China's Master Plan to Destroy America by Qiao Liang & Wang Xiangsui
A key workbook to study for all those who want to understand contemporary debates within China defense apparatus. If there would be only 2 Chinese books about strategy to read, it would definitely be Sun Zu's Art of War and Qiao-Wang's Unrestricted Warfare.
The American translation is a padded edition with more hype on terrorism and fear than necessary. The subtitle of the translated work, "China's Master Plan to Destroy America" is added by the translator for obvious and ugly marketing purposes.
The Chinese edition, published in 1999, is not at all anti-America. The United States is indeed a major focus of the book simply because the United States is militarily the most powerful and advanced nation in the world, and it is the only nation that has fought in several major wars, particularly the Gulf War, with significant innovations in weaponry, military strategies and tactics. In fact the authors express their admirations and respects for the many innovations and accomplshments of the Amercian military in the Gulf War, and for the "father" Bush's wisdom of forming an international alliance to fight Saddam Hussein.
As the orginal Chinese UNRESTRICTED WARFARE or CHAOXIANZHAN was published in 1999, the cover of the translated English version shows the imgage of the horrifying destruction of the World Trade Center in 2001. This is a very unfortunate mis-representation either for some political purpose or for monetary gains.
By the way, the two authors of the UNRESTRICTED WARFARE were not educated and trained as professional military men. Colonel Qiao Liang, for instance, received his B.A. degree in Chinese literature, and has published several notable novels. He is employed in the Creative Writing Departament of the Air Force, a Chinese military tradition of believing the power of literature, and was promoted to the rank of colonel because of his literary accomplishment.
