February 25, 2015 at 6:25 PM EST
 
In the bestselling but controversial new book “The Hundred-Year Marathon,” author and former Pentagon official Michael Pillsbury argues that China is angling to replace the United States as a global superpower. Chief foreign affairs correspondent Margaret Warner interviews Pillsbury about what he thinks the U.S. can do to counteract the “secret strategy.”
 
 
GWEN IFILL: Now to a controversial warning about China from a new bestselling book that’s becoming a lightning rod for criticism.
 
Chief foreign affairs correspondent Margaret Warner explains.
 
MARGARET WARNER: Since the 1970s, Michael Pillsbury has focused on China, as a Pentagon official and consultant and now at the conservative Hudson Institute.
 
Over the years, the Mandarin speaker has grown ever more hard-line in his views, and it is clear in his bestselling, but controversial new book, “The Hundred-Year Marathon: China’s Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower.”
 
He says it’s based on Chinese and American documents and books and conversations with Chinese military officials and defectors. Critics have shot back, accusing him of sloppy use of evidence.
 
I spoke with Pillsbury last week.
 
The very title of your book asserts that America has been in denial, that China has a secret strategy to replace the United States. What is that strategy based on?
 
MICHAEL PILLSBURY, Author, “The Hundred-Year Marathon: China’s Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower”: The strategy is based on two things, first, China’s historical role in what we would today call the leader of the world. They want to restore themselves to the role they played for 2,000 years.
 
The second part of the strategy is, they know from their economists that they can’t build China into a replacement for us by themselves. They have got to get certain things from the outside world, and they have worked very hard in the last 30 years to get those things.
 
MARGARET WARNER: And is that so surprising?
 
MICHAEL PILLSBURY: It’s surprising because they have denied publicly such an ambition.
 
They portray themselves as weak, backward, and in great need of assistance from us.
 
MARGARET WARNER: And the United States has been a very willing partner in assisting them.
 
MICHAEL PILLSBURY: Yes, because of false assumptions.