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Stealth War: How China Took Over While America's Elite Slept Kindle Edition
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The media often suggest that Russia poses the greatest threat to America's national security, but the real danger lies farther east. While those in power have been distracted and disorderly, China has waged a six-front war on America's economy, military, diplomacy, technology, education, and infrastructure--and they're winning. It's almost too late to undo the shocking, though nearly invisible, victories of the Chinese.
In Stealth War, retired Air Force Brigadier General Robert Spalding reveals China's motives and secret attacks on the West. Chronicling how our leaders have failed to protect us over recent decades, he provides shocking evidence of some of China's most brilliant ploys, including:
- Placing Confucius Institutes in universities across the United States that serve to monitor and control Chinese students on campus and spread communist narratives to unsuspecting American students.
- Offering enormous sums to American experts who create investment funds that funnel technology to China.
- Signing a thirty-year agreement with the US that allows China to share peaceful nuclear technology, ensuring that they have access to American nuclear know-how.
Spalding's concern isn't merely that America could lose its position on the world stage. More urgently, the Chinese Communist Party has a fundamental loathing of the legal protections America grants its people and seeks to create a world without those rights.
Despite all the damage done so far, Spalding shows how it's still possible for the U.S. and the rest of the free world to combat--and win--China's stealth war.
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherPortfolio
- Publication dateOctober 1, 2019
- File size1379 KB
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influence around the world.”
―Washington Examiner
“As the former US Department of Defense attaché to China, General Spalding is in a unique position to offer a gripping tale of the multiple battlefronts of China’s war against America. Ten years from now, readers will remember this seminal work that accurately describes the current and future states of play between the world’s great powers.”
―J. Kyle Bass, Chief Investment Officer of Hayman Capital Management
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Introduction
I know something about stealth. In 1998, I began training to pilot B‑2 Spirits, known far and wide as Stealth Bombers. The B‑2 was at that time the high- profile new weapon in the US Air Force arsenal, a dazzling, billion-dollar, high-tech machine that looked like it had flown in from a future century. Its “continuous curvature” allowed it to avoid detection by the electromagnetic waves used by radar systems to track objects. In other words, I learned to fly a plane that achieved something every military strategist has dreamed of: being invisible.
Twenty years later— having served as chief China strategist for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and as senior US Defense official and Defense attaché to the People’s Republic of China— I left my position as senior director for strategic planning at the White House, deeply concerned about a different stealth weapon being turned against my country. For the past forty years, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been playing a beautiful game. It is sophisticated yet simple. It is a competition to gain control and influence across the planet— and to achieve that outcome without resorting to military engagement.
Flying quietly below the radar, the CCP has been acquiring technology without paying a cent toward developing it, carefully taking control of the world’s shipping businesses, infiltrating our corporations and science laboratories, and using American investor dollars to float the cost of its own factories and companies— and then, adding insult to injury, insisting that that money stay in China.
War between nation-states in the twenty-first century looks much different than war in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Instead of bombs and bullets, it’s about ones and zeros and dollars and cents: economics, finance, data information, manufacturing, infrastructure, and communications. Control those fronts today, and you can win a war without firing a shot. It’s a simple, logical strategy. And it is one leaders in the West have been very slow to grasp.
Our political, military, corporate, and fiscal leaders have failed to recognize the subtle game the CCP has been playing. They have been operating, understandably, under the now outdated idea that war is fought only with bombs and bullets. The CCP strategy, however, is to fight in other ways, utilizing a variety of tactics. It advocates and sponsors a constant focus on theft, coercion, economic sabotage, and monopolization of infrastructure on a global level— all to increase China’s sphere of influence. Everywhere.
Like the B‑2 bombers I flew, the CCP’s stealth war isn’t truly covert. It has been hiding in plain sight. How did we miss it? I’m not interested in pointing fingers at one particular party. Both Republican and Democratic elites have missed the signs— or are complicit— and as a patriot who cares about my fellow citizens, my main interest is to defend the people of this country and the ideas that have driven it since it was founded.
