The Philosophy of Chinese Military Culture: Shih vs. Li

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The Philosophy of Chinese Military Culture

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The Philosophy of Chinese Military Culture Shih vs. Li WILLIAM H. MOTT IV AND

JAE CHANG KIM

THE PHILOSOPHY OF CHINESE MILITARY CULTURE

© William H. Mott IV and Jae Chang Kim, 2006. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. First published in 2006 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN™ 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 and Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, England RG21 6XS Companies and representatives throughout the world. PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 1–4039–7187–0 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Mott, William H. The philosophy of Chinese military culture : shih vs. li / William H. Mott IV and Jae Chang Kim. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1–4039–7187–0 1. Military art and science—China—Philosophy. 2. China— Civilization. I. Kim, Jae Chang. II. Title. U43.C6M68 2006 355.001—dc22

2005054744

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: April 2006 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America.

Contents

List of Illustrations

vii

Acknowledgments

ix

Preface

x

1 Strategy and Culture

1

2 The Idea of Shih

15

3 Ancient Chinese Wars

45

4 The Chinese Civil War

73

5 The Korean War

103

6 The Sino-Indian War

131

7 The Sino-Soviet War

161

8 The Sino-Vietnamese War

185

9 Chinese Strategy: Shih-Strategy

215

Glossary

233

Notes

241

Bibliography

279

Index

295


List of Illustrations

Tables 2.1 2.2 2.3 3.1 3.2 4.1 4.2 4.3 5.1 6.1 7.1 8.1 9.1

Comparison of Shih and Li Indicators of Shih or Li in ruler’s national strategies Indicators of strategy based on intent or on forces Chronology: Liu Bang–Xiang Yu Chronology: Liu Bei–Cao Cao Chronology: China’s Civil War Sun Tzu’s 14 principles Mao’s eight rules Chronology: The Korean War Chronology—Sino-Indian War Chronology: Sino-Soviet War Chronology: Sino-Vietnamese War Comparison of strategic dimension of Shih or Li

32 36 44 52 60 76 79 91 106 146 172 200 227

Figures 2.1 Shih-Strategy and Li-Strategy 2.2 Shih-Strategy and Li-Strategy in Wei-Chi game

34 35


Acknowledgments

While it is certain that readers will find weaknesses or omissions in our perceptions, presentation, or conclusions, it is just as clear that they would have found many more without the kind and patient help, understanding, and support of our colleagues, families, and friends. We acknowledge the active contributions of Professors Richard Shultz, Robert Pfaltzgraff, and Alan Wachman who waded through various versions of each chapter. Professor Shultz raised perplexing questions of scholarship, focus, military science, and philosophy. Professor Pfaltzgraff kept the work within a proper theoretical context with his guidance and encouragement. Professor Wachman inspired the structure of the thesis and the theme of the work. We owe special gratitude to Dr. Byong-Moo Hwang who kindly expanded our understandings of Shih and Dr. Sung-pyo Hong who greatly assisted the research. Dr. John Endicott’s concern in guiding General Kim to the Fletcher School brought us together in the idea of developing Shih as China’s Strategic Culture. General Jack Galvin’s persistent encouragement as both friend and dean gave much needed support and confidence as we explored the implications of China’s Shih-strategic uses of force for modern peoples. Over the years spent in developing the book, many colleagues— military, Chinese, and academic—have listened and argued with us, and have provided additional references and new ideas, as well as much-needed criticism and focus. Our families tolerated months of endless papers, reference books, notes, musings, Internet searches, conferences, and e-mail discussions as we tried to organize our impressions around some coherent meaning. Their understanding support through the genesis and difficult birth of this book was inspiring and essential. Our families—sons Ji Hyun and Seok Hyun Kim and William H. Mott V and daughters-in-law Hae Young Kim and Laurie Mott—were encouraging observers. To our patient, tolerant, and understanding wives, Donna and Jung Ja, in particular, we dedicate this book.

Preface

The people of ancient China existed in moral, psychological, and physical circumstances so different from our own that we can only imagine their thoughts and feelings. Qualities of conduct and thought in modern China’s use of force, which Euro-Americans may find odd, anomalous, or novel, reappear in the alien surroundings of ancient China as familiar and permanent elements of China’s strategic culture. Certain patterns of strategic thought and behavior, certain reactions to space and time, and certain approaches to the enemy and fate link the ancient past through the urgent present to the eternal future. The interval of nearly four millennia permits modern strategists to identify what is strategically significant in these patterns as China’s strategic culture. In the recent, topical reaction to orthodox technological determinism and Euro-American pragmatism in war and strategy, many analysts have rediscovered cultural factors in explaining and conducting war. Although this interest is certainly not new, the current revival focuses explicitly around China, why Beijing uses force as it does, and how soon China’s modernization will develop its uses of force into predictable patterns. In parallel, the recent trend of expeditionary interventionism reminds EuroAmerican strategists of the effects of diversity—or asymmetry—on military operations and the inherent challenges to defining, achieving, and preserving victory. Perhaps unconsciously, this cultural approach to strategic thinking construes global military experiences through Euro-American understandings of war, power, technology, and force primarily as instruments of decisive victory. Culture-based strategic thought comfortably finds the apogee of military art and science in Euro-American doctrines, force structures, and practices, while those of primitive, non-Western opponents are simply asymmetric or aberrant. Recognizing historical Euro-American military success, the cultural approach presumes and expects a weak opponent to recognize its weakness, learn the methods and doctrines of victory, and adopt them in strategies to increase its own power. Weakness forces an asymmetric opponent to develop an anti-strategy, anti-operational methods,

Preface

xi

anti-tactics, and anti-weaponry to overcome its powerful opponent’s advantages. To achieve decisive victory, weaker commanders must learn from powerful commanders—not to adopt their methods, but to defeat them. Euro-American military experience suggests that in some way, technology is a dynamic, absolute force to which people must adapt doctrine, strategy, and force structure. A pragmatic emphasis on efficiency, costeffectiveness, and rationality comfortably subsumes strategic tasking in the self-evident truth that the military task is victory, which goes to the most powerful, best equipped, and best prepared battle force. Drawing on EuroAmerican cultural and spiritual values, cultural orthodoxy suffers from presupposing the imperative to decisive victory as a common standard against which all states can—and should—be judged. Although every soldier recognizes the need to seize and develop every advantage that new weapons can bring, a narrow focus on forces and technology carries the risk of indifference to other factors. History has focused China’s strategic cultural development—like those of several other cultures—along the path of weakness confronting strength. Understanding technology not as an absolute force but as an instrument of human will, Chinese strategists have historically drawn their power more from the people and from nature—China’s culture—than from military superiority or technical prowess. When unable to achieve decisive battlefield victories over superior forces, commanders learned to defeat an enemy’s intent, frustrate the commander’s will, erode the troops’ moral, and destroy a ruler’s determination. From positions of weakness, Chinese generals developed strategies, campaign plans, operational concepts, and tactics to win wars without the need for decisive victory in every battle—to win without fighting. Rather than the orthodox, modern Euro-American forces-based strategies, China’s ancient strategic culture developed strategies based on intent—defeating an enemy’s intent with the friendly intent. In recognizing cultural diversity and asymmetry, the cultural approach exposes the historical development of particular cultural patterns in using force. In contrast to the relatively brief history of modern Euro-American strategic thought, China’s strategic culture has emerged over more than three millennia. A major hazard of any journey into ancient history is the uncertainty and contradiction in reports of dates, numbers, and facts— especially motives, perceptions, and feelings. Dates are fundamental because they establish sequences of what precedes and what follows that allow some inferences not only of cause and effect but of the evolution of strategic thinking. Numbers are basic in indicating the significance of events to contemporary populations. The chronic exaggeration of ancient numbers—armies and casualties—does not allow any understanding of ancient war as analogous to modern war. Modern analysts realize that

xii

Preface

ancient chroniclers routinely exaggerated figures for military forces, battle casualties, populations, or any massive groups of refugees by several times. Chinese chroniclers did not use numbers as data but as a literary technique to convey impressions. Discrepancies of fact were inherent in sequences of oral reports or misreading of illegible manuscripts. It is axiomatic that any fact about ancient China may confront a statement of the contrary fact or a different version. Ancient China changes color as different people in different ages perceive it through different cultural filters. Historians’ perspectives, inherited wisdom, and prejudices have changed repeatedly over three millennia. Even with the wealth of ancient chronicles, inherited wisdom, and modern analyses, empty spaces remain in the saga of ancient Chinese use of force. To fill the spaces, one must rely on what seems the likely or natural explanation—the probable rather than the certain. The impossibility of empathy, of genuinely understanding the mental processes and emotional feelings of ancient China, is an insurmountable obstacle. Perhaps the closest that modernity can ever approach ancient thought is the creative effort that ancient thinkers have deliberately recorded as fiction, poetry, novels, or art, based on—but not constrained by—historical fact. While few people would deny that studying the past can enlighten the present, many often find in the past a mirror that reflects only so much light as they direct into it. The authors concede that the past generates light of its own in complexities that illuminate not only the intersection between past and present, but also the hazy avenue into the future. The authors intend this work less as a historiographic case study than as an interpretation of apparent patterns in the gross details of modern China’s use of force through the lens of China’s—rather than the Euro-American— strategic culture. China’s strategic culture is a story with a beginning—the speculations of Tai Kung—a middle—Liu Bang’s doctrinal Shih-strategy— and an ending—Mao Tse-tung’s People’s War. The story’s important relevance lies in China’s still unfolding role as a modern great power and the questions that only the future can answer.

