People’s Republic of China President and Communist Party of China Party Secretary Xi Jinping in People’s Liberation Army uniform (above). Successive US administrations, both Democrat and Republican, stuck to a belief that by maintaining good relations with China and conducting trade and other business with it, the Communist regime in Beijing would eventually evolve into a free market, democratic system. However, it is clear now that China has reverted to its Maoist Communist roots. Instead of becoming more moderate and more democratic, China has become a more repressive dictatorship domestically. Internationally, instead of becoming more integrated, China has emerged as a dangerous threat to peace and security as it seeks to become the world’s dominant power. How this all came about and what the US can expect from all of this is elaborated upon in Deceiving the Sky: Inside China’s Drive for Global Supremacy.

In Deceiving the Sky: Inside Communist China’s Drive for Global Supremacy (Encounter Books, 2019), Bill Gertz, the author, directs a flood light on China’s practices that are designed to undermine the US economy, weaken and ultimately defeat the US military, and diminish the global influence of the US. An emphasis of Gertz’s discussion is how US leaders have repeatedly failed to understand the preparations in which Beijing is engaged to ready China for a confrontation with the US in the near future. Gertz also asserts the US leaders have also habitually failed to take appropriate steps to deter and act appropriately in response to Beijing’s threatening moves. An example of how destructive and impactful such delinquencies have been is the US response following Beijing’s use of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to crush the democratic aspirations of thousands of Chinese in Tiananmen Square in June 1989. China was sanctioned. However, Gertz says that far more consideration should have been given to how China would and actually did react to sanctions. Gertz says what China actually did was launch an unbridled campaign over the next three decades to steal and otherwise acquire some of the most valuable technology from the US. The theft has been staggering, estimated to be as much as $600 billion annually in stolen technology and intellectual property. However, in successive US administrations, both Democrat and Republican, there was a wilful blindness toward what was occurring. They stuck to a belief that by maintaining good relations with China and conducting trade and other business with it, the Communist regime in Beijing would eventually evolve into a free market, democratic system. 

Gertz says the outcome of this decades long policy failure by the US has been the emergence of an expansionist, hard line Communist regime headed by a supreme leader, who took power in 2012, with unchecked powers matched only by Mao: People’s Republic of China President and Communist Party of China Party Secretary Xi Jinping. Gertz asserts that Xi has ruled with an iron fist. China has reverted to its Maoist Communist roots. Instead of becoming more moderate and more democratic, China has become a more repressive dictatorship domestically. Fundamental freedoms rights and prosperity for the Chinese people have essentially been eliminated.Internationally, instead of becoming more integrated, China has emerged as an ever more dangerous threat to peace in security as it seeks to become the world’s dominant power. Communist ideology is the centerpiece for that Chinese drive for dominance. How this all came about and what the US can expect from it all is elaborated upon in Deceiving the Sky: Inside China’s Drive for Global Supremacy.

The attention of greatcharlie was drawn to Deceiving the Sky at first upon recognizing the title’s reference to “The Thirty-Six Chinese Strategies.” The Thirty-Six Chinese Strategies or Stratagems are a collection of tactics that can be applied to very different situations. The strategies are derived from military tactics applied during the Warring States Period (403-221 B.C.) or during the Three Kingdom Period (220-265 B.C.). Comparisons are naturally made to other Chinese military texts such as Sun Zu’s Art of War focus on military organization, leadership, and battlefield tactics, the Thirty-Six Strategies, is a unique collection of ancient Chinese proverbs, more apt for the fields of politics, diplomacy, and espionage. The origins of this book are unknown. No author or compiler has ever been mentioned, and no date as to when it may have been written has been ascertained. Deceiving the Sky is the first stratagem of the thirty-six.

Gertz explains in the text that the title Deceiving the Sky comes from an ancient Chinese strategy used by generals to win battles called deceive the Sky to cross the ocean. As the story goes, an Emperor was hesitant to launch a military campaign against neighboring Koguryo, now Korea. In reaction, one of his generals convinced the Emperor to go to dinner at the home of a wealthy peasant. As the Emperor entered the house for a meal, the residence moved. The emperor had been tricked onto a boat ended for battle across the sea. Rather than disembark, he ordered the military campaign to advance, and the battle was won. What is derived from this story is that a leader’s determination to win a war should be so unrelenting that even an Emperor, viewed in Chinese culture as the son of heaven or the Sky, can be deceived. Translated into military precepts, deceiving the sky suggests that a commander: 1) Openly act as if intending to do one thing then do something else; 2) Create false alarms until the opponent no longer takes notice of alarms; 3) Lull the opponent into a sense of false security by appearing innocuous. Then when the opponent ignores you, one can attack at will; and, 4) One can also do the reverse, acting mysteriously and pretending to know things onees do not. Try different things and watch the opponent’s responses. The opponent will react most strongly to that which creates most concern. (See Stefan Verstappen, The Thirty-Six Strategies of Ancient China (China Books and Periodicals, 1999))

As Gertz discusses how China has acted against the US in recent decades, no doubt is left about how pertinent this ancient yet timeless stratagem is to its approach. According to Gertz, the strategy well-reflects the Marxist maxim that the ends justify the means. Beijing practices strategic deception known in the ancient formula as using false objectives to facilitate true objectives. It is another way of describing the Communist strategy of using all means warfare against the US which is the sole obstacle to China crossing the ocean and achieving the rightful place as the most powerful state in the world. Nemo repeite fuit turpissimus. (No suddenly becomes bad.)

So impressed was greatcharlie with Deceiving the Sky, it has sought to allow its readers to gleen enough about the book in a review that they would choose to well-thumb its pages themselves. What greatcharlie can state in all conscience that if one really does not have much time to dig deep into the crisis of Chinese actions and intentions, Gertz’s breakdown of the whole matter is about as accurate and concise a report on the matter as one is going to get. What is most impressive to greatcharlie about the book is the manner in which it stimulates thought on the grave issues concerning China. As greatcharlie has stated in previous reviews, books that can stir a fire inside the reader, and a passion for a subject, are the most memorable and most enjoyable to sit with. The role of reviewer, an unsolicited intermediary between a book’s prospective reader and the author, is a responsibility that greatcharlie takes seriously. Rarely if ever, will greatcharlie read a book then take the time to write a negative review, presenting its judgments on the shortcomings and failures of an author’s toil on a manuscript. It is greatcharlie’s preference to provide reviews of books that readers of blog can enjoy and from which they may edify themselves. Never is harm intended.

