API Geoeconomic Briefing is a series provided by the Asia Pacific Initiative, an independent think tank based in Tokyo. The series will look into geopolitical and economic trends in the post-COVID-19 world, with a particular focus on technology and innovation, global supply chains, international rule-making and climate change.

A book by Michael Pillsbury, the leading American authority on China, drew attention around the world when it was published in 2015, serving as a wake-up call on China’s supposed secret strategy to replace the United States as the global superpower.

In the book, “The Hundred-Year Marathon,” Pillsbury writes that Washington has helped Beijing catch up on the world stage for more than 40 years, believing that the nation will emerge as a democratic and pacifist superpower. But the U.S., in fact, has been seduced into helping China implement a secret strategy to overtake the U.S. as the world’s dominant power by 2049, the 100th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic.