PROLOGUE: Ancient Lessons
To reduce the potential for misunderstanding or mirror imaging discussed in the preface, this prologue draws together examples from nine authors in five key research institutes who draw upon concepts from ancient statecraft. Their comments about the future security environment would be difficult to understand without extensive knowledge of the metaphors of Chinese ancient statecraft. The Chinese language is rich in idioms from ancient statecraft. Moreover, Chinese writing about the future security environment describes the future in terms of the Warring States era in Chinese history. (41) The age in which the classics of Chinese statecraft were produced was a time when a multistate competition to become "hegemon" featured stratagems, small wars, interstate conferences, treaties, and what Western scholars of international relations would label "anarchy." One set of "lessons" (among many) was how to become a hegemon; another was how to survive destruction at the hands of a predatory hegemon.
One specific Chinese premise from the ancient statecraft of the Warring States era seems to influence Chinese authors who write about the United States today--the concept of how to diagnose and deal with a powerful "hegemon" (ba) that seeks to dominate several other less powerful states. The way hegemons conducted themselves during the Warring States period of ancient China forms one of the sources of the classic lessons of Chinese statecraft. Unfortunately, lessons from Chinese statecraft about dealing with a predatory hegemon are little known in the West, and there is no guide for Westerners to the famous stories in Chinese traditional statecraft so well known to all our authors. (42) According to interviews with Chinese military officers, these stories are embedded in Chinese culture just as the West has its own history, its own literature, and its own Bible stories. This prologue selects only one subject among many from the lessons of the Warring States--how China in the future should assess and deal with a powerful hegemon.
41. The Warring States era (475-221 BC) was "the flowering age for the Chinese fable and exerted a definite influence on works of later centuries," according to K. L. Kiu, 100 Ancient Chinese Fables (Taipei: Taiwan Commercial Press, 1993), 8.
42. A forthcoming study for OSD Net Assessment discusses Chinese military writings published since 1993 on the contemporary relevance of ancient Chinese statecraft, including the following books: Sanshiliu ji gujin tan (Ancient and modern discussions on the 36 stratagems), Zhisheng taolue--Sun Zi zhanzheng zhixing guanlun (Strategies of superiority--Sun Zi's views on knowledge and action in war), Bu zhan er qu ren zhi bing--Zhongguo gudai xinlizhan sixiang ji qi yunyong (Conquest without combat--ancient Chinese psychological warfare thought and usage), Zhongguo lidai zhanzheng gailan (An outline of warfare in past Chinese dynasties), Quanmou shu--Shujia yu yingjia de jiaoliang (Power stratagems--a contest of losers and winners), Sun Zi bingfa yu sanshiliu ji (Sun Zi's the art of war and the thirty-six stratagems), Zhongguo gudai bingfa jingcui (The essence of the ancient Chinese Art of war), Sun Zi bingfa de diannao yanjiu (Computer studies on Sun Zi's the art of war), and Ershiwu li junshi moulue gushi jingxuan (A selection of 25 stories on ancient military strategy).
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