Gertz is an award-winning national security journalist and author of eight books, four of which were national bestsellers. He is currently national security correspondent for The Washington Times. On China, he is accepted in both journalistic and foreign and national security policy circles as being an authority. Even more, he is something of a treasury of knowledge on its pursuits versus the US. Confidential sources for years within the US national security bureaucracies have shared what they have reasoned was permissible with Gertz that clarified much about personalities, events, and situations concerning China with all possible precautions concerning national security firmly in mind. Gertz’s considerable standing among federal employees in rather sensitive positions is a reality that the most senior executives in the US government have recognized and have begrudgingly accepted. Gertz has been a guest lecturer at the FBI National Academy in Quantico, Virginia; the Central Intelligence Agency; the National Defense University at Fort McNair, and, the Brookings Institution.

The Author

Gertz is an award-winning national security journalist and author of eight books, four of which were national bestsellers. He is currently national security correspondent for The Washington Times. As a journalist, he recognizes his responsibility to speak truth to power. On the issue of China, he is accepted in both journalistic and foreign and national security policy circles as being an authority. Even more, he is something of a treasury of knowledge on its pursuits versus the US. 

Confidential sources for years within the US national security bureaucracies have shared what they have reasoned was permissible with Gertz that clarified much about personalities, events, and situations concerning China with all possible precautions concerning national security firmly in mind. Gertz’s considerable standing among federal employees in rather sensitive positions is a reality that the most senior executives in the US government have recognized and have begrudgingly accepted. In his biography posted by the Harry Walker Agency, a speaker’s bureau, it is noted that former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director R. James Woolsey stated: “When I was DCI [Director of Central Intelligence] Bill used to drive me crazy because I couldn’t figure out where the leaks were coming from. Now that I’ve been outside for two years, I read him religiously to find out what’s going on.” During the 1990s, Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson told the author: “We talk about your stories at Cabinet meetings.” Defense Secretary William S. Cohen once remarked to China’s military intelligence chief that Bill “has access to more intelligence information than anyone I know.” Former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld once told him: “You are drilling holes in the Pentagon and sucking out information.”

Gertz has also been a guest lecturer at the FBI National Academy, the CIA, the National Defense University at Fort McNair, the Brookings Institution, and Hillsdale College. He has participated in the National Security Studies Program at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and the Syracuse University Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.

In Deceiving the Sky, Gertz has provided a most discouraging account of how the US has fared in a “struggle” to claim the perch of the dominant power in the world which China has promoted. At the same time, he answers in an admirable way the questions that US policy makers and decision-makers should be asking. To that extent, he has supplied the US foreign and national security policy bureaucracies with their deficiencies. An earlier work by Gertz, The China Threat: How the People’s Republic Targets America (Regnery, 2000), was prescient in assessing Communist China’s goals and intentions. Deceiving the Sky includes new details of the danger and proves his warning was correct. Gertz warns that if nothing significant and lasting is done, it will only get worse.

Gertz digs into the dark roots of Beijing’s plans. Readers will find that the information Gertz provides will prove to ring true on every issue. He demonstrates that there are clearly greater issues hanging from any issue with China than usually appear at first glance. Surely, presenting a full excavation of China’s actions and intentions was unlikely desired or practical given the larger audience Gertz sought to reach. Perchance if Gertz were to write enough works on the matter he will manage to at least touch upon all of its many aspects. Gertz is not a storyteller. His job is not to entertain, despite what his publishers might desire without the ultimate objective of every publisher which is to sell books. As a journalist, he delivers the news, lays out the facts as they are, and to the extent that he may provide analysis, he edifies and enlightens with his insights. Gertz has the power to intellectually stimulate with his words

The present situation between the US and China is recognized by many scholars, academics, policy analysts, and journalists as being unhealthy. Gertz’s reports on Chinese plans and actions have run concurrently to those of other journalists and scholars writing on the subject and the main features of their stories tally. Indeed, a lengthy list of authors have written fine books on the matter and offer similar perspectives. Concerning those other books, greatcharlie would not dare offer even a short-list of them for it would only open the door to judgments on the the selection of them and perhaps their numerical order. As this review is focused on Gertz’s work, all of that would be beside the matter.

It would be difficult to convince greatcharlie that Gertz wrote Deceiving the Sky with the objective of eclipsing the whole of its kind. What he has done is add an invaluable volume to the body of literature that accurately discusses “The China Threat.” He articulates the struggle in a manner that gives all matters that hang from it real meaning. Gertz only asks readers to follow closely what he has written and learn. Some seem disposed to remain content with that situation as long as it lasts. Though he lays it all out impressively before his readers, those not so warm to Gertz’s views will for themselves determine what if anything in the book is essential and what is not. Certainly, one must also accept that not everyone will be attuned to the scream of writers such as Gertz on the real and immediate threat China poses. 

Multi cives aut ea pericula quae imminent non vident aut ea quae vident neglegunt. (Many citizens either do not see those dangers which are threatening or they ignore those that they do see.) To those who seek to find normality and safety in what China is doing in Asia and beyond and see it all as being modest enough, it is likely Deceiving the Sky put their noses are not out of joint. Whether they might be characterized as rejectionists or alarmist in accord with their responses to Gertz, nothing in Deceiving the Sky was apparently intended to harshly cut so deep into the foundations of thinking of proponents of an ascending China that they should find his facts and deductions threatening to their own analyses or interests. He is not on the attack. His goal is to illuminate. He encourages all readers to simply evaluate for themselves how things have actually been moving and where they are actually heading. Not just out of a sense of professional satisfaction but rather the urgency and importance of the matter, he would welcome and wish for an effort by them to test the virtues of what he presents.

Xi and senior decision makers on foreign policy within the Communist Party of China albeit are individuals of an exceptional nature judging from what they have displayed of themselves in challenging the US for the position as the world’s dominant power. That is a desire that they have in abundance. They have shown themselves to be a thoroughly bad lot. Gertz paints an even more sinister picture of Xi in a discussion of historical figures among his role models.

To accept that China would cause the release of COVID-19 through what might be called deliberate negligence would cause one to accept China was capable of any fantastic outrage. Doubtlessly, many already believed that. Gertz would perhaps be among their number. China was frugal with information about COVID-19 enough so that rather than being seen as heroes, they have set themselves up as the antagonist of every Western country, primarily the US, struggling to resolve the COVID-19 pandemic in this all-too real global tragedy. Many in the federal government foreign and national security policy bureaucracies and the US Congress with the responsibility to monitor what China is doing, have refrained from telling too much about its actions and intentions and the full extent of what its intelligence services are doing against the US to the public possibly for fear of figuratively frightening the horses. An unwavering conviction over China’s malign intentions appears to be a luxury that many especially in US foreign policymaking circles sense they cannot afford to have. They understand that one’s political fortune could possibly be balanced against it. That job has really been left to individuals as Gertz.