Chapter 1 Strategy and Culture

War is the focused use of coercive force in extreme conflict. Modern Euro-American thinking about war converges strategy with politics in Aristotle’s “instrumental distinction between ends and means. War is seen as an instrument for obtaining a specific end, usually one that is political.” China’s strategic culture has regarded war as an inescapable, unpredictable evil that disturbs universal harmony. When war occurs, rulers must manage it carefully. Whereas European strategists have sought to use maximum force in decisive battle, Chinese commanders have sought victory through minimum force. Chinese strategic culture has consistently rejected “the Western way of warfare, with [its] obsession with successful campaigns and engagements, many of them hollow, or ensuring tactical success often at the price of strategic ruin.”1 Recognizing rationality as dominant in human affairs, Euro-American military philosophers esteem the human ability to control their warlike passions and use war for political ends. War’s horrors when passions overcome rationality are less war’s nature than people’s failures in managing war. In contrast, Asian philosophical traditions question the power of instrumental rationality to control human behaviors. China’s strategic culture commands rulers and generals to use only the force that is necessary to restore domestic order and universal harmony—to control specific means within explicit ends. Facing periodic military crises along China’s long land borders and coastlines, China’s many neighbors have unsurprising concerns about Beijing’s approaches to using force in managing disputes with them. In drawing implications from China’s emergence as a great power, most analyses and comments emerge within a narrow Euro-American basis of Clausewitzian, rational strategic thought. Some analyses indifferently deem China a developing country and draw conclusions accordingly.

2

Philosophy of Chinese Military Culture

Interdependence theories predict that the economic and political costs of using force will constrain China’s behavior as the Chinese economy becomes dependent on foreign trade and investment. Legal and cultural normative theories suggest that China will increasingly comply with liberal rules of good global citizenship. Some China experts, however, remain skeptical about China’s convergence to Euro-American norms and recognize the profound differences between Chinese society and politics and those in the Euro-American world. China’s supernationalism, hypersovereignty, and obsession with national economic growth seem to blend French Gaullism, radical U.S. Republicanism, and the world’s various isolationist fashions. “A realpolitik strategic culture still colors the worldviews of many of China’s senior security policy decision makers, a worldview in which military force is a potentially useful tool, among others, for the pursuit of traditional power and prestige maximizing national interests in a competitive and relatively dangerous world.”2 While superficially similar to Euro-American fears that international institutions encroach on national prerogatives and autonomy, China’s strategic culture is both deeper and broader than Clausewitzian realpolitik. China’s use of force has not concentrated on either the EuroAmerican security dilemma or traditional national security expanded through complex interdependence. Although most Chinese wars have involved territorial integrity and political legitimacy, neither alone has justified Beijing’s decisions to use force.

The Dominant View Most Euro-Americans, and many Chinese, share a loose, shallow, orthodox understanding of China’s strategic mentality in the historical tendency of the Chinese to use coercive diplomacy for limited objectives, while avoiding offensive campaigns. Relegating force to a “last resort,” the Confucian rejection of violence formed a solid foundation for China’s reluctance to use force, which had become the “pacifist bias of the Chinese tradition.”3 For Euro-American analyses, this inherent antimilitarist bias has explained Chinese preference for psychological warfare over weaponry and firepower, victory without fighting, nonviolent stratagems, and deception.4 Some scholars have found an instinctive Chinese aversion to violence or a cultural conviction that war was aberrant. Sociologists have stressed the Confucian ethic that could not justify more than minimal and necessary war and inferred a systematic denial of belligerence.5 Political theorists have noted the absence of any ideological basis in China’s ancient culture for total war.6

Strategy and Culture

3

Beyond recognizing China’s reluctance to use force, Euro-American orthodoxy suggests that Chinese strategic thought has historically preferred to use force in defensive and limited roles. Since China has rarely used wars of annihilation to exterminate states, occupy territory, or massacre enemy citizens, China’s small battles or engagements of annihilation seem at best anomalous and perplexing. China has been historically successful in combining limited wars or campaigns constrained within well-defined geographic boundaries, periods, or levels of violence with cooperative diplomacy to achieve political aims. Increasingly since the rise of liberalism and capitalism, orthodox analysis remains puzzled by China’s apparent disconcern for high casualties and costs (Korean and Sino-Vietnamese Wars), while readily absorbing enemy defectors. Anomalies in China’s wars have been Beijing’s acceptance of high risk (Korean and Sino-Soviet Wars) and disjunctions between military action and political results (Sino-Indian and SinoVietnamese Wars). Although this dominant, orthodox view of China’s strategic thinking enjoys consensus, few analysts, China watchers, or East Asian countries have high confidence in predicting China’s next use of Force.

Clausewitzian Orthodoxy Watching the raw force of Napoleon’s armies pushing to the corners of Europe, Carl von Clausewitz (1780–1831) found the essence of military strategy in destroying enemy forces to achieve political objectives. Clausewitz and his successors stressed the physical use of force—primarily military—either to gain success by destroying a defending army—coercive force—or to deny success by destroying an advancing army—denial force. In both cases, however, the direct approach was to destroy—or defeat— the enemy’s military force. While stressing the importance of chance and confusion—the fog of war—Clausewitz understood them as problems to overcome, rather than opportunities to exploit. Whether through coercion or denial, war’s aim was to alter positional advantage between the contending forces and the balance of power between their respective political sponsors. Since the ultimate aim was permanent change in the balance of power, time and intangible factors lost relevance. Fixating on the imbalance and the physical and human resources available to change it, commanders and political leaders became obsessed with losses and costs. Politicians and generals struggled with dwindling resources, sunk costs, and political will, as people absorbed losses and suspected their leaders of undervaluing their sacrifices. Still facing the enemy, troop commanders struggled to husband the more important factor: whatever was left after their battles.7

4


Although rooted in the Clausewitzian, conventional battlefield, Sir Basil Liddell Hart’s (1895–1970) indirect approach brought strategic thinking legitimately into the political domain. The Cold War found the Clausewitzian direct approach inadequate and demanded a patient, indirect strategy, since mutual deterrence precluded any direct confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union. By integrating all elements of power—military, economic, political, cultural, technological, idealist, and negotiation from strength—in a continuous concentration of pressure, the Reagan administration exhausted the overextended, fragile Soviet Union. In recent operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, Euro-American strategists have rediscovered more-than-military, intent-based strategy by combining diplomatic isolation with air, land, sea, and psychological operations. As the star of Clausewitzian strategic thought and direct, decisive action ascended, Euro-American strategists convinced themselves that Clausewitz had exposed a body of enduring immutable principles of war. Liddell Hart’s indirect approach was a useful method and technique that applied to special situations. “Methods change, but the principles are unchanging, . . . independent of the arms employed, of times, and of places.”8 Despite unpredictable, unorthodox enemies, Euro-American strategists preserve their respect for the Clausewitzian, forces-based principles of war and the ability to seize territory and destroy hostile military forces.

