During the first half of his long career in defense and intelligence, Michael Pillsbury was what he now calls a “panda hugger.” He took a consistently positive view of China’s future and of the payoff awaiting the United States for assisting in its emergence—an outlook that fit comfortably within the longtime Washington consensus. He writes in “The Hundred-Year Marathon”: “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 regional or even global dominance.”

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