Perhaps nothing threatens the CCP more than the Constitution of the United States. China’s president, Xi Jinping, has stated as much, and CCP documents that I will share make clear that fundamental American concepts—the rights of free speech and freedom of religion—are threats to the authoritarian power of the CCP, which believes that these liberties must never be allowed to take root in China and must never be the rights of Chinese citizens.
The CCP’s fundamental loathing of our Bill of Rights and other legal protections should be chilling to anyone who values freedom. It is the primary reason I am writing this book. I want to alert the world to China’s stealth war and its strategy to dominate the planet by focusing on six spheres of influence: the economy, the military, global diplomacy, technology, education, and infrastructure.
China is closing in on achieving its goal of influencing the politicians and corporations of the United States. If this happens, fundamental freedoms we take for granted— the ability to criticize a politician or a policy, to publish political statements, to report on governmental abuse or inefficiency, to sing the lyrics you want, to study literally any subject under the sun, to visit any website, no matter what ideology is espoused— will come under assault.
Product details
- ASIN : B07S3PYHH4
- Publisher : Portfolio (October 1, 2019)
- Publication date : October 1, 2019
- Language : English
- File size : 1379 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 255 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #473,534 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #119 in International Diplomacy (Kindle Store)
- #240 in International Business & Money
- #351 in International Diplomacy (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the authors
Rob Spalding is a national security strategist and a globally recognized expert on Chinese economic competition and influence. He retired from the US Air Force as a brigadier general. He is a former pilot of the B-2 Stealth Bomber, as well as former director for strategic planning at the National Security Council in the White House. He was the chief architect for the widely praised National Security Strategy.
Rob has lived in Mainland China, both as an Olmsted Scholar and as the senior defense official at the US Embassy in Beijing, and traveled extensively throughout Asia. He is fluent in Mandarin. During the 2016 UUV Incident, Rob averted a diplomatic crisis by negotiating with the Chinese PLA for the return of the UUV, without the aid of a translator.
Rob is a Life Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute, Washington, D.C.
STEALTH WAR: HOW CHINA TOOK OVER WHILE AMERICA’S ELITE SLEPT is an executive summary of the last six years of Rob’s effort to combat the influence of the Chinese Communist Party in America and around the world.
To watch Rob’s interviews on FOX News and CNBC, as well as numerous radio and YouTube channels, concerning matters of national security, 5G, and foreign policy, visit armchaireconomist.io.
Seth Kaufman is a novelist and bestselling ghostwriter.
His first book "The King of Pain," was hailed as "One of 2012's most enjoyable novels" by the New York Times. His 2016 novel, "Nuns with Guns," was called "Literary gold" by radaronline.com. His 2022 comic novel, "The Seductive Lady Vanessa of Manhattanshire," is an update on "Don Quixote" that explores, roasts and celebrates romance fiction.
In addition to ghosting bestselling books for two nationally-known figures, he co-wrote "Stealth War: How China Took Over While America's Elite Slept," as well two memoirs, "Pitino: My Story," about Hall of Fame basketball coach Rick Pitino, and "Eat My Schwartz," about NFL linemen Geoff and Mitch Schwartz.
His book of humorous music essays, "Metaphysical Graffiti: Rock's Most Mind-Bending Questions," published in 2018 by OR Books, was hailed as "creative non-fiction writing at its best" in the British press.
Kaufman lives in Brooklyn, NY. Before writing books, he worked as a gossip reporter, TV-industry journalist, movie critic, musician and ice cream maker. He was also a bookseller for many years.
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Let’s state some facts about the CCP first:
• Fifty to one hundred million people perished under its 70-year rule.
• It claimed to be anti-dictatorship and pro-democracy while fighting for power in the 1940s, but produced the most brutal dictator and ruthless regime soon after it took over China.
