000 BC.” Included in these are lessons on “how to use deception, how to avoid encirclement by opponents and how a rising power should induce complacency in the old hegemon until the right moment.”

Pillsbury believes China has strategically positioned itself as a nation in great need of our help since the 1960s, noting that contrary to popular belief, President Richard Nixon’s opening to China in the ’70s was initiated by China, not the US. During early meetings between Mao and Nixon, Mao pushed for the two countries to work together against the Soviet threat, with Mao urging the US to “create an anti-Soviet axis that would include Europe, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, and Japan.” “A counter encirclement of the Soviet hegemon was a classic Warring States approach,” Pillsbury writes. “What the Americans missed was that it was not a permanent Chinese policy preference, but only expedient cooperation among two Warring States.”

As Deng Xiaoping came to greater power in China in the late 1970s, America rejoiced, believing him a reform-minded moderate. Pillsbury, though, says that behind the scenes, he was far more hard-line. Believing that China had erred in following the Soviet economic model and that the country had “failed to extract all they could” from the Soviet relationship, “Deng would not make the same mistake with the Americans.” In the decades to come, Pillsbury believes, America helped build China’s economy and military while unknowingly following the Warring States script. Following a Warring States philosophy of tricking your opponent into doing your work for you, Deng knew that technology would be the driver for building the Chinese economy and “believed that the only way China could pass the United States as an economic power was through massive scientific and technological development. An essential shortcut would be to take what the Americans already had.”

Meeting with President Jimmy Carter in 1978, Deng arranged for what would become 19,000 Chinese science students to study here, and Deng and Carter reached an agreement for the US to provide China with “the greatest outpouring of American scientific and technological expertise in history.” Under President Ronald Reagan, for whom Pillsbury served as a foreign policy adviser, the Pentagon agreed to “sell advanced air, ground, naval and missile technology to the Chinese to transform the People’s Liberation Army into a world-class fighting force,” later including “nuclear cooperation and development . . . to expand China’s military and civilian nuclear programs.” Reagan also assisted in China’s development of industries such as “intelligent robotics, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, lasers, supercomputers, space technology and manned spaceflight.” “Before long,” Pillsbury writes, “the Chinese had made significant progress on more than 10,000 projects, all heavily dependent on Western assistance and all crucial to China’s Marathon strategy.” Similar assistance has continued to this day.

All along, Pillsbury writes, China secretly continued to view us as a tyrant, so much so that “starting in 1990, Chinese textbooks were rewritten to depict the United States as a hegemon that, for more than 150 years, had tried to stifle China’s rise and destroy the soul of Chinese civilization.” In time, Pillsbury would come to believe that, despite a great amount of American assistance to China over the years, the Chinese people never saw or read anything positive about America.

The Warring States strategy advises the underdog to keep its intentions secret until sufficient power against the hegemon is both strong and irreversible. Then it should show its teeth. Looking ahead, Pillsbury quotes a RAND Corporation study as saying that China will have “more than $1 trillion” to spend on their military through 2030. This “paints a picture of near parity, if not outright Chinese military superiority, by mid-century.”

During visits to the country over the past three years, Pillsbury says, he has seen a stark shift in China’s attitude toward the US. Chinese scholars he’s known for decades, he says, have long denied any sort of “Chinese-led world order.” Now they are showing a sudden brash willingness to admit to what Pillsbury believes is China’s true intent. “The hard truth,” Pillsbury writes, “is that China’s leaders see America as an enemy in a global struggle they plan on winning.”

