The Useless Tree

Hu Jintao and Sun Tzu

    Visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao apparently plans to give President Bush a copy of Sun Tzu’s Art of War when they meet tomorrow.  There are various interpretations of what this might mean.

    Does it suggest a critique of US foreign policy and the invasion of Iraq in particular?  The most famous Sun Tzu idea is "winning without fighting;" that is, the best strategy is that which reveals your strength in such a way that the adversary realizes defeat is most likely and yields without actual battle.  Is Hu’s gift a way of saying that the US could have won without fighting in Iraq?  We certainly have yet to win with fighting.  Or is it a veiled hint that China, by pursuing a multifaceted global strategy, has the advantage over the US, which should shift from its overly-militarized foreign policy to a more skillful use of economic, diplomatic and soft power resources?  Hmm…

     There are other possibilities.  Another great Sun Tzu notion is that strategy and battle are all about deception.  We can easily extend this to political battle as well.  But this is a lesson Bush and company have learned all too well: they cannot seem to do anything but deceive.  Coals to Newcastle with that message, President Hu.

     How about this one: Sun Tzu is quite adamant that political authorities should not interfere with military operations.  Once the decision for war has been made, the generals must be allowed free rein in planning for and executing battle.  This, of course, runs against the tradition of civilian control of the US military, but maybe it is something for Mr. Rumsfeld to take note of.  Maybe Hu’s gift is an effort to tell Bush that Rumsfeld fundamentally erred when he rejected General Shinseki’s advice for a much larger force for Iraq.

     We could keep this parlor game going for some time.  That is the beauty of this gift: we can take many messages away from it.  But I wish Hu had opted for another choice.  Not the Analects or Chuang Tzu – I am afraid these would be lost on Bush.  No, Han Fei Tzu is what Bush needs most just now.  A quick read of that most ruthless of political advisers and Rumsfeld would be out the door in a heartbeat and maybe, just maybe, Bush would see that political influence and popularity are not to be found in fruitless foreign wars, as Han argued.   But that would be asking too much….

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9 responses to “Hu Jintao and Sun Tzu”

  1. sunbin Avatar
    sunbin

    You’ve said it all, and very well. πŸ™‚
    the most famous line is ε°†εœ¨ε€–ε›ε‘½ζœ‰ζ‰€δΈζŽˆ,(which is actually not by Sun Zi), but it only means civilian do not interfere on the military execution of the goal.
    To Sun Zi, military strategy is only one portion of the grand strategy (which is mainly political, but also including economical/etc), civilian could participate in the grand strategy but should not ‘micro-manage’ military operations, esp when the generals are on the field already.

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  2. Casey Kochmer Avatar
    Casey Kochmer

    Ah its much more subtle than that.
    And on many levels this is the beauty of this gift.
    On the basic level I see it: China and America are definitely sizing each other up for war for the past decade. And while I don’t think war will break out between china and America, both sides are planning as if it could( I remember a Chinese general in a lecture telling us five years ago how china will defeat us in a war in 2012… or how in west point they are training cadets to think about such war possibilities.) scary in itself. And the political war has been waging for years. You have to love the shot across the bow this represents.
    But the message is clear from the viewpoint of the political sense. In giving bush the Art of War in my opinion is China’s way of saying you have lost already, here take this book to understand why. Part of the mind game in the political war. Sun Tzu would have been proud of the tones of this gift and the ripples it will cause Bush and the pentagon.

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  3. Cao Lie Qiao Avatar
    Cao Lie Qiao

    Casey:
    Interesting intepretation. If you are right and Hu is giving Bush the book to say that America has lost already, then it must be supposed that Hu thinks whatever America has lost can never be recovered by reading Sun Zi’s book on the Art of War.
    What do you believe Hu thinks America unrecoverably lost?

