In the spring of 1987, the father of China's strategic missile program, Qian Xuesen, told colleagues that China must steel itself for a century of sustained "intellectual warfare." His use of a military metaphor was not a quirk but reflected the unique role of the military in China's emergence as a modern state. The book weaves together four stories: Chinese views of technology since 1950, the role of the military in Chinese political and economic life, the evolution of open and flexible conceptions of public management in China, and the technological dimensions of China's increased power. It explores the powerful role played by the People's Liberation Army and its technical advisers in Chinese economic and institutional debates. But the book primarily explores and explains a paradox. This military approach to technology emerged during China's period of greatest external threat, 1950-69. Yet these policies and management methods persist even as China enjoys perhaps its most benign strategic environment since the 1840s.