Pillsbury said the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) “[knows] to avoid direct conflict and avoid a wake-up call. And today, I believe some Chinese have told me they think 30 percent of the Americans are anti-China. Now, these public opinion polls that say 70 percent, that’s really not ‘enemy.’ It’s really ‘China’s unfriendly,’ or ‘I don’t trust them.’ But those people are still willing to invest in China, buy Chinese products. So we’re nowhere near a wake-up call.”

Pillsbury argued that China is weakened by “controversy and debate and power struggles that go on at the very top,” saying that top CCP leaders have a history of killing each other.