• Today, numerous dissidents have been jailed, and more than one million Uighurs are placed in modern concentration camps. People are jailed for reasons as absurd as not supporting watching National Day Parade.
Spalding is the right person to write this book to wake up the civilized world. China watchers can be largely grouped into the following categories:
1. Corporatists/globalist/financiers who have vested financial interests in Mainland China. The concepts of liberty, equality, country are novel to them. They have mansions all over the world and support whatever generating profit for them. They lobby for the CCP all the time.
2. Western scholars in the pockets of CCP. Their careers rely on field trips to China which visa requires self-censorship. The CCP put them in their pockets by providing VIP treatment – free tours, adjunct professorships, gifts, lavish dinners…
3. Principled China experts who know the CCP, Chinese people, Chinese culture deeply (often speak fluent mandarin, and have extensive first-hand interactions and connections with Chinese people) and firmly hold their conviction of freedom, liberty and democracy. The author and people like Perry Link, Yu Ying-shih are in this category. Spalding’s various recent China related positions in two US administrations make him stand out in dissecting the CCP with unique knowledge.
You often get parroting of CCP narratives from the first two categories, but get enlightenment from the third. This book is indeed enlightening. Because of the author’s reputation, I pre-ordered the book 3 months in advance, and red it over the first weekend after its release.
If you are unable to read the entire book but want to get a quick understanding of the issue addressed by this book, please spend a few minutes reading the excellent introduction that is essentially a summary. It clearly points out the mother of all issues: the CCP regards the American core values – rights of free speech and freedom of religion – as the threats to their existence, so they have to fight America, not necessarily with traditional military weapons, for their survival. They have been gaining in all fronts with the help of elites and general complacency.
The book is highly readable. It does not enlist any abstract theories or obscure anecdotes to make the arguments. It uses telling stories out the author’s own experience or investigation to convince people. It starts with a startling story about how a once highly respected American think tank censored its project to align with the CCP’s interests and many other organizations’ fear of antagonizing the funding sources related to the CCP. The CCP’s influencing web covers law firms, NGOs, legislators as high as the senate leader, current and former government officials of both political parties. America’s loss in all fronts can be attributed to something described by two words: Unrestricted Warfare. If you wonder how all of this is related to ordinary people, here you go: “Simply put, 3.4 million US jobs vanished between 2001 and 2017 due to our trade relationship with China”. The book connects frequently discussed d CCP’s regular rule violation, intellectual property theft with tangible things for ordinary people such as $37 billion per year income reduction for impacted American workers. “This book is for and about the men and women of America who yearn for the better life they had before their elites welcomed their enemy into the WTO and into their lives.”.
Chapter 2 is a remarkable succinct history of China and Sino-US relationship as related to this book. This is great for those who are interested in the topic of this book but have had very limited exposure to Chinese history. It shows that America’s complacency with the CCP started from the first high level meeting between the CCP and the US government to normalize the relationship - Kissinger’s trip to China in 1971. I would even trace it back to the 1940s when some US officials were deceived by the CCP disguised as a pro-democracy, anti-dictatorship political party.
The economic front is where the US suffered by far the most damage incurred by the CCP. Chapter three uses solid evidence to show how the CCP uses piracy, espionage, hacking, counterfeit, taking advantage of obsolete treaties to advance on the US. It also paints a clear picture of the giant Ponzi scheme like Mainland economy that scams innocent US investors to help keep it going, and the gigantic real estate (called unreal estate by the book) bubble. “China had three times the amount of money in circulation than the United States did, while generating $4 trillion less in GDP.”
The military gain of China over the US while the US was fighting prolonged counterproductive wars costing trillions of dollars eventually is alarming. As a former Brig General working for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the author saw everything, fought his best to fend off the unconventional CCP assault assisted by American elites. The CCP has gutted the US manufacturing so much that some military operations could be paralyzed should the CCP decides to cut the supply.