It appears important to note that in more than one spot in Deceiving the Sky, Gertz’s discussion on US policymaking on China is colored by his political perspective, recognizably conservative. As aforementioned, Gertz is a national security correspondent for the Washington Times, a daily newspaper with a conservative political alignment and was employed in that position at the time he wrote Deceiving the Sky. The book was published in 2019, and Gertz also expressed some satisfaction with the decision-making of the administration of US President Donald Trump under a strategy of competitive engagement. (Readers for whom this will pose some problems have been forewarned.) Not to make a labor of this matter, suffice it to say that such digressions in the text should not distract somber and astute readers from taking into consideration the healthy, accurate, and urgent message Gertz offers exposing the true intentions. That discussion, in greatcharlie’s assessment, is not partisan.

What greatcharlie Found Most Interesting

Deceiving the Sky is 256 pages, portioned in 13 chapters and a titillating conclusion. It presents what could perhaps be called a catalogue of sins by China. The range of Gertz’s coverage of China’s activities in Deceiving the Sky can be readily observed in his descriptive chapter titles. They include: Chapter 1: How Communists Lie: The 2007 ASAT Test; Chapter 2: The East Is Red: Communism with Chinese Characteristics; Chapter 3: China Wars: The Failure of Pro-China Appeasement; Chapter 4: The Coming Space War with China; Chapter 5: Assassin’s Mace in Space; Chapter 6: Seeking Digital Superiority: China’s Cyberattacks; Chapter 7: High-Tech Totalitarianism; Chapter 8: Chinese Intelligence Operations; Chapter 9: Influence Power: Beijing and the Art of Propaganda and Disinformation Warfare; Chapter 10: Financial and Economic Warfare with Chinese Characteristics; Chapter 11: Corporate Communism: Huawei and 5G; Chapter 12: Military Might: World Domination Through the Barrel of a Gun; and, Chapter 13: Flashpoints at Sea and China’s String of Pearls Expansion. He sums up the book with the thought-provoking segment: Conclusion: What Is to Be Done? Declare China an Enemy, Liberate the Chinese People. 

It would be impossible for greatcharlie not to receive the lessons and messages of books as Deceiving the Sky and feel compelled to ruminate upon them. Yet, in this review, greatcharlie’s focus is not turned dutifully and perhaps expectedly toward the fundamental and vital issues of concern such as China’s military growth, military strategy, investment in space platforms, ties to Russia, moves in the South China Sea, threat to Taiwan, and other issues of the utmost importance concerning its expansion and hegemony in its the Far East and ambitions beyond Asia. Regular readers of greatcharlie are aware that the blog’s editor has a keen interest in what author’s offer about what makes those of interest to them tick. For years, such independent analyses by reliable sources have often saved federal bureaucracies an infinity of extra trouble by offering insight on what may very well be on the minds of decision makers in foreign capitals. After examining a sufficient record of an individual’s attitudes and behavior in the aggregate sometimes, their motives may still remain inscrutable and those writing books on their policy making and decision making with little resource may turn to speculation. An additional interest of greatcharlie of late are the activities of Chinese intelligence services in the US.

Four chapters in which Gertz offers insights into the thinking of the leadership of the Communist Party of China at the present and into the future  and Chinese intelligence services that caught greatcharlie’s attention are: Chapter 2: The East Is Red: Communism with Chinese Characteristics; Chapter 3: China Wars: The Failure of Pro-China Appeasement; Chapter 8: Chinese Intelligence Operations. Insights Gertz offers in the book’s close, Conclusion: What Is to Be Done? Declare China an Enemy, Liberate the Chinese People, are also worthy of special note.

According to Gertz, no other Chinese leader since Mao has embraced the rigid orthodox Communist ideology more than Xi Jinping, who came into power in 2012. Soon after, Xi engaged in a ruthless, albeit less viable, ideological cultural revolution of his own, a political purge of thousands of officials, some were among the most powerful players in the system. By 2018, under Xi, the Party once again emerged with Mao-like devotion to the Socialist ideal of creating New Chinese Man. He lays out how Xi has assumed more power than any Chinese leader since Mao.

Chapter 2 The East Is Red

It is in Chapter 2, Gertz’s more fully explains, as mentioned earlier, that no other Chinese leader since Mao has embraced the rigid orthodox Communist ideology more than Xi Jinping, who came into power in 2012. Soon after, Xi engaged in a ruthless, albeit less viable, ideological cultural revolution of his own, a political purge of thousands of officials, some were among the most powerful players in the system, such as regional Communist Party boss Bo Xilai, police, intelligence and security czar, Zhou Yongkang, and former Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission, General Guo Boxiong. 

Gertz reminds that beginning in the 1980s and over the decades that China noted the post-Mao policy dubbed “reform and opening up,” Gertz has readers cast their minds back to the years when Chinese Communist leaders went to great lengths to hide their ideology. He states that “ideological speeches were reserved for Party meetings and three-hour long recitations on the great works of the Party.” He continues further explaining that propaganda organs deliberately substituted the more-moderate sounding Socialism in place of Chinese Marxist-Leninsm in a strategy designed to win widespread support from non-Communist countries around the world.

Gertz then emphasizes how all of that changed with Xi. By 2018, the Party once again emerged with Mao-like devotion to the Socialist ideal of creating New Chinese Man. He lays out how Xi had assumed more power than any Chinese leaders since Mao. Gertz notes that following the death of Mao, the next leader of China, Chairman Deng Xiaoping, argued that Mao’s fanatic view of the World Communist Revolution needed to be changed. In its place, he adopted a new strategy called “Beyond Ideology and Social Systems” that sought to scale back Maoist ways but not give up Communism. Deng intentions were not benign. Gertz asserts that Deng believed world peace was at hand and that China should find a way to exploit it. To that extent, Gertz writes, Deng put forth China’s pragmatic strategy enabling massive trade and investment with the Capitalist world. As Gertz explains,”Bide our time, build our capabilities” was the Dengist ideology, and when the peace eventually collapsed, China would be ready both economically and militarily to dominate. Interestingly, despite appeasement of China by successive US administrations after Chinese tanks crushed the hopeful democracy movement in Tiananmen Square in June 1989, Gertz notes that Beijing continued to harbor the conspiracy theory of US plans to subvert and contain the People’s Republic.