The Problem of the Unexpected The People’s Republic of China has used force against its neighbors at least 12 times since 1949.9 While Euro-American analysts have attributed China’s foreign wars to ideology, preservation of sovereignty, or territorial defense, the Chinese Civil War was also a departure from Clausewitzian forces-based war. Few expected Mao Tse-tung’s nondescript million-man peasant army to defeat Chiang Kai-shek’s three million soldiers armed with modern, heavy weapons.10 In 1950, Mao committed his people to fight the United States, not because of any threat to China’s survival but to resist U.S. expansion on China’s periphery.11 Neither U.S. planners nor U.N. diplomats expected China to intervene in Korea. After concentrating poorly armed troops in five persistent campaigns against superior U.S.–U.N. forces, with an indecisive ceasefire, Beijing unilaterally withdrew and unexpectedly left U.S. forces intact in South Korea.12 In the early 1960s, China’s difficult domestic situation left the Chinese in no position to address anything beyond resolving their own internal affairs.13 In 1962, after minor clashes between Indian border troops, China’s


5

surprise attack with massed troops and artillery penetrated deep into the Sino-Indian border area and occupied dominant strategic positions. Immediately after their decisive military victories, Chinese soldiers collected all the Indian weapons abandoned on the battlefields, cleaned them, and returned them to the defeated Indian troops. China unilaterally withdrew its troops without demanding any political concessions. Orthodox Euro-American strategic analyses have offered various, fashionable, innovative explanations of the Sino-Soviet War in 1969. Most explanations rely on local commanders’ misinterpretations and zeal as the natural result of increasing border tensions. Conventional understandings of Chinese strategic thought as rational pursuit of national interests, however, require Mao Tse-tung to accept the unacceptable risk of Soviet escalation. If Mao had used Clausewitzian rationality, the unexpected incidents at Zhenbao would not have occurred! Even by invoking error and human nature, orthodox explanations of Chinese behaviors in 1969 return ultimately to paradox and unanswered questions. A similar pattern of confusion, paradox, and dilemma appeared in the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese War. After announcing its intent to do so, China invaded Vietnam, a former ally, not because of vital interests but to recall the Vietnamese to their proper place in the world. When Chinese troops had finally seized Lang Son, at great cost, Beijing unexpectedly announced a unilateral withdrawal from Vietnam and recalled its forces to China. Euro-American Clausewitzians could explain neither why China needed to occupy Lang Son with massive casualties nor why it withdrew from decisive terrain without any political concessions from Vietnam. In these modern Chinese uses of force, Clausewitzian strategy has not credibly explained the beginnings, motives, processes, or termination of wars. In the Chinese Civil War, despite Chiang’s clear military superiority, Mao accepted that the weak could defeat the strong without fighting, while Clausewitz recognized “the dominance of vigor and tension.”14 In Korea, Clausewitzian strategists could interpret the U.N. advance north as a threat to Chinese security, and explain Beijing’s intervention as a strategic response. This logic, however, did not support the unilateral withdrawal in 1958 that left the threat intact in South Korea. Neither could Clausewitzians explain Chinese wars with India, the Soviet Union, and Vietnam as military means to political ends. These anomalies in China’s uses of force raise troubling questions about the foundations of modern Chinese strategic thinking. Conventional analyses have not compellingly explained Beijing’s declining use of force since 1979 beyond adducing globalization, liberalization, and the demise of ideology as a basis for war. China’s peaceful settlements of territorial disputes and economic liberalization have allayed fears of

6


Beijing’s use of China’s growing military power in aggression. Implicit in such analyses is the comfortable—perhaps naïve—assumption that the Chinese are really just like us: peace-loving people forced into war by realpolitik. China’s distinctive strategic culture has developed from the philosophies of Tai Kung, Sun Tzu, and Mencius and continues to influence Chinese strategic thought about using force. Any understanding of China’s use of force must include some familiarity with—even understanding of—the strategic culture that dominates Beijing’s strategic thinking.

Rational-Choice Analyses Contemporary Euro-American scholarship often interprets China’s strategic behavior as rational decisionmaking using twisted logic to achieve irrational objectives. Through the comfortable lens of rational choice, scholars and strategists alike try to analyze Chinese use of force as a relationship between action and plausible calculation.15 Within the scope of rationalchoice analysis, various observers of Chinese uses of force find different explanations. One simple explanation is that China, like other governments, merely responds rationally to external stimuli.16 Another common approach analyzes Chinese strategic and operational behavior through the lens of realist theories of international relations—realpolitik. With no recognizable pattern, realists readily infer that modern Chinese strategy is broadly the result of pragmatic reactions to changing factors in a crisis.17 Yet another rational explanation lies in deterrence theory, which suggests that China has used force only when deterrence has failed.18 Despite their persistence, these rational-decisionmaking approaches could not explain China’s strategies of initiating war while accepting its own weakness against powerful U.S. and Soviet enemies. Nor could they illuminate the recurring Chinese pattern of terminating war by unilaterally withdrawing without political demands for concessions in India (1962) or Vietnam (1979).

Cultural Approaches Few people would deny that China’s culture developed its own world order and attitudes toward warfare over nearly three millennia.19 Through its history of survival, evolution, domestic conflicts, and defenses against foreign aggressions, China’s distinctive culture has shaped and limited strategic choices and profoundly influenced China’s interactions with other states. Some scholars—Euro-American and Asian—recognize that the traditional


7

Chinese approaches to warfare have differed sharply from the rational doctrines adopted by modern Euro-American cultures.20 They recognize that the orthodox rational-choice model cannot fully explain Chinese strategic behavior, and stress culture as an explanation of any country’s use of force. Cultural theories categorize cultures around sets of ranked strategic preferences that are consistent across national strategies as they change over time.21 Strategic preferences do not follow directly from changes in threat, technology, or organization, but from patterns of successful campaigns in a society’s history, geography, economy, and politics. The resulting strategic culture aggregates the political elite’s behavior patterns, the military establishment’s doctrines, the principles of cultural values, and the flows and fashions of public opinion.22 Just as rational choice dominates EuroAmerican strategic preferences, China’s strategic culture continues to dominate not only China’s use of force but also Chinese public life. Like the rationalists, in seeking to explain modern Chinese strategic behavior most effectively, culturalists differ on the proper focus along a broad spectrum. A focus on the Ming dynasty’s brutality against the northern tribes suggests aggression as a prominent strategic-cultural pattern for China’s use of force.23 While this pattern is compatible with China’s use of force toward Tibet, India, and Vietnam, it does not fit the Chinese Civil War, the Korean War, or the Sino-Soviet War. Another cultural focus finds the roots of modern Chinese strategy in Mao’s military romanticism in believing that men could defeat weapons.24 For many Asian analysts, Mao’s experiences and his dramatic success in the Chinese Civil War remain the best explanations of the modern pattern in China’s use of force. Several generations of Maoist students have refined much of his thought—people’s war, protracted war, or people’s power—in patterns for modern Chinese strategy.25 Arising in his romantic ideals of Marxism and Confucianism, many broad principles in Mao’s thought do not, however, resolve smoothly into strategic actions or decisions. Another insightful, cultural analysis of Chinese wars since 1840 explains China’s military adventures as symbolic use of force. Chinese elites have used force not to pursue rational interests but as a symbol of their national images of China. While this pattern clearly supports a cultural explanation of China’s strategic behavior, symbolism covers a range of national imagery too broad to be analytically useful.26 Despite Euro-American readiness to equate any national imagery with nationalism, Chinese national images are both deeper and broader than ideological nationalism. Although rationalchoice analyses can accommodate romanticism and symbolism, discrete cultural interpretations are too broad to explain China’s uses of force or to predict Chinese strategic behavior with any confidence. Only the lens of

8


China’s strategic culture brings China’s use of force into focus with both Euro-American rational choice and China’s distinct culture.

China’s Strategic Culture Instead of either culture or rational choice, a strategic-cultural approach is helpful and necessary for understanding Chinese use of force. More than two millennia before Clausewitz, Jomini, and Liddell Hart, Sun Tzu (541?–482? BC) recognized that “warfare is the greatest affair of state, the basis of life and death, the Way [Tao] to survival or extinction.”27 Within this perspective, China’s strategic culture has kept the need for moderation and harmony uppermost in China’s strategic and philosophical minds. Well beyond any principles of war, Sun Tzu’s thought absorbed the Taoist canon of universal harmony of all under heaven. To avoid releasing the chaos, destruction, and death that accompanied war, leaders had to follow Tao: the universal principle of all things—the one way. Beyond its philosophical meanings, Tao expressed the idea of path or road, not only in a physical sense but with a moral-ethical notion of right or the proper way. Instead of legalistic rationality or Euro-American liberalism, moral conduct for Chinese was to follow the right way within the Taoist order of all under heaven. Within Tao, moral fulfillment of an individual’s personality emerged from living as “a man among men,” in proper relations with other individuals.28 Since war, fighting, anger, and weapons were outside Tao, “the one who has the way has no concern with them. . . . Only when forced to do so [the noble man] bears them, and peace and quiet he sets above all.” When forced into war, “a skillful (general) is resolute. That is all. He dares not use violence in seizing (an objective). . . . A good captain is not impetuous. A good fighter is not angry. A good conqueror (ruler) does not engage his adversaries. . . . This may be called the virtue of not striving (noncompeting), . . . the acme of conformity to heaven.”29 The Taoist term wu-wei (nonaction or noncompeting ) did not mean doing nothing but implied refraining from activity contrary to Tao. Only in harmony with nature could humans achieve their own aims. “By nonaction, everything can be done.”30