On the digital front, the CCP is taking full advantage of the US openness while closing Mainland China with its notorious Great Firewall. It employs a two-million strong cyber army (so-called “public opinion analysts”) to troll the internet. PLA Unit 6139 keeps launching sophisticated attacks on all kinds of organizations in the US (government, companies, NGOs…). “a media lab at Beijing’s Tsinghua University receives the entire feed of data from China’s popular Weibo platform—that is, the posts, images, videos, memes, and metadata of its 450 million-plus users—to analyze.” You can imagine what a surveillance police state PRC is.
Chapter 5 on 5G is most fascinating. As the author of a proposal for the National Security Council on the nation’s strategy for 5G, Spalding can speak authoritatively on this topic. This chapter can be used as a reference for a quick understanding of 5G and its potential ubiquitous impact on the society. Ironically, the author was forced out of the White House due to this proposal opposed by powerful telecom industry lobbyists. This is where the grace of the author shines. Many people in his situation would hold grudges against superiors and/or colleagues, and badmouth them in talks, books. He does not. On the contrary, he tries to shine a light on the bright side. I believe it is a blessing for him to be forced out because otherwise we would not have this great book and author’s tireless eloquent talks in front of different cameras to wake up American people.
As a former member of two administrations, the author reveals how the CCP has managed to change the diplomatic behavior of the US: “the instructions from the Obama administration were loud and clear: we are not going to do anything in public to antagonize China, as the relationship is too significant financially.” The book details a case of self-censorship for the CCP by American taxpayer funded Voice of America. The CCP’s influence and infiltration are holistic and multipronged. Politicians and their families, academics, government officials are all their targets.
Though the author is apparently not recommending doing business in China, the book’s chapter 8 would be highly valuable for anyone who chooses to do so. It uses specific cases to advise you on how to protect your interests in a very uncertain environment where everything is under the control of the CCP.
One cannot leave the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) out when talking about the influence of the CCP. The book has an incisive dissection of this CCP’s grand scheme with the help of Nadège Rolland, a veteran French defense analyst.
The gem of the book is the action plan for us – the last two chapters. If you cannot find the time to read the whole book to understand the author’s systematic reasoning, but are willing to take his words at face value, read the last two chapters and take any actions you can to combat the massive international cancer CCP.
It starts with revealing stories about how the US brought down the USSR of which I had never heard. Since the CCP survives and grows by getting around rules, cheating, stealing, bribery. Enforcing laws and rules forcefully is a common sense based effective approach to combat them. The book lists different areas for such actions largely for the government to take. However, ordinary people can urge government officials, their representatives, their fund managers to do the right thing. The book concludes with 4 basic concepts: 1. Lead with principles based on the 4 freedoms. 2. Strengthen America by rebuilding the national infrastructure. 3. Organize to compete by helping and protecting our own innovation. 4. Rebuild the international order.
This book’s timing couldn’t better. We are at a historic juncture where people will determine whether the world will allow the CCP to cause disasters like that created by Nazi Germany last century.
The book is quite thorough about the threats from the CCP. However, I wish the author could take this opportunity to explain a highly relevant truth often forgotten by people – a totalitarian system is bound to have conflicts with democracies regardless of who are in the system. This will help dispel the common illusion of a benign totalitarian regime peacefully coexisting with democracies with the help of some internal reforming forces as advocated by the infamous open letter China is not an enemy.
I can understand that it is better to overestimate the strength of an enemy than to underestimate it when devising a plan to combating it. I would like to point out that totalitarian regimes often grossly exaggerate its power and achievements at all levels. Let me use the Korean War as an example. The PLA troops were mostly battle-hardened veterans fresh from the civil war ended a year earlier. Equipped by the USSR with their guns, tanks, fighters, they were not nearly as outgunned by Americans as many people believe. Most American troops were young kids who had never been to a battlefield. The result is a casualty ratio of 9:1 (China:US). The CCP troops often had whole divisions collapsing rapidly. The CCP troops are the best in parades with goose-stepping.
