A nation must think before it acts.
A foreign diplomat was browsing in a Beijing bookshop last fall when his eyes fell on a Chinese-language book with an arresting title: Can China’s Armed Forces Win the Next War?
That is not the sort of question that’s publicly asked, let alone candidly answered, in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). And, indeed, it turned out that this was a “neibu” book meant only for limited and controlled distribution within China. Apparently, a bookstore employee had mistakenly placed a copy of the book on open shelves. Foreigners have made several such serendipitous discoveries in China in recent decades, though rarely, if ever, has the find been so significant.