Abolishing Use of Force Convinced that people were naturally good, Mencius (372?–289? BC) placed the people at the center of public affairs. Like his Greek


9

contemporaries, Mencius sought the good life and hoped to establish government by good people. Calling for abolition of war, Mencius challenged the good ruler to wage war against the poverty that brought crime and disorder. Denouncing war by the state as a crime against the people, he recognized the people’s right to revolution against a ruler who had earned their enmity. His brave doctrine rested on the ancient Confucian-Taoist principle of harmony between ruler and people. The ruler who alienated the people through his laws and misused their power in war had lost the mandate of heaven. For Mencius, as for Confucius, the strength of the state lay in the harmony between ruler and people.31

Controlling Use of Force Recognizing the people as the ultimate source of power, Sun Tzu limited and controlled the use of force within Tao in harmony with the people. To achieve harmony, leaders either had to renounce all use of force or had to make all uses of force total by involving the entire society. By controlling all uses of force tightly within Tao, Sun Tzu’s paradox explained Tao, while urging rulers to use economic wealth, social power, and politics as alternatives to wars. By the Warring States period (403–221 BC), when war involved literally everyone, everything, and all under heaven, Sun Tzu’s thought had begun to converge China’s strategic culture around Tao.” Six or seven different powers competed with each other. Each could raise an army comparable in size to the entire armed forces of the Roman Empire, although their strengths included conscripts who were involved in logistic support for armies at the front. Even though they were not engaged in fighting, they were mobilized to transport grain along specially built walled supply routes running hundreds of miles.”32

In contrast to Clausewitzian campaigns of denial and destruction, Sun Tzu preferred not to destroy enemies but to subjugate them without fighting. “Preserving the [enemy’s] state is best; destroying their state capital second best. Preserving their army is best, destroying their army second best. Preserving their battalions is best; destroying [them] second best. The preservation of the enemy, in a word, is essential to success.”33 While defeating an enemy force or political movement was legitimate and valuable, the object of a war could not be absolute security, which required destroying the enemy’s society. Instead, a victorious society should live with the erstwhile enemy in stable, controlled insecurity. The wise ruler encouraged even those enemy societies that remained unconquered and hostile to resolve their differences.

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Sun Tzu’s Confucian-Taoist premise that power dwelt among the people focused a state’s true strength less in strong forts and powerful weaponry than in its people’s morale and its soldiers’ moral stamina.34 Since coercive force could affect people’s thoughts, intentions, and feelings—not only forces and resources—strategists should apply force selectively across the entire enemy society, not just its army. While denial force destroyed an enemy’s hope of victory by preventing something from happening, coercive force persuaded by suggesting what is about to happen: prospective damage, possible inducement, and probable pressures. Instead of using uncontrolled denial force to destroy, Sun Tzu taught commanders to control coercive force to convince opponents to surrender or withdraw without enduring the destruction of battle. With lower costs and losses than denial campaigns, coercive force included a full panoply of persuasive relationships from threats, inducements, bribes, and gifts to unrestricted violence and brutal destruction. Inducements were less persuasive than violence, since an enemy often absorbed inducements—foreign aid, loans, promises, and other economic benefits—and developed expectations of continuing and more inducements. “Threatening by itself might work if the stakes were not too high and the threat were credible, but more likely, the combined effect of hurting and thereby reinforcing the threat will be more successful—particularly if the threat is also accompanied by an inducement. [Near the other end] of the range is pure punishment. Often this appears a revenge or [stubbornness], and may [generate] the same reaction in the foe.”35 Anticipating the Euro-American idea of deterrence, the Chinese notion of controlled punishment has included conspicuous destruction of an enemy as warnings to other foes—battles of annihilation. The art and science of using coercive force to persuade, instead of denial force to destroy, and defeating an enemy without fighting are the heart and soul of Shih-strategy.

Four Cultural Faces of Strategy China’s strategic culture has converged around Tao three additional important ideas that emerged from prehistoric Confucian thought and belief: Shih, Hsing, and Li. Any analysis of China’s strategic culture and uses of force must begin with an understanding of these four faces of Chinese Shih-strategy.

Shih Congealing over several centuries around Sun Tzu’s thought China’s strategic culture that has formed solidly around the ancient Chinese


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abstraction—Shih—and its paired opposite—Li.36 Several generations of strategists—Tai Kung (1212?–1073 BC), Sun Tzu (541?–482? BC), Wu Tzu (440?–381 BC), Wei Liao Tzu (ca. 318 BC) and their successors— developed and taught Shih as a coherent body of strategic thought.37 The defining theme in Sun Tzu’s The Art of Warfare, the essence of Shih was the dynamic power that emerged in the combination of men’s hearts, military weapons, and natural conditions.38 Strategic thinking focused on Shih was Shih-strategy, which converged Shih along three broad dimensions of warfare: the people, the context, and the enemy. Shih-strategy concentrated the power of the people in the soldiers and their weapons. The power of context appeared in opportunity, timing, and logistics. The enemy’s power lay in the relative skill, competence, and will of the opposing force. Since men and their hearts were critical to Shih-strategy, commanders and rulers needed to understand how to mobilize them. A ruler’s adherence to the right way—Tao—brought the people into accord with the ruler in internal harmony. The ruler with a great Tao gained the deep, sincere, heartfelt support of the people. The ruler who had or created Tao could build a strong Shih for his people and his army. Without Tao, even the best commanders could not build or rely on Shih.

Hsing Sun Tzu understood Hsing as the outward appearance of an object or situation. As a military term, Hsing described the deployment and employment of forces. In war, commanders could transform equipment, weaponry, and troops into Shih through Hsing. Although some scholars and historians interpret Shih and Hsing as near synonyms, Hsing is explicitly the tangible, visible, and determinate shape of physical strength. Shih also includes intangible factors—morale, opportunity, timing, psychology, or logistics—that are often dynamic and always difficult to ascertain. In contrast to Hsing, which is static, Shih changes in some predictable pattern as flourishing and fading succeed each other in battle.39

Li The counterconcept of Shih with its forward-looking perspective, Li refers to self-interest or material gain and carries a definite priority for the present. Arising from materialistic thought and theory, Li-strategy does not recognize intangible human factors as important elements of power. Instead it focuses on visible, material assets and enemy forces.

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Cultural Premises beneath Strategy China’s use of force has always embodied legacies from Shih-theory, which students, successors, and clients of Tai Kung, Sun Tzu, and Wu Tzu developed into tactical, operational, and strategic doctrines and policies. From two basic cultural premises, Shih-theory has influenced and molded Chinese strategic thinking. In marked contrast to Euro-American emphases on technology, weaponry, doctrine, or policy, Shih-strategists are unequivocal in their conviction that power dwells among the people. Chinese strategic thought embodies the Confucian worldview that man was the center of the universe and the ultimate source of power.40 “To be strong, one must be able to employ the strength of men. To employ the strength of men, one must gain their hearts.”41 Although Confucian thinkers gave little significance to military machines and weapons, the hearts—the will, morale, and loyalty—of the men who used them were determining factors of power. Whereas Clausewitz abjured deception and even Sir Basil Liddell Hart advocated deception only as one technique among many, for Shih-strategists, deception is the essence of military strategy. Embedded solidly in Tao—internal harmony—Shih-strategy expands these two premises to a grand purpose beyond—or even instead of—simply achieving victory in battle. Just as Clausewitz recognized that victory was not an end in itself, Shih-strategy uses force to bring the people into ultimate harmony and accord with the ruler in Tao. China’s Shih-strategic culture concludes that, if possible, it is best to win the war without fighting.

Operational Art Shih-strategy focuses the commander’s operations on the enemy’s intent and plan rather than his military forces. When battle is necessary, the aim is to deceive the enemy by creating confusion in the commander’s mind, confounding his intent, and fragmenting his forces. The Shih-strategic general can then easily exploit the situation and achieve battlefield victory. Sun Tzu emphasized winning without fighting and destroying the enemy’s will to fight while not destroying his troops.42 Shih strategy avoids a direct approach. The initial movements of a commander’s Shih-strategy do not expose, or even indicate, its final objective. The best strategy, for the Shih-strategist, is not the approach that the enemy—or even an ally—recognizes but the one that no one expects. Shih strategy is the indirect, circuitous approach to both military victory and the national political objective. Chinese Shih-strategists believe that the


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Shih-detour is more effective than the direct route to the objective, since Shih-strategy converges people and ruler on the Tao.