As a very intriguing and instructive point, Gertz explains that “Chinese Communism mimics religion-it presents a version of history with a journey of deliverance played out in chapters written in a chosen language. It boasts its own priesthood–political commissary ubiquitous throughout–and an enforced infallibility of its leadership.” There are prophets and devils, along with a council of senior religious leaders who have the power to change or interpret the Communist historical narrative. Gertz goes on to state that Party loyalty equals morality; doubting history is blasphemy, heresy and treasonous. He then declares: “There is a chosen people, the Chinese, a promised land, China, temples, pilgrimages, faith in the face of contrary facts, deep intrusion into the personal life of each person, and the indoctrination of children into the tenets of Chinese Communism.”

Perhaps a very apparent expression of Chinese Communism as religion is through united front work. To better understand united front work, greatcharlie turns to the expert source for perspective, Peter Mattis. Since leaving the CIA, where he was a highly-regarding analyst on China, Mattis has published a number of superlative essays on Chinese intelligence and counterintelligence. Mattis, along with a former military intelligence officer and diplomat, Matthew Brazil, published a superb book, Chinese Communist Espionage: An Intelligence Primer (United States Naval Institute Press, 2019). According to Mattis, the central element to understanding what the Chinese Communist Party is doing and why to shape the world outside the party is united front work. Mao described the purpose of this work as mobilizing the party’s friends to strike at the party’s enemies. In a more specific definition from a paper in the 1950s, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) defined united front work as “a technique for controlling, mobilizing, and utilizing non-communist masses.” In other words, united front policy addresses the party’s relationship with and guidance of any social group outside the party. To that extent, as Mattis explains, united front work entails shaping those outside the party, and not simply the Chinese people or world outside the People’s Republic of China. United front work must also be a tool of political struggle. It is not confined to activities that we would call propaganda or public diplomacy. It is not limited to covert action. In 1939, Mao wrote: “Our eighteen years of experience show that the united front and armed struggle are the two basic weapons for defeating the enemy. The united front is a united front for carrying on armed struggle. And the Party is the heroic warrior wielding the two weapons, the united front and the armed struggle, to storm and shatter the enemy’s positions. That is how the three are related to each other.” Mao’s outline of united front work within the party’s toolbox remains as the core understanding of it within the Communist Party of China today. United front activities have “aided” the Communist Party of China in resolving several dilemmas of the post-Mao era. That was most apparent following the Tiananmen Square and the death of Deng.

Evaluated on the basis of the united front policy system, the Communist Party of China’s management of political influence operations runs to the very top of the party, involving senior leaders directly. The policy system extends through the party’s hierarchy and spills over into China’s government ministries as well as other state-owned and state-administered organizations. The State Council ministries to include the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and many other organizations with a party committee offer unique platforms and capabilities that the united front policy system can draw upon for operational purposes. United front work is conducted wherever the party is present. To that extent, as Mattis explains, united front work is not an “influence operation” or a campaign. It is the day-to-day work of the party. The importance of united front work to the Chinese Communist enterprise is the reason why Xi has repeatedly emphasized the importance of a working organ of the Communist Party of China’s Central Committee, the United Front Work Department (UFWD ), to China’s rejuvenation. Among experts on China, UFWD is generally understood to be a Party intelligence organ,

One could only have imagined that foreign policy decision makers at the top of the Communist Party of China were aware that if the COVID-19 disaster was not put right with urgency, it would have had an unfortunate effect on US-China relations. Relative to the enormity of the crisis created, Beijing’s response could not reasonably have been considered apologetic or a recognition of their misstep at all. Overall, the design of the response appeared to be to protect the image and reputation of the Communust Party of China, and leave the impression that it was infallible in its response.

United front work in diplomacy can often be a dominant feature. Diplomacy with leading industrialized Western countries and prominent industrialized countries in their own region is used as a platform to promote the message of the Communist Party of China and bolster its standing. To discern such efforts, one might watch for matters stated publicly that might have little purpose in a more private setting and in fact might be best conveyed on the sideline meeting or during a break in bilateral or multilateral talks.

The reason for this is that the target audience of those comments will not be the party to the negotiation. The target is the people of China and people of underdeveloped and burgeoning industrialized countries who erroneously might see China as having eclipsed the power of leading industrialized countries and directly confronting them. China’s effort to pull countries of the Third World in Asia and Africa and even countries in Eastern Europe, with a particular focus on the Balkans, within its sphere of influence to turn a phrase has the characteristics of a near collection mania. However, the behavior of the Communist Party of China perhaps has had its best results among countries led by tyrants and other potentates who themselves have engaged in the ions old quest for dominance in their region or in the world. Aliquis latet error. (Some trickery lies hidden.)

A tangible demonstration of how China is leading the march to a “better” future for the world, by taking on US power publicly. This was recently done during a two-day bilateral meeting from March 18, 2021 to March 19, 2021 at the Captain Cook Hotel in Anchorage, Alaska. A  US delegation led by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and US National Security Adviser, Jake Sullivan met with a People’s Republic of China delegation led by the Director of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission of the Communist Party of China Yang Jiechi, and People’s Republic of China Foreign Minister Wang Yi. The two-day meeting got off to a tense start, with a public display of the strained nature relations between the US and China. 

Blinken laid out many of the areas of concern, from economic and military coercion to assaults on basic values. Sullivan made clear that the overriding priority of the US was  to ensure that its approach in the world and approach to China benefits the US public and protects the interests of US allies and partners. Further, he explained further that the US did not seek conflict, but welcomed stiff competition and will always stand up for its principles, for its people and its friends.

Yang responded boldly, taking a bit of time to express sharp criticism of the US. He spoke with great authority. There was an air of ceremony in his reproach. Yet, through his words were evinced the restricted, mental prison of Communism. His statement must be examined in some detail to allow readers to sense the style, tone, rhythm, mood, the expression of indignation, and the recognition that a new world order is on the horizon that will have Chinese characteristics. One can discern a certain flavor in expressions of united front work in diplomacy.

Yang explained: “We believe that it is important for the United States to change its own image and to stop advancing its own democracy in the rest of the world. Many people within the United States actually have little confidence in the democracy of the United States, and they have various views regarding the government of the United States. In China, according to opinion polls, the leaders of China have the wide support of the Chinese people. So no attempt to–the opinion polls conducted in the United States show that the leaders of China have the support of the Chinese people. No attempt to smear China’s social system would get anywhere. Facts have shown that such practices would only lead the Chinese people to rally more closely around the Communist Party of China and work steadily towards the goals that we have set for ourselves.”

