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An Irresponsible Mis-representation
The subtitle of the translated work, "China's Master Plan to Destroy America" is added by the translator. If this book were indeed China's master plan to destroy America, would the Chinese military authority be so stupid to publicize its master plan?
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 any analysis would do, the book does post questions on some U.S. post Gulf War military thinking. For instance, the authors are puzzled by th fact that the U.S. military still gave so much attention to tanks while in the Gulf War helicopters were proved to be the deadly weapon of destroying the tanks....
On fighting the terrorist war and the future conventional warfare, the two authors are very much indebted to the ideas developed in Alvin Toffler's book, THE THIRD WAVE, and, particularly , in Alvin and Heidi Toffler's WAR AND ANTI-WAR. To illustrate the feasibility of their views, Qiao Liang, the first author of the book, published a novel MORI ZHI MEN or GATE OF ARMAGEDDON in 1995. In the novel, helicopters defeat tanks, and a war between two major powers ends without casualty (a prediction made in Toffler's WAR AND ANTI-WAR).... In the novel, The U.S. is a decisive player in the very delicate and complex international politics, but the novel's hero a Chinese colonel helps defeating the terrorists who attempt to destroy the world not by means of suicide bombers but by using computers (another Toffler's prediction). In CHAOXIANZHAN (UNRESTRICTED WARFARE), the authors are surprised to see that the West and the U.S. are so ill-prepared to defend themselves against terrorists.
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.
July 2005 · Books