Grand Strategy The final aims of Shih-strategy lie in the modern notions of national interests—political ends not military results. At a grand strategic level, military results—victory or defeat—are means to an end, not ends in themselves. While directing generals to avoid strength and attack weakness, Chinese Shih-strategy admonishes national leaders to cooperate with a far country to strike a near country. Beyond any battlefield, Shih-strategy advises diplomats to use barbarians to control barbarians in indirect political relationships.43

Shih as a Strategic Culture History suggests that Sun Tzu’s insights about Shih have clearly influenced Chinese strategic thought and use of force. While ancient strategists experimented with Shih, modern, Chinese strategists have used force through Shih-strategy throughout the twentieth century. In contrast to the EuroAmerican focus on the threat facing a country as the foundation of doctrine and strategy, Chinese strategic thought begins with the people as the source and domain of national power. China’s strategic culture of Shih and Tao values defeating a threat only as a means—Li—to the ultimate end of building Shih within China’s proper Tao. A Chinese national Shih-strategy might include winning a battle, fighting a war, or defeating an enemy as a functional, local, Li, not as a strategic aim. Within China’s proper Tao, generals’ applications of Shih-strategic principles in campaign plans, operational concepts, or tactical battle schemes fit smoothly into the national Shih-strategy. Resisting threats to territory, defending borders, or protecting other tangible national interests are not the ultimate purposes for using force. Only when these threats menace China’s Shih or challenge proper Tao do they justify the use of force. While building national Shih, Beijing has complacently ignored or deferred territorial challenges and border disputes. When faced with what Euro-Americans understand as trivial incidents or normal international relations, Beijing has sometimes sensed vital threats to Shih or Tao. Beijing’s surprising reactions with overwhelming force and even accepting unacceptable casualties and costs have perplexed orthodox Euro-American analyses.

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Modern China has perceived continuing threats from its neighbors since Mao declared that the Chinese stood up in 1949.44 China’s strategiccultural perspective presented any political neighbors as friends, but recognized them also as potential enemies. For Beijing in the late 1940s, the most dangerous potential enemy was the Soviet Union, which shared a long border with China. Despite the 1950 Sino-Soviet friendship agreement and Mao’s declaration of unbreakable friendship with Stalin, Shih-strategic principles—like Clausewitzian realpolitik—led Chinese strategists to recognize the Soviet Union as a potential threat. The same Shih-strategic principles obviated any conclusion that the United States would be an everlasting enemy simply because of the Korean War. Having always been politically subordinate and militarily inferior to China, the occasional noises and flourishes in Korea, Vietnam, Laos, and even India were not credible as threats to China’s Tao or Shih. Only the Mongols, the Europeans, and the Japanese have ever invaded China. The Mongols are now Chinese themselves, the Europeans have gone home, and the United States defeated the Japanese. This unique geostrategic history has formed the context and content of China’s cultural heritage. Any understanding of China’s use of force must take a broad perspective across both space and time and look beyond any immediate threat. Perspectives on China’s use of force cannot focus on the direct target, the visible present, or the immediate future. Instead of this narrow view, the Chinese perspective extends into antiquity, across the broad range of China’s several peripheries and neighbors, through many interests, and into the eventual future. This is the perspective of China’s Shih-strategic culture.

Chapter 2 The Idea of Shih

Sun Tzu (541?–482? BC) said, “Seek victory through Shih, not reliance on men.”1 Sun Pin (380–316 BC) urged his king to build Shih for national defense.2 Lin Wu (third century BC), a Zhao general said, “What is valued in military affairs is strategic advantage (Shih).”3 Instead of using military force to subjugate another society or to defeat an enemy’s army, Shih operates to convince an opponent to yield without battle. Instead of using weapons and strength to destroy an enemy, Shih prefers to threaten, manipulate, or deter. Shih can cause an enemy to accept compliant terms without fighting. Sun Tzu famously taught that “to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.”4 Shih, an intangible power, encourages people who enjoy it and discourages those who lack it. Neighbors willingly join—without domination—a country with strong Shih, while enemies with lower Shih withdraw or surrender without coercion. Although political theorists and military strategists alike emphasized Shih as a nucleus of military affairs, they explained the concept through metaphors and left no explicit definitions of the term. With deep roots in both political theory and also Chinese daily lives, the Chinese word, Shih, carries many meanings distinguishable within Chinese culture largely from the context. The most familiar meanings are power, force, or influence. Another common usage refers to a situation’s natural features or a person’s circumstances. Some Chinese use the term to suggest a tendency, trend, or series, or even people’s gestures. The Chinese use Shih in political theory, military strategy, the Wei-Chi game, and daily life to express a special form of power or influence.5 In a military context, Shih refers to power or influence. Military Shih may reside within the army, the general, the people, and

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the ruler—endogenous Shih—or in the external conditions, terrain, weather, weaponry, and time—exogenous Shih.

Foundations of Chinese Thought Philosophical development in ancient China culminated during the late Zhou period (500–221 BC) in its dual understandings of existence. The practical Chinese mind developed into a sophisticated social consciousness of human relations, moral values, and government. The complementary, mystical Chinese soul insisted, however, that the highest purpose was to transcend the prosaic, everyday world into a higher consciousness above the individual and beyond society. Uniting intuitive wisdom with practical knowledge, the few enlightened persons, like Plato’s philosopher-guardians, became by their stillness sages and by their movement, kings, one with universal Tao in harmony with nature.6 By the sixth century BC, the two sides of Chinese thought had developed into two distinct approaches—Confucianism and Taoism. Celebrating common sense and practical experience, Confucianism emerged in the teachings of Kung Fu-tzu, or Confucius (551–479? BC), who undertook to transmit China’s cultural heritage to his disciples. Going beyond his teachers, Confucius interpreted the Six Classics of the holy sages within his own moral values as the Lun Yü—Confucian Analects—compiled by his disciples. Although Confucius taught self-protection and self-control, only during the Song period did Wang Anshi expand them into China’s hierarchic social organization—authority, etiquette, and education—built around the family—baojia. Taoism congealed in Lao Tzu’s teachings (sixth century BC), Tao Te Ching—The Way and Power—later refined by Chuang Tzu (369?– 286 BC) into a coherent Taoist doctrine. Taoists observed nature to discover the Way, the Tao. People achieved happiness when they followed nature’s Way by acting spontaneously and trusting intuitive knowledge. China’s culture accepted these contrary ways of understanding as poles of a single human nature embodied in both the individual and in society.

Tao: The Universal Way Confucians and Taoists alike recognized an ultimate, undefinable, universal reality that supported, contained, and unified all things that people observed and the events that they experienced. “There are three terms— complete, all-embracing, and the whole. These names are different, but the

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reality sought in them is the same: referring to the One.”7 This was the Tao—the Way of the universe, the universal principle of all things, nature’s essential order, or moral law. Unlike Hinduist Brahman, Buddhist Dharmakaya, or theist visions of Olympus, Valhalla, or Heaven, Tao was intrinsically both eternal and dynamic. “The Yellow Emperor obtained it and . . . followed the process of change in nature, but in keeping to the One, he knew that the One was eternal and changeless.”8 Continuous change within Tao occurred in changeless patterns that revealed individual Tao to people who recognized them and directed their actions and thoughts toward, into, and within the patterns. The ruler’s Tao was ruling, inspiring, and indulgent benevolence. The people’s Tao was following, loyalty, and filial piety. If the ruler ruled through Tao, people would obey through Tao. “He who conforms to the course of the Tao, following the natural processes of Heaven and Earth, finds it easy to manage the whole world.”9 The predominant pattern within Tao was the cycle—expansion and contraction, victory and defeat. “Returning is the motion of the Tao” and “going far means returning.” Every situation, being, and thing developed to its extreme, reversed, and became its own opposite, not as the result of some force or will, but consequent to its own existence. The cyclic reversal patterns in the Tao’s eternal motion reflected the eternal pairing and interplay between yin and yang, the intellectual leitmotif that penetrates every dimension of Chinese living. “The yang having reached its climax retreats in favor of the yin; the yin having reached its climax retreats in favor of the yang.”10 “That which lets now the dark, now the light appear is Tao.”11 Tossed between yin and yang, human Tao was not to subdue nature, but to act in harmony with the cyclical current and the local environment. People did not need to force themselves or things into events, but merely to adapt their actions to the patterns and directions of Tao. It was better to move slowly in the right direction than to hurry along the wrong way. By the third or fourth centuries BC, Confucianists and Buddhists had deepened Confucius’s moralistic interpretations into Tao as the right way to moral living. As Plato (429–347 BC) was developing similar ideas into The Republic, Confucianists imposed on people—rulers, sages, generals, and ordinary men and women—a positive moral responsibility to discover their Tao and contain their lives within it. By harmonizing or clashing with nature, people could enhance or diminish their Tao. In contrast, the Taoists had expanded Tao into eternal time and universal space with little moral content. From the eternal pairing of opposites, Taoists deduced that the best path to anything lay through its opposite—the indirect approach. “To weaken, one will surely strengthen first. To overthrow, one will surely exalt first. To take, one will surely give first.” The best security for anything lay in preserving its opposite—deception. “Be bent and you will remain straight.