In an effort to turn a disadvantage into advantage with mere words, Yang went on to say: “On human rights, we hope that the United States will do better on human rights. China has made steady progress in human rights, and the fact is that there are many problems within the United States regarding human rights, which is admitted by the US itself as well. The United States has also said that countries can’t rely on force in today’s world to resolve the challenges we face. And it is a failure to use various means to topple the so-called authoritarian states. And the challenges facing the United States in human rights are deep-seated. They did not just emerge over the past four years, such as Black Lives Matter. It did not come up only recently. So we do hope that for our two countries, it’s important that we manage our respective affairs well instead of deflecting the blame on somebody else in this world.

Ostensibly speaking on behalf of peoples “oppressed” and formerly oppressed by Western powers as China, itself, once was. Yang was particularly biting, stating: “The United States itself does not represent international public opinion, and neither does the Western world. Whether judged by population scale or the trend of the world, the Western world does not represent the global public opinion. So we hope that when talking about universal values or international public opinion on the part of the United States, we hope the US side will think about whether it feels reassured in saying those things, because the US does not represent the world. It only represents the government of the United States. I don’t think the overwhelming majority of countries in the world would recognize that the universal values advocated by the United States or that the opinion of the United States could represent international public opinion, and those countries would not recognize that the rules made by a small number of people would serve as the basis for the international order.”

No doubt was left as to his loyalty and dutiful nature toward the Communist Party of China as Foreign Minister Wang performed his united front responsibilities expressing the following position: “China certainly in the past has not and in the future will not accept the unwarranted accusations from the US side. In the past several years, China’s legitimate rights and interests have come under outright suppression, plunging the China-US relationship into a period of unprecedented difficulty. This has damaged the interests of our two peoples and taken its toll on world stability and development, and this situation must no longer continue. China urges the US side to fully abandon the hegemonic practice of willfully interfering in China’s internal affairs. This has been a longstanding issue, and it should be changed. It is time for it to change. And in particular, on the 17th of March, the United States escalated its so-called sanctions on China regarding Hong Kong, and the Chinese people are outraged by this gross interference in China’s internal affairs and the Chinese side is firmly opposed to it.”

Latrant et scitis estatint praetesquitantes estis. They bark, so you know that you are in front of them.) One could reasonably presume any genuine negotiations planned by Chinese officials was secondary to what was stated at the outset of the meeting. Nothing stated by them could have led one to believe they were negotiating, seeking to establish common ground and points of agreement on issues and ways to come together on the most nagging ones. The meeting in Anchorage, Alaska provided a grand stage. The target audience of the Chinese officials’ reproaches was not really Blinken and Sullivan who were present in the room, but rather the people of China stand people of underdeveloped and burgeoning industrialized countries who would likely see China directly confront the US through their words. The Chinese officials sought to establish separate warring identities between the US and China. They sought to create the impression that some equipoise of power had already been by China versus the US.

Further, the Chinese officials clearly wanted to establish an image for the world to see of how disassociated China’s worldview was that of the US. They also appeared to want to demonstrate that China’s old view was more closely related with underdeveloped and burgeoning industrialized countries. They wanted to create the impression that there were both positive and negative forces present at the meeting, setting China up as the positive force and the US as the latter. 

Director of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission of the Communist Party of China Yang Jiechi in Anchorage, Alaska, March 2021 (center). Gertz explains that in the 21st century, “the US is facing the potential of a new world war by miscalculation involving China that has been quietly and systematically building up what it terms comprehensive national power–military, diplomatic, economic–for what the Chinese Communust leadership believes will be an inevitable showdown in creating a new anti-democratic socialist and communist world order without the US.” In his most acidulous commentary, Gertz declares that “the pro-Beijing hands in and out if government were complicit in these policy crimes that deliberately appeased China through a rigid, establishment view that ignored the reality of the People’s Republic and cast it as a normal nation and not as a nuclear armed Communist dictatorship.” Gertz says that it was not until 2015 that the pro-China view was recognized as being no longer sustainable.

Chapter 3: “China Wars: The Failure of Pro-China Appeasement”

In the four decades after the period of reform and opening up began in 1972, Gertz says that “the vast majority among a relatively small and close knit community of China experts who glowed into government policy positions, intelligence agencies, and the officer corps from universities and think tanks produced one of the most serious failures of foreign and security policy in US history.” Gertz explains again that “forty years of willful blindness about China led to the adoption of disastrous policies toward China that have produced a new era of danger many experts see as analogous to the 1930s,” a period when shortsighted diplomats and policymakers prevented the US military from preparing to meet the threat of the growing power of the Japanese Empire. As that story goes, tabletop war games against Japanese forces were forbidden. The ruling elite feared that “it would create a new Japanese threat where there was none.” Gertz says that similarly, pro-Beijing hands created another strawman argument for the appeasement of China. In the aggregate, the result according to Gertz has been “a devastating run of policies toward Beijing that avoided all reference to China’s illicit activities and behavior from the massacre of unarmed pro-democracy students in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1989, to China’s role in stealing US secrets on every deployed nuclear weapon in the US arsenal and hastening their spread globally by supplying nuclear warhead design secrets to Pakistan.”

Cuiusvis hominis est errare, nullius nisi insipientis, in errore perseverare. (Any man can make a mistake, only a fool keeps making the same one.) Gertz explains that in the 21st century, “the US is facing the potential of a new world war by miscalculation involving China that has been quietly and systematically building up what it terms comprehensive national power–military, diplomatic, economic–for what the Chinese Communust leadership believes will be an inevitable showdown in creating a new anti-democratic sociakist and communist world order without the US.” In his most acidulous commentary, Gertz declares that “the pro-Beijing hands in and out if government were complicit in these policy crimes that deliberately appeased China through a rigid, establishment view that ignored the reality of the People’s Republic and cast it as a normal nation and not as a nuclear armed Communist dictatorship.” He goes on to state the dominant pro-China community of both officials and non-government experts “inflicted serious damage on US interests by consistently producing biased and misleading assessments on both China’s intentions and capabilities.” Gertz says that it was not until 2015 that the pro-China view was recognized as being no longer sustainable.

As greatcharlie discussed in its March 29, 2021 post entitled, “Listening to and Understanding the Positions of Others: A Requirement for Thoughtful and Fruitful Talks in All Cases,” diplomacy has been defined as the established method of influencing the decisions and behavior of foreign governments and peoples through dialogue, negotiation, and other measures short of war or violence. In its practice, its key for negotiators to ensure the other side is listening and understanding what they are communicating. That necessitates managing negotiations without arousing hostility. Any awkward situations must be handled with tactfulness. 

