Michael Pillsbury, who has advised President Trump on China, said he was not given a visa to attend a conference in Beijing, a first in decades of visiting the country.
China recently declined to issue a visa to Michael Pillsbury, an informal adviser to President Trump on China policy, in an unusual move that comes as the Trump administration steps up its scrutiny of Chinese experts attempting to travel to the U.S.
“The problem with the so-called enforcement issue has to do with finding a mechanism that allows punishment for violations of the agreement,” said Michael Pillsbury, a China scholar at the Hudson Institute who advises the Trump administration. “That hasn’t been done yet.”
“He had an uncanny ability to pick out only the most significant questions, then to drill down deeply,” Michael Pillsbury, a colleague of 45 years, said in an interview. “He developed an iconoclastic, contrarian image.”
“His gift was the framing of the question, the discovery of the critical question,” said Michael Pillsbury, a China expert who advised and worked with Mr. Marshall throughout his career. “He would always pick the least studied and most strategically significant subjects.”
Writes US defence analyst and China expert Michael Pillsbury in his book The Hundred-Year Marathon: “In a classic example of…turning the energy and momentum of others to your advantage, China would borrow the techniques from the West to develop (its financial sector and industry)—all with the active tutoring from institutions such as the World Bank and private firms such as Goldman Sachs.