Michael Pillsbury

Michael Paul Pillsbury (born February 8, 1945) is an author, and former public official in the United States. He has been the Director of the Center on Chinese Strategy at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C. since 2014. Before Hudson, he held various postings in the U.S. Department of Defense and U.S. Senate. He has been called a "China-hawk", and an "architect" of Trump's signature policy on China. He was described by Donald Trump as the leading authority on China in 2018.<ref>{{cite news|last=Schreckinger|first=Ben|date=November 30, 2018|title=The China hawk who captured Trump's 'very, very large brain|page=A1|work=Politico|url=https://www.politico.com/story/2018/11/30/trump-china-xi-jinping-g20-michael-pillsbury-1034610|access-date=November 30, 2018}}</ref> Pillsbury is the author of three books on Chinese foreign policy strategy and Sino-American relations. Pillsbury's most recent book, The Hundred-Year Marathon, appeared as a selection of the 2017 U.S. Special Operations Command, Commanders Reading List, and was number one on The Washington Post bestsellers list. According to The New York Times, Pillsbury's book "has become a lodestar for those in the West Wing pushing for a more forceful response to the threat that China's rise poses to the United States." Pillsbury's work has not been siloed to the American right, finding bipartisan interest as many Democrats look to continue his work in incorporating a version of Trump's China doctrine in the Biden Administration. In December 2020, the Trump administration announced it intended to appoint him as the chair of the Defense Policy Board. Career Pillsbury received his B.A. in history from Stanford University (where he was mentored by East Asia specialist Mark Mancall) before earning a Ph.D. in Chinese studies (under the aegis of Zbigniew Brzezinski and Michel Oksenberg) from Columbia University. He was an assistant political affairs officer at the United Nations from 1969 to 1970. From 1971 to 1972, he completed a National Science Foundation doctoral dissertation fellowship in Taiwan.