Although only in office for a few months at the time of this writing, the administration of US President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris presumably has used US citizens, individuals with the very best reputations to contact Beijing through so-called back channels. Those individuals would be doyens, men or women of the world with a natural turn for diplomacy, and for discreetly presenting issues of concern and arranging delicate matters as a point of honor for Washington. China appears to commit itself to nothing where the US and Western countries are concerned, or where any other country is concerned for that matter. China’s government is founded on a movement that produced a revolution. It believes it provides a way of living based on Mao’s teachings that should be embraced for all humanity. It will never be satisfied until it puts the rest of the world’s government’s on a solid footing in that direction.

Whether diplomats, intelligence officers, Communist Party of China operatives, or businessmen, they spout the old propaganda line while overseas, “Communism is the wave of the future.” The Biden-Harris administration’s policy makers will have ample opportunity to test theories on how to get the best results from US bilateral relations and economic competition with China. Gertz does not use page space to present readers with exact details of how the US has bargained and negotiated with China, or the tone heard during opportunities in which they communicated bilaterally. The outcomes of such talks speak for themselves. It is one thing to establish a competitor firmly in one’s mind to help drive the effort “to up one’s game.” It is wholly another thing to seek something akin to world domination and to find a way up by stealing from, forcing out, and stepping upon, others. China is attempting to do all of the latter to the US. China will almost always be happy to meet with US officials to negotiate and sign any agreements both to humor themselves, satisfy those among US policy makers and decision makers naive enough to believe there would be any hope of hampering China’s march to dominance, and mollify others who may “fear” the change that Beijing assures is coming.

Qui cumque turpi fraude semel innotuit, eriemsi verum dicit amittit fides.  (Whoever has once become known for a shameful fraud, is not believed even if he speaks the truth.) One could go as far as to say it is delusional to persist in communicating entreaties of that kind to Beijing. This is especially true when it is clear how the troubling behavior in question is associated with China’s quest for dominance. There is no shortage of ambition. One cannot show a tender conscience to Beijing without soon facing a test of will or other undesired effect. The next generation may say preceding ones were dull indeed not to recognize and respond to China’s maneuvers. To go on in partnership with the Chinese, US administrations have forgiven, while not warranted, its worsening behavior. They have forgiven much. Diplomatic outcomes on contentious matters may often be part of larger arrangements, schemes of the Chinese. Indeed, Chinese negotiators will expect that parties to a negotiation will be willing to accept and start with the conditions they initially present. They will strenuously negotiate. If the Chinese can find no flexibility and no further room for satisfactory results from the negotiations they may alter their position more in line with the other party’s terms. The other party may be eager to accept China’s new amiable terms but they may be unaware that there could be a catch. A follow-on malign action, may weaken the benefit of any settlement on the same original matter. An opportunity for the Communist Party of China to test the the virtues of this approach presented itself with the Trump administration when it negotiated and signed a trade agreement in 2020. The Communist Party of China was already aware of the burgeoning COVID-19 crisis at home. It no longer appears Beijing is disposed to negotiating fairly, nobly, on anything. This may appear all the more the case as Beijing may feel it is moving closer and faster to its goal of overcoming the US as the world’s dominant power. After examining this, readers should recall the discussion earlier in this review of the “decieving the sky” strategy ascribed to China’s approach. It is very fitting. Quite so!

By the time the second action is realized by the second party, be it the US or otherwise, it is usually still too unfathomable to imagine that the more malign outcome was sought all along by China. By the time it may be accepted by the second party that every step taken by China was part of one larger scheme, the dye will have long since been cast. In its business of conquest, Beijing almost always does everything completely. China’s efforts in this manner do not seem to have an end.

US political leaders must be willing to do the hard yards to ensure its position is protected. This is not a situation that can be nuanced through talks at the negotiation table. China will not surrender any of its gains or leave what appears to be clear paths to its objective for anything the US might offer, except surrender or capitulation.

However, those US political leaders might also consider the words of Paine, 18th Century American political writer, theorist, and activist of the American Revolution asserted in The Crisis No. V (1778): “To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead, or endeavoring to convert an atheist by scripture.”

Workers in a high-tech facility in China (above). Gertz explains that an expert source in the US Intelligence Community revealed to him that Chinese intelligence operations only began receiving the attention they deserved in the late 2010s after China stopped using more cautious methods and adopted bolder approaches to stealing secrets and recruiting spies. Citing a retired source from the US Intelligence Community, Gertz notes that Chinese intelligence activities are akin to a storm. That Chinese intelligence storm is a secret assault on the US that is without parallel since that mounted by the Soviet Union in the 1930s and 1940s. Gertz explains that current Ministry of State Security recruitment efforts are focused on all US citizens with access to secrets China wants. Those secrets come in two main categories: counterintelligence information about Chinese working for US intelligence, and government secrets and even openly available information that will boost China’s military and civilian modernization and industrialization programs.

Chapter 8: Chinese Intelligence Operations

In Chapter 8 “Chinese Intelligence Operations”, Gertz takes the reader into the arcane world of espionage via the operations of Chinese intelligence services in the US. US counterintelligence services have tried to grapple with the matter of Chinese espionage, however the situation with the activities of Chinese intelligence services nevertheless has become an impossible one for them. The anecdotes that Gertz presents well depict the course of that intelligence struggle. He reconstructs the drama of each case. He does this so clearly, that one would believe that he was present in each case to watch events unfold.

At the core of the chapter’s discussion, Gertz explains that today, the Ministry of Public Security (MPS), Ministry of State Security (MSS), and People’s Liberation Army (PLA) intelligence agencies, along with the United Front Work Department, a Communist Party intelligence unit, are the leading forces of China’s intelligence power. Gertz supports the well-established view that the power of those services is focused solely on maintaining and expanding the power of the Communist Party of China in its drive for global domination. At the end of the chapter, Gertz briefly explains that there was ano important reorganization of the PLA intelligence departments has been eliminated. Oversight of the PLA’s technical intelligence capabilities (including cyber, signals, and imagery intelligence) now resides with the new Strategic Support Force under the Central Military Commission. To provide a bit more detail on that transition, the Second Department of the People’s Liberation Army, responsible for human intelligence, the Third Department of the People’s Liberation Army, the rough equivalent of the National Security Agency, responsible for cyber operations, and a Signals Intelligence, or a Fourth Department of the People’s Liberation Army, responsible for electronic warfare have been rolled into the new Strategic Support Force. The PLA’s human intelligence operations are managed by the Joint Staff Department, and comes under the Central Military Commission. Surely, Gertz is aware of all of this. However, as the main focus of Deceiving the Sky was shed light on the realities of China’s attitudes and behavior, actions and intent, with regard to the US, it was reasonable for him to preclose where he saw fit in his discussion of the Chinese intelligence services.) As for the United Front Work Department, as mentioned earlier in this review, it is one of four key bodies of the Communist Party of China’s bureaucracy at the central level for building and exercising political influence outside the party, and especially beyond China’s borders. The other three are the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, the International (Liaison) Department, and the Propaganda Department.