Another book written on the subject of China and world dominance was written by two Chinese Colonels. In 1999, these colonels wrote a book called Unrestricted Warfare, about warfare in the age of globalization. Their main argument: Warfare in the modern world will no longer be primarily a struggle defined by military means — or even involve the military at all. Colonels Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui argued that war was no longer about “using armed forces to compel the enemy to submit to one’s will” in the classic Clausewitzian sense. Rather, they asserted that war had evolved to “using all means, including armed force or non-armed force, military and non-military, and lethal and non-lethal means to compel the enemy to accept one’s interests.” The barrier between soldiers and civilians would fundamentally be erased, because the battle would be everywhere. The number of new battlefields would be “virtually infinite,” and could include environmental warfare, financial warfare, trade warfare, cultural warfare, and legal warfare, to name just a few. They wrote of assassinating financial speculators to safeguard a nation’s financial security, setting up slush funds to influence opponents’ legislatures and governments, and buying controlling shares of stocks to convert an adversary’s major television and newspapers outlets into tools of media warfare. According to the editor’s note, Qiao argued in a subsequent interview that “the first rule of unrestricted warfare is that there are no rules, with nothing forbidden.” That vision clearly transcends any traditional notions of war.

Unrestricted Warfare was an explicit response to the reigning Western military orthodoxy of the time. The preface is dated January 17, 1999, which the authors note was the eighth anniversary of the outbreak of the 1991 Gulf War. In many ways, their argument refuted many of the Western lessons drawn from that conflict: that wars could be short, sharp, and dominated by high-technology weaponry used with stunning precision to shatter an enemy’s armed forces in hours or days. By 1999, U.S. military thinking was dominated by the revolution in military affairs and network centric-warfare, which relied on advanced technologies to give the United States total battlefield dominance.

But Qiao and Wang argued that the battlefield had fundamentally changed. It was no longer a place where militaries met and fought; instead, society itself was now the battlefield. Future wars would inevitably encompass attacks on all elements of society without limits. Military battles resembling those of 1991 might become secondary elements of conflict — if they even occurred at all. A lot has changed in the past 17 years. The United States has fought two long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and weathered the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, for example. But perhaps the most fundamental change to the way we live has been the explosive growth of the internet and our utter dependence on the cyber domain. When Qiao and Wang wrote their book, today’s cyber world was barely imaginable, and then only in the minds of visionaries and the most imaginative computer geeks.

Today, the United States, and increasingly the rest of the world, thoroughly depends on web connections built in cyberspace. The internet dominates all aspects of global trade, economics, communications, and even societies. And that makes Unrestricted Warfare even more relevant today than when it was published — because waging war without limits is now simpler and easier than even its authors could have envisioned. In 1999, the ability to assault all elements of an opponent’s society seemed to require the resources or sponsorship of a powerful nation state. Now, an increasingly interconnected world allows adversaries at keyboards — from states to terrorist groups to disgruntled citizens — to instantly vault oceans and continents to strike at any element of another nation and society without ever having to encounter defending military forces. The nation will always need military forces to defend against foreign military threats. But the U.S. armed forces — which remain the strongest and best-resourced in the world — provide virtually no defense against the cyber vulnerabilities that affect every American business and household. And the ever-expanding Internet of things (IoT) only increases those vulnerabilities.

These deep national and global vulnerabilities require us to think about conflict and warfare in a much more holistic way than ever before. We still think of warfare as primarily military in nature, channeling our 20th-century experience. But our adversaries can now bypass the military domain completely and can directly attack how we live our lives. And now, unlike in 1999, nearly anyone with a smart phone or laptop can join that fight. Seventeen years ago, Qiao and Wang warned us that these myriad new forms of non-military warfare were coming. Today we all now live on that battlefield — an unlimited zone of conflict that can reach each one of us in every aspect of our lives and work. The unconstrained notions of modern war articulated in Unrestricted Warfare have now arrived. Boundaries between soldiers and civilians, combatants and bystanders have all but disappeared in this dangerous new world. Providing effective national security in this unprecedented environment of mass exposure requires our policymakers to plan for unrestricted warfare. This growing and nearly boundless threat requires us to develop better policies, better deterrent capabilities, and far more developed defenses. We can’t wait for the first big attack of the next war to throw society into chaos — rethinking what war now means in our interconnected world demands the attention of our civilian and military leaders today.

As you can see we can no longer give our secrets to China. It has taken us 50 years to realize that they are not our friend and ally but our direct competitor and enemy. They want to be the world leader. The long-term goal of world communism is a worldwide communist society that is stateless , which may be achieved through an intermediate-term goal of either a voluntary association of sovereign states or a world government. With Bejing as the center of the world. Originally it was supposed to be Moscow, however the Soviet Union collapsed. Now it is up to China to carry the torch. Socialism and communism has infected the USA. If we fall under its spell, the rest of the world will soon follow. You may ask why is this bad? It is bad because the government is authoritarian. People have little or no rights. Citizens are imprisoned for the slightest infringements. Every aspect of their lives is controlled. If you don’t believe me go to China and check it out. If you value your freedom and liberty, you need to fight in the war against Socialism. Stick up for your rights. The first and Second amendments cannot be destroyed.

China’s Next Step Toward World Domination

By Brad Schaeffer

(Update 12/17/2021)

When Churchill became First Lord of the Admiralty in 1911 Winston Churchill led the transitioning of the Royal Navy from coal-fired to fuel-burning ships of the line; suddenly the need to secure sources of oil far from the British Isles led to Great Britain’s wider presence on the high seas…something that did not go unnoticed by the Kaiser in Germany, helping push the two powers into a disastrous conflict. In 1941, Japan, suffering under the crippling impact of a US oil embargo, decided they had no choice but to invade the oil-rich Dutch East Indies—but to do so unmolested they also had to take out the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor and capture our military bases in the Philippines, the latter of which stood astride the shipping lanes. And so the USA was plunged into a world war. In 1942, Hitler sent his powerful Army Group South onto the steppes of Southern Russia and into the Caucasus region in a drive to capture its petroleum facilities…he would lose an entire army, and with it the war, in the burning rubble of Stalingrad.

China is now the latest player on the find-the-energy game board. But unlike the myopic Tojo, or megalomaniacal Hitler, Xi Jinping is no fool. One must assume that he has studied the past and considered how best to address China’s Achilles heel, which is a lack of proven energy reserves within its borders, unlike its arch-rival the United States. So, while we debate pronouns at home while 20 years of blood and treasure are squandered in pointless nation-building folly abroad, China has been slowly, quietly, establishing a presence in Africa and the region of the Indian Ocean.

According to the IEA’s Africa Energy Outlook, Africa’s share in the global energy mix is set to soar from 5 per cent today to 25 percent by 2040. Over 40 per cent of global gas discoveries from 2011 to 2018 have been in Africa. Chinese investments and contracts in sub-Saharan Africa totaled $299 billion from 2005 to 2018, according to the China Investment Global Tracker. And in 2018, Chinese president Xi Jinping vowed to invest a further $60 billion into African nations.

But once you have a foothold in the next energy revolution, how best to secure it? That is the next step. Which is why, with very little media coverage, U.S. officials reported that Beijing is actively seeking a permanent naval base on the west coast of Africa. They could be eyeing Equatorial Guinea’s port city of Bata for the base. The report said Bata already comes with a deep-water port that had been upgraded by China Road & Bridge Co. from 2009 to 2014. It makes sense. With so much capital poured into such a tumultuous part of the globe, China would want a hands-on military presence in the region to secure its investments.

But there is a deeper, more ominous take-away from such a venture should it come to pass. Since the turn of the last century the Atlantic has been within the United States’ sphere of influence. The idea of a rival naval base right on the other side of “the pond” is disconcerting and destabilizing. Tensions between the U.S. and Communist China are only going to intensify in the next few years as the Chinese achieve economic and military parity.

Indeed, if ever there was a time for Beijing to flex its muscle it is now. The United States has probably never been this lacking in resolve since the fall of Saigon in 1975. China watches with glee as we are humiliated in Afghanistan, our streets burn, our military concentrates on racial theory and gender fluidity rather than waging violence on our behalf, our government from D.C. to the state capitals seems unable to come up with a coherent or proportional response to the Covid epidemic (of Chinese origin), the lower and middle classes reel from skyrocketing inflation, which will only be fueled by a budget-obliteration, dollar crushing “Build Back Better” print-and-spend orgy never before seen in the annals of governance. And all of this while being supervised (in theory at least) by an enfeebled, mentally failing, near octogenarian who is clearly just a puppet dangling on the string of lobbyists, left-wing activists, and cynical party bosses. What better time to flex Chinese muscle than now? (Fine, let the U.S. fixate on Putin and far-away Ukraine if they like. All the better.)