Considering the author has spent most of his career in the US military, a model of meritocracy, I suspect it is hard for him to imagine the ubiquitous nepotism or anti-meritocracy of the CCP’s regime. Xi, a middle school dropout, being at the top of the hierarchy is the norm. There is an estimated implicit price list for military ranks.
I disagree with the widely accepted notion echoed by the book: the CCP achieved “the most mind-boggling growth in the history of the world.” Many use “miracle” to describe it. The Mainland living standard has just reached that of Taiwan and S. Korea in the 1980s based on GDP per capita adjusted for inflation, so the PRC took twice as much time to achieve the same as some other counties. It is true that the CCP is producing billionaires faster than other countries, but 400 million or so Mainlanders live under $5.5 per day, the poverty line for upper-middle-income ($3,956 and $12,235 GDP per capita) to which the PRC belongs now. To me, the disparity is mind-boggling, not the growth.
I noticed two minor errors:
• P.26 Zhou Enlai was the premier, not the foreign minister when he met Kissinger.
• P.26 “ba” is usually translated to hegemony, not tyrant.
This is a superb book. I will recommend it to anyone with potential interest in this topic. I have recommended it to our local library and will send it as holiday gifts.
As he illustrates, Australia has already been infiltratad and subverted in every sphere and at every level: educational, cultural, political, etc. There are many good Australian videos documenting this fact on Youtube. China poses big challenges to us now and will increasingly do so in the future. Robert Spaulding's book is a good place to start in understanding this challenge.
Top reviews from other countries
This book is easy to read and summarizes key concepts for people to understand what is happening. The author is able to explain why certain actions of past administrations, whether Republican or Democrat, had enabled China to rise and act in a predatory way. He is not picking sides in domestic politics because he knows that in this time, a threat such as China needs to be faced with a united front. I appreciate the author not holding back against anybody including prominent leaders of both political parties. This makes the book accessible to everybody no matter what political ideology you might have.
The book itself takes isolated events and connects them with each other to form a bigger picture. An isolated case of China hacking and obtaining sensitive information might go unnoticed. However, Spalding had been able to identify and bring to light several other Chinese hacking attempts and form a bigger picture which was China’s ambition to control information and rule the digital world. Also crucial, the book talks about “unrestricted warfare” which is a concept that the Chinese use to conduct warfare through other means that does not involve the military, thus the name of the book “Stealth War”. Spalding also talks about how China views time through a much longer lens and how China was playing the long game to beat the US.
I have been studying China-Western relations for quite some time and this book revealed new information that I had not known. I recommend everyone, from newcomers to experts to read this book and recognize the call to arms about the dangers of China.
In terms of things I’m not pleased with, there are several but do keep in mind that it varies from person to person. The first thing is the price which I find a bit pricey. Even at 28$ during a sale, it was quite pricey so I think the book could definitely be cheaper. I would also appreciate it if the book had a footnote, index and etc. Chances are, I am probably going to be referencing this book in the future and I don’t want to take 30 minutes to find a specific passage. Having an Index would have been extremely helpful. Finally, do keep in mind this is being written from a military perspective. I have nothing but the utmost respect for Robert Spalding. He is brave and brought up an important topic to discuss, however, some of the solutions he suggested assumes that China won’t retaliate. Some were a bit aggressive in my opinion but keep in mind he was on the frontline in China. It’s quite possible he saw things the average person didn’t see that warrant that kind of aggressive response.
Robert Spalding, a person who wants to bring the light to the darkness we are in.
To the book itself: really shows you, how China is acting on the global stage. How it violates every agreed on law, how it pushes the boundaries of what's considered "morally ok" - and what we got to do to stop this hellish ride to chinese supremacy.
After reading it, I literally pulled all my funds from chines stocks (Tencent, Alibaba etc).