Regarding MPS, Gertz says that it is the Chinese version of what has been called intelligence led policing that seeks to preempt crime. Yet, unlike the West, where laws limit the activities of police and security services, Gertz says Chinese security operations have few boundaries. One feature of the MPS is a system called “the Big System” that seeks to fuse masses of data from Chinese police and intelligence services into one program. Big intelligence is the intelligence version of the PLA’s drive for “informatization,” a term used for high technology analysis activities. 

Gertz informs that the massive police intelligence apparatus promises to make it more difficult for those seeking democratic political reforms in China to operate. As Gertz puts it, dissidents and enemies of the state as well as actual criminals will find it hard to plan and organize without leaving behind digital breadcrumbs that security services can collect and connect. He notes that theos MPS has also created the Golden Shield, a military style command structure designed to share intelligence throughout China. The systems have created pathways designed to breakthrough bureaucratic obstacles and link data. Golden Shield involves automatic analysis and cloud computing for analyzing masses of data including computerized facial, voice, and gait recognition. While MSS and PLA focus their spying operations on technology acquisition, MPS agents are engaged in spying on Chinese dissidents in the US.

Citing a former CIA director of counterintelligence, Gertz notes that Chinese intelligence activities, lay those of MSS and the PLA, are akin to a storm. That Chinese intelligence storm is a secret assault on the US that is without parallel since that mounted by the Soviet Union in the 1930s and 1940s. Gertz appears absolutely taken by the fact that penetration of US national laboratories has led to the loss of at least six nuclear weapons designs and the enhancement of Chinese offensive and defensive capabilities. Gertz explains that current MSS recruitment efforts are focused on all US citizens with access to secrets China wants. Those secrets come in two main categories: counterintelligence information about Chinese working for US intelligence, and government secrets and even openly available information that will boost China’s military and civilian modernization and industrialization programs. The modus operandi of MSS counterintelligence Includes the recruitment of foreign intelligence officers and their agents for work as double agents. Gertz tries to get to the center of the mystery of how MSS was able to completely destroy the CIA’s networks in China through combination information from an operative within the CIA and communications system breach. An estimated 30 agents were caught of which three were killed.

Beyond its own human intelligence activities, the PLA, particularly what Gertz, as mentioned, still refers to as the 3rd Department of the PLA, has engaged in a cyber campaign which has inflicted considerable damage to include the theft of sensitive government trade and industrial secrets.

Much Gertz explains here, greatcharlie has also observed in previous posts that little progress has been made in halting it or even making a discernible dent in Chinese intelligence operations. Many minds in the US national security bureaucracies are certainly working fiercely on this matter of utmost importance, but too few facts have been collected for them to run on to break new ground or produce anything worthwhile for that matter. Trails of espionage may lead to the MSS and PLA, directly in many instances, but those who commit the devilry of spying on Beijing’s behalf, in the US and from China, are seldom caught. With estimates as high as 25,000 Chinese intelligence officers, operatives, and informants on the loose in the US, it is difficult even the most partisan observers such as greatcharlie to deny China has secured a massive advantage for itself. Publicly, there appears to be not much of anything comparable achieved to knock back Chinese espionage. If US counterintelligence services had ever managed to achieve some significant breakthrough on the Chinese intelligence front, one would hear “singing in the valleys.” US intelligence services, much as those of other countries, abhor the prospect of public scrutiny, but it is too late now to be concerned by such anxiety.

The deluge of Chinese espionage has torn away so much information, eroded so many formerly reliable defenses, that each day the situation moves closer to the tragic and the terrible. Hopefully, among possible dissenters, an interest, not solely due to exigency, will grow on the idea. Chinese intelligence services have hampered the work of US businesses, research and development firms, high-tech firms, academia, and the federal government itself. They have created spy networks within institutions critical to US economic security and defense. They have attempted to inconvenience the US in its efforts to improve bilateral and multilateral relations in under developed, less industrialized countries and even long time friends of the in certain regions, and multilateral institutions that the US actually had a hand in creating.

In Aristophanes’ play, Birds (414 BC), the character Epops states: “The wise can often profit by the lessons of a foe, for caution is the mother of safety. It is just such a thing as one will not learn from a friend and which an enemy compels you to know. To begin with, it’s the foe and not the friend that taught cities to build high walls, to equip long vessels of war; and it’s this knowledge that protects our children, our slaves and our wealth.” Chinese intelligence services, perhaps at one time, expecting to face something out of the ordinary, that US counterintelligence services would have a few tricks up their sleeves, have not been challenged in any way that has halted or deterred their cyberintelligence or human intelligence activities. Chinese intelligence services have unfortunately managed to do their job successfully, collecting mountains of secret and information from the government bureaucracies and research and development sites, private businesses, high-tech firms particularly, academia, and think tanks. Surely there must be an atmosphere of optimism in the halls of the headquarters buildings of the Chinese intelligence services. The Communist Party of China most likely delights that without openly admitting to possessing such intelligence capabilities, at least through perception, it has that power over the US. 

One can imagine that on more than one occasion, resources, energy, and time were squandered following a false scent. (God help those who have been wrongfully suspected and falsely accused by mistaken or errant officers of any of the US counterintelligence service. It happens. No amount of reparation could ever fix the psychological and material damage very likely done to innocent targets and their loss of reputation and honor.)

Nam qui peccare se nescit, corrigi non vult. (If one doesn’t know his mistakes, he won’t want to correct them.) Perhaps US counterintelligence services are applying old ways of thinking to a new type of intelligence struggle that bears little resemblance to previous ones. The key to it all remains out there somewhere. Finding those who would be capable and disposed to sniff it out using traces available would seem to be the real task ahead. One might presume that US counterintelligence services would hardly imagine anyone from outside the bureaucracy would be capable of producing some shred through their amateur study of the matter. Indeed, some senior executives and managers of US counterintelligence services, determined to stand as solid pillars of standard thinking and behavior that will not be blown down by the winds of change, may brook the idea of bringing in outsiders to handle sensitive matters. They may be mistaken. 

