On July 14, 2005, Major General Zhu Chenghu, one of China's most senior military officers, warned that his government would use nuclear weapons in a war with the United States over Taiwan. "If the Americans draw their missiles and position-guided ammunition on the target zone on China's territory, I think we will have to respond with nuclear weapons," Zhu said at an official briefing in Beijing. His statement was mentioned in articles in the New York Times and Financial Times. Washington criticized Zhu for being irresponsible. Beijing countered by saying that the statement was Zhu's personal opinion. Zhu's threat of nuclear weapons was the first publicly made by a high-ranking Chinese official. Considering that public statements are carefully written to reflect government policies, it would be difficult to believe that Zhu's remark could be considered a personal view.

In the foreword to China the Gathering Threat, Bill Gertz, himself a journalist and author of several books on China's threatening military, says the People's Republic of China and the Russian Federation pose the most serious long-term threat to the United States and its national security. The Chinese-Russian joint military exercise in 2005, purportedly a show of force against international terrorism, was aimed at the US, says Gertz, who has broken news about Chinese military threats. He is not the only one to issue warnings. Scholars and think tanks have studied China's threats to the economy, security and political life in the US. So Constantine Menges's book is a welcome addition to publications on the same issue.

Menges served for several years at The White House's National Security Affairs and at the CIA as a national intelligence officer. With this kind of background and experiences, he undoubtedly knows the subject of Chinese threats. He adds to the Chinese threats those from Russia, a superpower and an adversary to the US during the Cold War that lasted from the early 1950s to the collapse of the Soviet bloc. The Cold War has ended, but threats from the former Communist allies remain. China first detonated a nuclear device in 1964 and has since made enormous strides in developing its nuclear arsenals. Menges says China has been able to mislead the international community about its real intentions when it adopted principles of peaceful coexistence. But the real intention has been to develop the country so one day it can dominate the world. The deception began from the beginning of the Mao Tsetung leadership and through the Cultural Revolution from 1965 to 1976. Mao issued the five principle of peaceful coexistence but also sent Chinese troops to attack India. Menges takes the readers through various periods in China's politics and its relationship with Russia and the US. In the chapter dealing with China's "stealthy strategy toward global dominance," Menges says the Chinese Communist Party has since the 1950s reiterated its goals of peaceful coexistence with other states on the one hand, but on the other it has continued aggressively to make claims on new territories. The drive for world dominance has been to preserve the power of the Communist Party, to counter the military power of the US and its allies, to ensure access to economic resources and to fuse Chinese imperial traditions with those of the Communist Party. "The foundation for China's pursuit of international dominance will be the continued increase in the political, economic and military resources available to the regime," Menges says. "The basic method of action will be to use political, economic and secret means to advance Chinese purposes, keeping military threats and military forces available." To carry out the ambitious goal of dominating the world, the Communist Party has designed a strategy to win over countries that oppose US foreign policy and to hurt US allies. Menges says China expanded its military ties with Pakistan and helped it build its nuclear weapons program because Pakistan is an opponent of India. India on the other hand wants to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council, a move opposed by China. Beijing has been also successful in establishing ties with Russia, and through those ties it has been able to reach Central Asian countries. Examples of China's activities to expand its reach to countries around the world are studied in the book.

In the case of Taiwan, Menges says the tactic has been to intimidate the Taiwanese people with force while seducing them with money, particularly the Taiwanese that have invested heavily in the mainland. By the end of 2003, there are an estimated 300,000 Taiwanese living on the mainland. Sixty percent of Taiwan's overseas investments are on the mainland and two-way trade amounting to 90 billion US dollars a year. Taiwanese make three million trips to the mainland each year. All of this good economic statistics have not deterred a Chinese general from threatening Taiwan with nuclear weapons.