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  4. casey kochmer Avatar
    casey kochmer

    China is patient, they will wait for United States to slowly destroy itself.
    Why go to war, when your enemy is already at war with itself?
    Handing the book to Bush was actually a sign of politic respect also. Bush clearly showed a lack of disrespect back. How could a country with no respect ever hope to learn from Sun Zi’s Art of war?
    Especially when the ruling party’s (Bush’s) culture lacks the respect
    required to understand what the Art of war teaches?
    America has lost before the battle even begun, from this perspective.
    I don’t even know where to begin to list how many ways Bushes administration works in ways contrary to what the Art of war teaches. Strangely Bushes practices policies exactly opposite of the “Art of War”.

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  5. Bruce Jenkins Avatar
    Bruce Jenkins

    Let’s get real – China and the US are never going to have a military war. MAD will work as well with the Chinese as it did with the Ruskies. Anyone who appreciates the awesome destructive power of Edward Teller’s spawn (compared with the firecrackers that leveled Hiroshima and Nagasaki) understands that a hot war between major nuclear powers is unthinkable. It is akin to launching a good sized asteroid or comet into the Earth.
    Now, an economic struggle – that is a different story. But the entanglements that exist in the 21st century global megacorporate world between, for instance China and the US, render the pronouncemnets of the ancients (Sun Tzu) rather limited in their applicability. Sure, one can find the paragraph that seems quite germane and prescient in its applicability. But, the larger, full picture is something that cannot possibly be captured by the ancient mind (in my humble opinion). I recently read Tacitus on the reign on Tiberius. It was uncanny how so many of the political intrigues and personal failings seemed so completely 21st century white house. Unfortunately, taken in its entirety, the analogy soon broke down.

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  6. Casey Kochmer Avatar
    Casey Kochmer

    I agree with you the chance of war is slim in my mind also (I said as much). But that doesn’t stop the war machines of either country from posturing, or mistakes from getting out of hand, or the stupid amount of resources both countries place into their military.
    I also agree that in many senses a battle front has move to a economic front:
    In fact in a sense China snubbed Bush, when it first visited Bill Gates over the White House. China fully realizes the game its playing is in first and foremost currently in the economic front.
    But I also do believe Sun Tzu is still relevant. If you have ever worked with commodity traders you will quickly discover there is a huge similarity between their practices and the military. In fact the US military works with wall street traders in war games at times, turns out they make excellent tacticians. So I believe the symbols here are very important as a small pattern which represents the larger picture very well.

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  7. Sam Avatar
    Sam

    Thanks for the great comments, all. Let me take up Bruce’s point: of the limited applicability of ancient texts. Ouch! My whole purpose here is to try to demonstrate the modern applicability of ancient texts. Yes, you are right, after a time the analogies might break down. But, surely, there is still some relevance (President Hu seems to think so…), no? Tacitus said something to you, right? In fact, the more I read the ancients the more convinced I am that, even in a very different scientific and technological context, there is little that is new for humanity under the sun. Maybe I need to get out more….

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  8. Casey Kochmer Avatar
    Casey Kochmer

    Its about social patterns. In that the art of war is still very valid, as those patterns are still present in todays societies. Yes some new layers have been added over 2000 years, but those are just that: layers. The base lines are still very much there and as such the ancient texts are still important and relevant.

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  9. Bruce Jenkins Avatar
    Bruce Jenkins

    Actually, I think I agree with everything you guys have said. I sincerely believe in the wisdom of the ancients on many fronts since human nature has not changed in the 10000 years of civilization. The beauty of spring, the guile of adversaries, the lust for power, the egos, the moon over a dark calm ocean – all these things have not changed and thus there is an infinite number of things to learn and appreciate in the ancients. This is true on so many levels. However, there are features of 21st century life that, I believe, are more than just layers. For instance, the ability to completely and totally annihilate your enemy (including his history, ecosystems and population) is unprecedented (notwithstanding how close Europeans came to just this scenario with native Americans before nuclear weapons). Further, the deep and multifarious economic entanglements as well as the huge billions of people are also something never seen by the ancients. Sometimes changes in scale yield qualitative differences ne c’est pas ?

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