The solution to this espionage riddle, at least based on public reports, appears no closer within their reach. If the matter has not indeed already been settled, it may seem to some that it is at least at the edge of the end. The chance for US counterintelligence services to exhale will not come for a while. Chinese intelligence services do intend to let it come at all. US counterintelligence services have not despaired of getting a handle on the situation. Uppermost in the minds of senior executives and managers in US counterintelligence services is whether anyone within the bureaucracy can produce the magic that will allow them the ability to gain and retain the initiative in a cause that appears to be lost. They must press ahead on the forward foot.

A US B-2 bomber and two US F-22 fighter jets fly in formation (above). The rocky nature of US relations with China is a matter of great urgency. Yet, Gertz is not planting seeds of war in a time of peace. Despite how he labels his conclusion, he does not propose war as a solution. He still holds hope that US officials will come across something along the way that might bring a solution to the crisis. Gertz explains that there is a growing bipartisan political consensus that new strategies and policies urgently are needed to deal with China. Ostensibly to assist in that effort, he presents a set of 14 recommendations for a policy of liberation for the Chinese people from the yoke of Marxist-Leninism with Chinese characteristics.

Conclusion: What Is to Be Done? Declare China an Enemy, Liberate the Chinese People

Readers might recall the words of the 16th century Italian diplomat and political theorist Niccolo Machiavelli in his famous instruction guide for new princes and royals by The Prince (1532): “There are two ways of contesting, the one by the law, the other by force; the first method is proper to men, the second to beasts.” The rocky nature of US relations with China is a matter of great urgency. Yet, Gertz is not planting seeds of war in a time of peace. Despite how he labels his conclusion, he does not propose war as a solution. Prosing out on that matter, he still holds hope that US officials will come across something along the way that might help them develop a solution to the crisis.

Gertz explains that there is a growing bipartisan political consensus that new strategies and policies urgently are needed to deal with China. He does not believe it will be impacted by what he calls the national predicament, a seeming loss of clarity amid increased political polarization. To assist in finding that solution, he presents a set of 14 recommendations for what he hopes will be a policy of liberation for the Chinese people from the yoke of Marxist-Leninism with Chinese characteristics. Gertz emanates a sense of assurance in his writing that the recommendations he offers in Deceiving the Sky would obtain good results.

Each of the 14 recommendations is sufficiently self-explanatory, some are accompanied here with a précis of his summary on it or greatcharlie’s own comments on it. Together, his recommendations have a cumulative effect. They include: 1) Information: Conduct aggressive competition in the realm of ideas. He proffers that the first step in creating a free and democratic China would be regime change, an effort to peacefully oust Communist Party of China; 2) Reciprocity: Restrict access by China to the US in ways equal to Chinese restrictions. A key measure would be to counter Chinese financial warfare with a US program of economic warfare; 3) Intelligence: Shift the focus and operating methods of American intelligence toward more robust and aggressive operations and more effective analysis. Rather than accept being pushed back on its heels, Gertz recommends that the US Intelligence Community should step up aggressive intelligence and counterintelligence operations against the Communist Party of China and the PLA; 4) Foreign Policy/Diplomacy: Restructure and Reform the diplomatic system. Such reforms would need to be implemented in a way that would allow the US to better confront and counter growing Chinese hegemony; 5) Alliances: Create a pro-freedom, pro-prosperity, and pro-rule of law network in Asia. What was already seen in the Trump administration and still being seen in the Biden-Harris administration is Gertz recommendation that the US develop “a global network of democratic alliances targeting China that will seek to pressure Beijing into abandoning its totalitarian communist system and global designs.”; 6) Cultural/Educational: Severely restrict activities by Chinese nationals in the US who are abusing the American system. Gertz suggests that such activities should be restricted in recognition of the subversion and technology theft threats many unfortunately pose; 7) Counterintelligence: Major strategic counterintelligence operations and analyses should be implemented that focus on aggressively targeting Chinese intelligence and security services; 8) Economic: The US should begin a gradual policy of disengagement from Communist China economically; 9) Financial: Plan and carry out covert financial warfare operations against China; 10) Military Exchanges: The Pentagon and US Military must adopt a new policy that recognizes the Communist Party of China and the People’s Liberation Army as the main enemy; 11) Military Missile Defense: Expand American Regional missile defenses. As part of a strategy of neutralizing China’s massive and growing force of ballistic, cruise and hypersonic missiles, Gertz says US missile defenses around the world should be expanded; 12) Military Gray-Zone Warfare: Develop asymmetric warfare capabilities designed to negate Chinese military, cyber, electronic, and psychological warfare capabilities; 13) Political: Create a Parliament in exile. The creation of a “democratic Chinese parliament in exile” that will develop new policies for a free China is an old chestnut.; and, 14) Russia: Play the Russia card. One might call Gertz the suggestion that the US should play the “Russia card” against China by seeking a free and democratic Russia aligned with the free world somewhat fanciful.

Most notable to greatcharlie in the context of this review is Gertz’s recommendation on “Foreign Policy/Diplomacy: Restructure and Reform the diplomatic system.” In his summary of that recommendation, Gertz suggests that US diplomats and foreign service personnel should be retrained in the use of new and innovative diplomatic methods and techniques for the information age that emphasize successfully implementing new strategic objectives toward China that reject the failed diplomacy of the past. The new diplomacy will be rooted in honest assessments and understandings of the true nature of Communist China. A new objective will be to report on and take steps to force an end to the systematic abuse of human rights in China as a high priority. The US should seek to create a new alliance of nations that will seek to isolate China and spur internal democratic political reforms and promotion of freedom and free market systems in the region. Strategic and economic dialogues such as those in the past that produced no results must be ended. New engagement should be limited to conducting bilateral and multilateral talks on concrete, achievable objectives such as verifiable arms limitation and enforceable trade agreements. It certainly would not be velvety going forward if such a course were followed, but perchance US values and interests would be well-served.

In Deceiving the Sky, Gertz’s research sheds an extraordinary side light on the undeniably aggressive thinking of Beijing. While US political leaders are still in a position to reexamine the facts, they should do so. Surely, if any of them were to take the time to look at Gertz’s book with an open mind, it would given them the necessary nudge to begin thinking in that direction. Deceiving the Sky could also lend support to deliberations among colleagues on the matter. 

There are likely quite a few citizens in the US who have heard about China’s aggressive activities. Surely, they would appreciate reading Deceiving the Sky as it would provide them a firm basis for understanding the many issues involved. As greatcharlie has already stated in this review, information from the text that is discussed here only represents a fraction of what the reader will find in Deceiving the Sky. For greatcharlie, the book was both edifying and a pleasure to read. Without hesitation, greatcharlie recommends Deceivibg the Sky to its readers.

By Mark Edmond Clark