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Be vacant and you will remain full. Be worn and you will remain new.” Although their methods were incompatible, for Confucianists and Taoists alike, acting and being in harmony with nature bestowed great power on individuals and societies. By about the fourth century BC, Chinese had begun to refer to this special power as Shih.12

Shih: A Dynamic State of Power Not a static power or discrete force, Shih represented a dynamic power and integrated force that combines the effects of material things, natural forces, and human factors in some action. In his famous metaphor of floating stones, Sun Tzu explained that “Shih is visible in the onrush of pent-up water tumbling stones along.”13 Faith in experience and physics leads to the common perception that their greater specific gravity prevents stones from floating in water. When water rushes rapidly from a reservoir, however, the water’s momentum generates power, which floats the stone. Water could either float a stone or do nothing to it. The effect depended upon the rapid flow of water—Shih—draining from the reservoir, which floated the stone, not upon the amount of water—Li—in the reservoir, which could not float the stone. Sun Tzu’s water represented either the static expression of national power—population or wealth—or the army’s specific combat power—troops and weapons. The power to float a stone was the dynamic power—Shih—that the entire army or country exerted for its collective purpose. Sun Tzu’s strategic message was that the method of draining the water was more important than the amount of water behind the dam. Sun Tzu urged his king not to build forces or apply new technology, but to create Shih. Sun Tzu’s prescription for creating Shih was to achieve Tao, “the state in which people are in full accord with the ruler. . . . in such a state [people] will die with the ruler, they will live with the ruler, and not fear danger for the ruler.”14 Like the ruler, the strategist should assess power and design campaigns around Shih, and the general should fight wars with Shihstrategy.15 For Sun Tzu and Sun Pin, good strategy rested not on static forcesbased power but on a dynamic state of power, which was Shih. Like Sun Tzu, Shang Yang (390–338 BC) depicted Shih in the imagery of flowing water. While Sun Tzu stressed flowing water’s power to move boulders, Shang Yang stressed a stream’s nature to follow the easiest course. To achieve Shih, his legalist successors advocated generous material rewards and harsh punishments to guide individual energies through universal political participation into the population’s collective strength concentrated in the ruler as Shih.16

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When soldiers introduced the bow and crossbow onto Chinese battlefields, Sun Pin took the new weapons in explaining Shih. “Released from between the shoulders, they kill a man beyond a hundred paces without him realizing the path. Thus it was said that ‘bows and crossbows are Shih’.”17 Aware that the static weapon itself was not Shih, Sun Pin distinguished the crossbow and arrows—visible force—from the effective power created by the man-weapon combination—invisible, dynamic Shih. By the third century AD, technology had created strong synergy in coordinated joint operations—Shih—between infantry, archers, cavalry, and navy as changing technologies made larger forces possible and sophisticated logistics essential. By the later-Han period, technology, coordination, and logistics had emerged as essential—usually invisible—forces in both an army’s combat operations and a ruler’s national grand strategy—Shih. Shen Tao (360?–300? BC) stressed strategic political advantage as endogenous Shih. He clarified the idea with his famous dragon metaphor: “The flying dragon mounts the clouds and the t’eng snake wanders in the mists. But the clouds dissipate and the mists clear, the dragon and the snake become the same as the earthworm and the large-winged black ant because they have lost that on which they ride.”18 With Shih, the dragon could fly on clouds. When it lost Shih, it was only a worm. It was not his superiority, morality, or wisdom that carried the dragon on clouds, but his Shih. He elaborated political Shih with the experiences of Emperor Yao (2356–2255 BC).19 “When Yao was teaching from an inferior position, the people did not listen to him. When he assumed the throne and became emperor over the world, his orders were carried out and his prohibitions were observed.”20 Ignored as a common teacher without Shih, the same man with the same character and intelligence gained authority and respect as emperor through the Shih of political status and legitimacy. Just as the dragon had become a worm, if Emperor Yao lost Shih, he would resume his former status as the miserable teacher whom people ignored. Shen Tao taught that this great, intangible, influential power was endogenous Shih.21

Political and Legal Foundations of Shih Unlike Euro-American philosophies, Chinese strategic culture has not understood the state as an abstract or legalistic notion but as an organic link between Tao and people. While Sun Tzu learned to assess the states’ power to wage war, legalists embodied Tao in secular, natural law, while Confucians understood human behaviors as moral reflections of Tao. Although both groups relied on baojia as the human structure and Tao as

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the universal foundation for all under heaven, they disagreed over how to develop, maintain, and justify powerful Shih within the state.

The State and the People From antiquity, China’s states have developed in a Confucian-Taoist culture with values of paternal responsibility and authority, filial deference, and familial devotion. As society broadened and deepened beyond the family, people’s values flowed through new organizations, which preserved harmony between people and ruler—Shih—to the state, which united all under heaven in Tao. Modern Chinese still identify the state with “particular organizations and measure its effectiveness in terms of those organizations’ ability not merely to maintain social order, but to mobilize the nation itself on behalf of their own political ideas.”22 Between social and political extremes of local anarchy and imperial despotism, Chinese society built Tao around the Confucian family responsibility to care for itself—baojia. Within communities, baojia collected families under a headman or chief, usually elected by heads of families. Chinese governments have drawn strength from the baojia system that made the family’s head responsible for all family members within Tao. Involving a hierarchical sense of moral responsibility, which was never a part of EuroAmerican representative democracy, baojia relied on Confucian moral suasion and personal loyalty to organize society. As larger communities absorbed smaller ones, baojia became the structure for China’s Tao and an endogenous national Shih. Rulers built the state around Shih and maintained harmony with the people through baojia and Tao.

The State, the Law, and Shih The ancient legalists rejected the Confucian reliance upon moral suasion and loyalty and prescribed creating and manipulating Shih through rule by intimidation. The first legalist teacher, Shang Yang understood moral sentiments and efforts to improve people as dangerous distractions from managing society and regulating commerce to strengthen government and create wealth. Caustic in criticizing political and moral abstractions, the legalists respected technical, legal, or managerial innovations in an efficient, rigid administrative system that concentrated power in the state.23 The national interest required maintaining a ruler’s Shih through rigidly enforcing and severely executing his exclusive legal power over life and death, which created Shih. Although the ruler’s ministers enforced the state’s laws, the prince

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alone could establish the correct behavioral standards for the people.24 In Han Fei Tzu’s (280?–234 BC) legalist view, ruler’s Shih emerged as an instrument to maintain control in the prince’s unique and absolute prerogative to disperse gifts, honors, punishments, and penalties.25 In a legal memorial to Qin Shi Huangdi, China’s first Qin emperor, his chief minister Li Si (?–208 BC) urged that “the ruler will, by himself, control the empire and will not be controlled by anyone.”26 By the mid-third century BC, the legalists regarded Shih as a necessary and sufficient condition for political control. Although they did not deny ruler’s endogenous Shih, Confucians rejected the legalist prescriptions for creating and maintaining Shih through the ruler’s exclusive power over life and death.27 Confucians understood endogenous Shih as the connection between social status and political legitimacy embodied in the baojia responsibility structure. Relying on baojia, Confucians stressed moral elevation, interpreted government as the ability to educate and enrich the people, and gave higher priority to moral improvement than to coercive control.28 Rather than relying on any state authority, as the emperor’s representatives, kings and dukes governed huge populations by passing directives, edicts, and moral guidance through the baojia responsibility chain.