China has always had its eyes on expanding its presence in the Western Pacific and in the process absorbing free Taiwan as it has Hong Kong. But its latest machinations across the Atlantic from our own shores represent a quantum leap in Chinese hegemony. The United States has already ceded manufacturing, rare earth, and other industries vital to not just economic prowess and diversity but national security to Chinese control. Now the Biden administration seems hell-bent on rolling back our ace in the hole, energy independence and export capacity. Had they searched far and wide for a Manchurian Candidate to do their bidding, the CCP could not have done better than the stupefied Joe Biden at the titular helm of their adversary’s floundering ship of state. No wonder they have chosen this moment to move to secure their Atlantic flank and further box us in. What is the Biden administration going to do about it? Do Americans want to see their children die in yet another overseas war run by incompetents who are never held responsible for their actions? Ask the Taliban.

All is not lost though. The Biden administration has shown some backbone as of late by barring U.S. diplomats from attending the Beijing Olympics. Ouch! After all, what good is it to Xi as he works diligently to tip the scales in not just the Pacific but the Atlantic as well in his quest to make the 21st Century the Chinese Century when in the process he loses his chance to have a photo op with Pete Buttigieg?

Feds Investigating Whether Chinese Company’s Big US Project Poses National Security Danger

(Update 9/5/2022)

Federal authorities reviewing a Chinese company’s purchase of land in North Dakota for a wet corn milling plant say more information is needed before they can decide whether the project might be detrimental to national security.

Fufeng Group’s planned $700 million project in Grand Forks is near a U.S. Air Force base, prompting opponents to raise concerns about the potential for espionage.

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States told Fufeng in a letter this week that the information the company has provided is “insufficient.”

The company said in a statement that it has been “open and cooperative” with U.S. officials and will comply with the government’s request for more information.

Grand Forks City Administrator Todd Feland said Friday that infrastructure work being done by the city for the project would be halted until the review is complete. He said the review is expected to take up to three months.

“I think it’s going to be one of the most highly scrutinized projects from a national security perspective through this process, which is good for everybody,” Feland said.

Amid growing opposition toward the project, Gov. Doug Burgum and North Dakota U.S. Sens. John Hoeven and Kevin Cramer — all Republicans — pressed the U.S. government in July to expedite a review to ensure it doesn’t pose a risk to national security.

Feland has said the company, which is privately owned, voluntarily submitted a formal request for a review in July.

The Grand Forks City Council in February gave initial approval to the Chinese business for its proposed corn-milling facility that officials said could be the largest private sector investment in the community’s history.

Fufeng makes products for the animal nutrition, food and beverage, pharmaceutical, health and wellness, oil and gas, and other industries. It’s a leading producer of xanthan gum. The Grand Forks site would be its first U.S.-based manufacturing facility.

Resources:

nypost.com, “China’s secret plan to topple the US as the world’s superpower,” By Larry Getlen; “Unrestricted Warfare,” By Col. Quiao Liang and Col. Wang Xiangsui; “The Hundred-Year Marathon,” By Michael Pillsbury; warontherocks.com, “A NEW GENERATION OF UNRESTRICTED WARFARE,” By DAVID BARNO AND NORA BENSAHEL; dailywire.com, “China’s Next Step Toward World Domination.” By Brad Schaeffer; westernjournal.com, “Feds Investigating Whether Chinese Company’s Big US Project Poses National Security Danger.” By The Associated Press;

Common Sense and Ramblings In America

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China duped us

A superpower by 2049

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China’s secret plan to topple the US as the world’s superpower

China duped us

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