As Michael Pillsbury wrote in his book, The Hundred Years Marathon, this had always been the aim of China’s leaders from the very beginning of the rapprochement with President Nixon. But the Chinese had kept their ambitions secret, until now. Having become the number two economy of the world, with a well-equipped and sophisticated modern army and enough funds to launch an ambitious belt and road initiative to spread Chinese influence around the world, President Xi Jinping is ready to take on the task of making China the foremost world power.
This view is advanced by Michael Pillsbury in his book “The Hundred-Year Marathon: China’s Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower,” which was influential during the Trump administration, and by Rush Doshi in “The Long Game: China’s Grand Strategy to Displace American Order.” Mr. Doshi, a political scientist at Yale University, is now serving on President Biden’s National Security Council.