Merging Morality and Law in Shih Broader than either law or morality Taoism embraced the Way of nature as a whole in Tao, rather than any specific way of living—legal or moral. Within the narrow, shared legalist-Confucian focus on endogenous ruler’s Shih, Hsun Tzu (320–235 BC) reinterpreted Shih across both legalist and Confucian thought.29 In contrast to legalist insistence on Shih as sufficient in itself, Shih without popular support was ultimately untenable.30 Effective Shih emerged from the ruler’s accord with Confucian moral conduct— Tao—as an instrument for exerting political influence through the law.31 Within Confucian morality and social purpose, Hsun Tzu redefined the state as the legalist focus for coercive power and political order as the people’s link through the ruler to Tao. To preserve legalist priorities for communal interests over individual welfare, a ruler needed special power—strong influence, coercive force, and absolute authority—ruler’s Shih, which operated through baojia. As the son of heaven standing between heaven above and the people below, the ruler intervened and intermediated between mankind and nature. Confucian Tao was a necessary condition for ruler’s Shih. As an instrument of governance, ruler’s Shih depended upon the people’s support—a sufficient

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condition—that rulers gained and preserved through their own moral conduct. Only the ruler’s right conduct maintained the universal harmony of man and nature—Tao—by doing right things at right times.32 From the Han period, Confucian influence began to refine Shih into political power based on ruler’s Tao.33

Tao and National Shih Sun Tzu accepted that a ruler’s Tao determined national integrity, solidarity, and unity, which brought the people “fully in accord with the ruler.”34 At the national level, Sun Tzu observed that the people’s attitude—loyalty, love, fear, tolerance, or apathy—toward the ruler heavily influenced national Shih. Although the advantage in ruler’s Tao was a critical condition for victory for the Shih-strategist, preserving and increasing Tao through good conduct of the war were as important as winning. Since the ruler who lost Tao—by winning or by losing—would eventually lose ruler’s Shih, eroding the enemy’s Tao was as important as strengthening one’s own Tao by building Shih. For the ruler, the most important part of national Shih was Tao, which he could directly manage, whereas the general was most concerned with his army’s endogenous and exogenous Shih. Mencius (372?–289? BC) recognized this dichotomy in his observation that “timing is less important than geographical interest, and geographical interest is less important than harmony among the people.”35 To win in war, the ruler had to preserve harmony with the people as his capacity to create ruler’s Shih. Exploiting battlefield advantages, building endogenous military Shih, and deceiving the enemy commander were concerns for generals.

The State and War Confucius had extended the idea of self-interest from the individual to the state with the army as a symbol of sovereignty. The state’s dominant and leading military-strategic role was clearly compatible with the Taoist political ideal of unifying a state’s people under the ruler. Not an abstract, legalistic structure, for Chinese the state took various forms as the focus for concentrating coercive power and social purpose within a central hierarchy. Shang Yang taught that—with agriculture and commerce—the state’s proper aims were war and interstate relations and that the government’s primary responsibility was domestic order, society’s ultimate Tao.

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Whether as a strategic target or as an economic resource, oriental and occidental strategic thought alike have divided the state into three groups: the leaders, the population, and the armed forces. Although these groups have never been mutually exclusive, Euro-American strategy traditionally targeted an enemy’s armed forces for destruction. Honoring Carl von Clausewitz’s linkage between war and politics, Euro-American policymakers expanded their strategic focus from enemy armed forces toward threats to the state’s other groups—leadership and population. Strategists asked “What destruction would be unbearable?” Tacticians asked “How can we destroy what the enemy values most?” World War II taught that “the key to this selection is to decide who the power broker is—who can bring the war to a close.” As the Cold War stabilized into complex interdependence, however, it was “not possible to influence the power broker directly. An indirect approach may be required.”36 Beneath this broader Euro-American strategic approach remains a primary effort to coerce an enemy state through threat and destruction. Rather than identifying a power broker or center of gravity, Shih-strategy targeted the ruler’s Shih (leadership), the people’s Tao (population), and the harmony between them. Rather than destroying the state, Shih-strategy preferred deception, indirection, and confusion to engage the armed forces through their commander’s intent.

Assessing National Power For the Shih-strategist, Tao was an instrument of war. Sun Tzu distilled the art of war into five governing constant factors: Tao, heaven, earth, the general, and organization and discipline. Firmly embedding military strategy within statecraft, he began his Art of War by assessing and comparing national power to determine whether to engage a counterpart state. Only his last two factors—the general and organization and discipline—were military. The first three—Tao, heaven, and earth—were political, social, and natural, although they affected military operations. So important was Tao as the first among his factors that before going into war, Sun Tzu insisted on assessing the Tao between each belligerent ruler and his people. Focused on the people’s solidarity and participation in national affairs, social order, and the state’s unity, Sun Tzu’s Tao expressed the ruler’s Shih— largely endogenous.37 Sun Tzu used two factors—heaven and earth—to identify the advantages in weather and geography held by competing states as their relative exogenous Shih. Considering earth implied terrain analysis and logistical planning, while considering heaven captured the importance of night and

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day, cold and heat, or times and seasons for war.38 Expressed in two EuroAmerican principles of war—mass and unity of command—Sun Tzu’s general referred to mass only for effect, and only if mass were the best way to achieve effect. Among many efforts—diplomatic, economic, or political— and even separate battles, general’s Shih referred less to central command than to unity of effort—people and army, ruler and general. When the ruler had large Shih and Tao, unity of effort occurred spontaneously, despite fragmented command within the army. To complement the general, Sun Tzu used organizations and discipline—general’s endogenous Shih—to compare contending countries’ military and diplomatic forces, particularly standing armies.

Military Implications of Shih The earliest thinker to apply the Shih-idea to military strategy may have been Tai Kung (1212?–1073 BC) who advised the Zhou Kings Wen and Wu. Tai Kung’s Six Secret Teachings found strategic power in the people and created Shih in the ruler, general, and army to focus that power through the unorthodox in Shih-strategy. People’s power was the foundation for stable, political government—ruler’s Shih—in peace and popular support for the army—general’s Shih—in war. Although he prioritized the institutional state—a benevolent ruler and wise generals—he taught that Tao included a strong administrative emphasis on the people’s welfare. “Anyone who shares profit with all the people under Heaven will gain the world. Anyone who monopolizes its profits will lose the world.”39 To create endogenous Shih—the proper way for well-ordered, prosperous, satisfied people to live in Tao—he urged rulers to cultivate moral spirit and complete harmony with their people through wise governance. Sun Tzu later admonished rulers to create Tao wherever they went, and generals to preserve Tao wherever they found it, by “taking the enemy’s country whole and intact.”40 Tai Kung’s “technique for military conquest is to investigate the enemy’s intentions carefully and quickly take advantage of them, by launching a sudden attack where unexpected.” To complement surprise, deception, and the unorthodox in the general’s focus on enemy intent, Tai Kung emphasized the army’s endogenous Shih. “Success and defeat in all cases proceeded from the spiritual employment of strategic power, which is Shih. Those who attained it flourished; those who lost it perished.” When the ruler preserved endogenous national Shih—patriotism, loyalty, nationalism, or communal

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pride—the army carried it to war as morale, confidence in their generals, and competence in combat skills—endogenous Shih. The general’s task was to transform his army’s endogenous Shih into exogenous Shih through deception and the unorthodox to defeat the enemy’s intent. The result was a people and army that could win without fighting by thwarting the enemy’s intent without necessarily destroying his forces. With Shih, the weak could defeat the strong; without Shih, war was at best uncertain, and usually futile.41

Strategic Shih Refining Tai Kung’s Six Secret Teachings, Sun Tzu, Wu Tzu (440?–381 BC), and Sun Pin wove Shih into China’s strategic culture, and fashioned Shihstrategy around using force as a political instrument. In the Book of Lord Shang, Shang Yang noted the advantages in an army’s superior position (morale, opportunity, and terrain) and advised manipulating them—strategic Shih—to achieve victory. Like the Book of Lord Shang, the Kuan Tzu urged commanders to manipulate prevailing conditions, circumstances, and physical terrain to achieve political ends through military victory.42 In his monumental history of the Zhou dynasty, Sima Qian’s (?–90? BC) Tao of Warfare described using force based on Tao at the national-strategic level in ways that parallel Shih-strategy.43 In his Summary of Military Strategies, Huai Nan Tzu (140–? BC) developed tactical Shih as a foundation for Shih in its strategic implications.44 Chinese strategic culture never made Clausewitz’s instrumental distinction between politics as a state’s diplomacy and war—the extension of politics—as its strategy.45 Sun Tzu regarded the ruler and the general as practicing the same profession, each with a unique expertise, a separate context, and a particular Shih—endogenous ruler’s Shih and exogenous general’s Shih. While Shih-strategy has integrated two domains—ruler and general—in a single, national-strategic, collaborative art, Euro-American strategists have understood strategies as grand (global), national (politicaleconomic-military), or military (theater or regional).46 Political rulers and leaders develop grand and national strategies to focus resources—including military forces—on national interests defined by political policy. Generals develop military strategies to deploy and employ military forces to achieve military objectives.47 At each level, Euro-American strategists balance national political interests, military capabilities, and political aims. Shihstrategists, in contrast to Euro-American balancing, integrate all levels— national, strategic, operational, and tactical—into Shih within Tao.

