Dateline: above the garage in Portsmouth RI, 7 February 2005

Yesterday the family and I went to a "Families with Children from China" (FCC) party in North Kingstown celebrating the start of the new Lunar Year in China (2005 is the year of the rooster), and had a lot of fun. So many young Chinese girls in one place, plus a lot of cultural fun stuff and a great Chinese feast.

The Lion Dance being performed.

When I got home I found an email from a lawyer in NYC who originally worked with my agent to help us find a publisher for PNM in China (he loved the book). As many of you know, we ended up going with Beijing U Press.

Well, it turns out that this lawyer was on the team of translators that produced the Chinese version of PNM, so he emails me yesterday asking for a special preface.

I bang it out this morning and send on to him, excited to hear that PNM will soon hit the streets in Beijing as it already has in both Tokyo and Istanbul!

Here's the Preface I sent off:

Preface to the Chinese Edition

As the new father of a Chinese-American family, it is with the greatest pride and deepest honor that I present to the Chinese people this vision of a world without war. Let me explain that statement in full.

As you will note in Chapter Four ("The Core and the Gap"), my wife and I decided, after having three children, to adopt a baby girl from your great nation. This was a very purposeful decision on our part, because it meant that our family and the Chinese people would be joined through this child and future woman. My wife Vonne and I made this trip in the summer of 2004, visiting Beijing, Nanchang, Guangzhou and Hong Kong. It was a revelation for us on many levels to witness the amazing development that China is undergoing today, but most importantly this journey brought us to our second daughter, Vonne Mei Ling Barnett. The moment we became her new parents, we added a new homeland to the list of great civilizations that has shaped our family, and a new strand of connectivity between our peoples was born.

I believe the growing connectivity between China and the United States will shape the 21st century more than any relationship in the world. For the world to achieve truly global peace, America and China must enjoy a deep and lasting strategic partnership. I see no other route to a future worth creating, and thus it must be so. But to state this great requirement and to achieve it are two vastly different things, and so there is much work to be done in the coming years and decades. I have committed myself to creating this strategic partnership because I am certain that if it comes to pass in all its potential, war as we have known it throughout human history will cease to exist in this century.

This is the great challenge of our age, and China has it within itself to create this future more than any other nation on Earth. For if China can truly rise peacefully, then globalization's progressive advance around the planet will be made unstoppable, thus ending the disconnectedness from hope, opportunity and stability that still afflicts roughly one-third of humanity. But if the Theory of Peacefully Rising China proves false or unachievable, then the entire world will suffer the consequences of this failure, and they will be both terrible and inescapable.

I wish the Chinese people the greatest of good fortune, longevity and happiness as you continue to make your country one of the most important pillars of globalization. If this book aids you in your quest to understand the world around you and locate China's rightful place in that world, then I will consider it a small repayment for the great joy your family has imparted to mine through the new daughter we share.

Thomas P.M. Barnett

February 2005