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Huai Nan Tzu’s Shih at the Tactical–Operational Level Although Huai Nan Tzu was a political theorist, he analyzed Shih as tactical-operational military method. With strategic advantage (Shih) as his foundation and knowledge of the enemy as his guide, a commander could avoid his enemy’s strong points and attack his vulnerabilities in every operation.48 Urging commanders to build operations on dynamic power— Shih—rather than on static power—force structure—Huai Nan Tzu analyzed Shih with three variables. Troop morale, use of terrain, and opportunities for troop employment all changed along a spectrum of conditions and environment. Huai Nan Tzu translated his variables into three kinds of military Shih. Soldiers’ morale and the general’s skill—Chi Shih—bestowed intrinsic advantage and created an army’s endogenous Shih. Exogenous Ti Shih—the advantage in critical terrain—expanded endogenous Shih. Exogenous Yin Shih—exploiting an enemy’s weakness—offered opportunities for employing troops with advantage, which created an army’s greatest Shih. While morale Shih varied largely with generals, terrain Shih and opportunity Shih depended on the enemy in creating operational and national Shih. 1. Chi Shih: “When the general is courageous and regards the enemy with contempt, when his troops are steeled in their resolve and are pleased at the prospect of battle, when the determination of his army, countless in number, outstrips the skies, when their morale is like a tempest and their battle cries ring like thunder, when utterly committed they fall upon the enemy with all of their might. This is called a morale advantage.” 2. Ti Shih: “Precipitous passes, narrows, high mountains, known strategic locations, spiraling approaches, basins, snaking roadways, places where one man can hold a thousand enemy at bay. This is called a terrain advantage.” 3. Yin Shih: “Taking advantage of the enemy’s fatigue, their illpreparedness and disorder, their hunger and thirst, their exposure to the elements, pressing in upon them where they are unsure of themselves and giving them no ground where they are most vulnerable. This is called an opportunity advantage.”49 Sun Pin explained morale Shih as Chi in his Military Methods. The Sima Fa emphasized that “in battle one endures with strength, and gains victory through spirit.” The Wei Liao Tzu explicitly identified morale Shih, Chi, as a decisive factor: “When their morale Shih is substantial they will fight; when their morale Shih has been snatched away they will run off.”50 Modern Chinese still use the expression, Ti Shih, to refer to the invisible, static force created by terrain—one terrain’s Shih is precipitous while

The Idea of SHIH

27

another’s is gentle—as it exists, whether used or not. Deeper than this common usage, Huai Nan Tzu’s terrain Shih appeared when a commander combined static existence with his intent and his soldiers through using the terrain to advantage. Stressing choke points where a few soldiers could prevent a large force from passing, terrain Shih condensed Sun Tzu’s heaven and earth into tactical and operational advantages of weather and geography.51 At the tactical-operational level, commanders created terrain Shih by selecting advantageous locations to engage the enemy. Huai Nan Tzu’s opportunity Shih increased friendly Shih and decreased enemy Shih by exploiting an enemy’s weaknesses. Commanders created Yin Shih by deploying and employing forces to optimize battlefield conditions. More sensitive to an operation’s timing than to the force’s static power, Huai Nan Tzu recognized that “to understand conditions and calculations clearly is a strategic advantage (Shih) in the use of troops . . . The critical factor is timing at the tactical level.”52

Sun Tzu’s Shih at the National Level At the national-strategic, political level, Sun Tzu invoked Shih as the people’s solidarity and participation in national affairs. The ruler’s Tao determined the people’s commitment and determination and created national unity under the ruler. Together, all these created harmony between people and ruler in national Shih. Although Huai Nan Tzu focused on the army’s Shih and Sun Tzu focused on national Shih, both thinkers effectively combined endogenous and exogenous Shih in the ruler and the general. Instead of Chi Shih and the army’s courage, Sun Tzu encompassed both in national Shih and emphasized ruler’s Tao as dominant in determining victory and defeat in war. At the national or strategic level, he included political and strategic timing by expanding Huai Nan Tzu’s terrain Shih into his earth and heaven factors. He expanded his heaven factor to capture the importance of night and day, cold and heat, and times and seasons for war.53 Sun Tzu’s fourth factor, the general, expressed Huai Nan Tzu’s opportunity Shih at the national-strategic level. To complement the general, Sun Tzu also recognized the ruler’s ability to create Yin Shih in national diplomacy, force structure, weapons and equipment, and economic infrastructure.

Desperation and Shih Sun Tzu’s primary, moral method for creating endogenous Shih brought soldiers, the commander, the ruler, and the people into full accord through

28


national Tao. In exceptional situations, a commander could create intense, brief, battlefield Shih without Tao by placing soldiers—friendly or enemy— into a desperate situation with only two choices: fight for survival or die. “With no escape from death, soldiers will fully exert their strength.” Sun Tzu also reversed this logic in realizing that a defeated force faced with brutal annihilation is capable of victory. Arising spontaneously from fear, their desperation would generate an infinite desperation Shih, which could overwhelm a strong friendly Shih. To prevent desperation Shih, Sun Tzu advised always to leave a path for retreat when surrounding an enemy force.54 Even recognizing desperation Shih as real and based on dynamic power, Sun Tzu did not accept it as normal. He insisted that only through the moral method—harmony between ruler and people in national Tao—could the ruler create a persistent, endogenous Shih. Although China’s military culture has accepted it as a legitimate, although not common, command technique, Chinese commanders have generally limited its use to tactical and operational situations. Applying desperation Shih only rarely at strategic and national levels, generals and rulers recognized that building Tao was not only the preferred means to wage war but war’s proper aim. Only when facing threats to national survival have China’s rulers sought to create desperation Shih in the Chinese people.

Hsing and Shih Although English has commonly translated this Chinese term as disposition, Hsing presupposes a broader configuration of power.55 For Clausewitzian tacticians, disposition usually has referred to unit locations and deployments, relocating forces and materials, and positioning troops for battle. Connoting a force’s open, obvious, outward appearance, in a strategic context, Hsing has encompassed deployment and employment— more the modern notion of combat posture than tactical dispositions. In this broad, strategic sense, Hsing gained critical significance in transforming static, visible force into dynamic force—Shih. Deepening his floating-stones metaphor, Sun Tzu explained the bursting of pent-up waters into a deep chasm as Hsing.56 The outward appearance of the pent-up waters was Hsing—peaceful and placid. Released into the chasm, the bursting of the waters became the Shih that had been invisible beneath the water’s visible Hsing. Although their intimate interdependence often projected Hsing as nearly synonymous with Shih, Sun Tzu was clear that Hsing did not always appear the same as Shih.57 By deploying units on a choke point through which they expected an enemy to pass—visible Hsing—commanders could create Huai Nan Tzu’s invisible terrain Shih.

The Idea of SHIH

29

Usually involving the overt deception taught by Tai Kung, commanders created Hsing largely by combining the orthodox and the unorthodox for either defense or offense. The orthodox was visible combat power with obvious advantages in superiority, strength, and exogenous Shih that determined general expectations. The unorthodox relied on agile forces with inherent flexibility in selecting the time and place for tactics and operations that deception obscured. Deception was the critical link, since without deception, the exposed unorthodox was only a weak orthodox. The Shihstrategist’s visible Hsing comprised both the visible, expected orthodox and the invisible, deceptive unorthodox. Through the orthodox, an enemy could suppose the commander’s apparent intent simply by observing its outward appearance in Hsing. The commander’s true intents, however, lay hidden beneath his deception in the invisible, unorthodox within Hsing. Even after observing the commander’s Hsing, the enemy would not recognize his complete intent and the form that his operations would take. “The pinnacle of Hsing is to reach the formless.”58 Shih-strategists often deliberately presented a tactical-operational Hsing explicitly to deceive the enemy into miscalculating strategic and national Shih. If he confused the unorthodox and the orthodox through misinformation or miscalculation, he would misjudge Hsing and misunderstand Shih. His defenses would be weak, his offense would attack strong points, or his reserves and committed forces would be inadequate to thwart the commander’s operational concept. Exploiting human interpretations of a force’s broad appearance and their own expectations, Hsing was visible Shih. Shih was invisible Hsing

Changes in Shih Since Shih comprised Sun Tzu’s five characteristic factors, any change in a single factor changed national Shih. National power changed continually not only with changes in military capability but with variations in political, economic, sociological, geographical, and technological factors, which were often more significant. Sun Tzu recognized that “the army has no fixed Shih just as water has no fixed Hsing.”59

Patterns, Trends, and Shih Since dual cosmic forces (Yin and Yang) were constantly changing all under heaven in typical, natural rhythms—Tao—wise rulers and good generals

30


extended these rhythms to military operations, strategy, and governance.60 Within the strategic and national perspectives, Sun Tzu likened changes in Shih to natural cycles—seasons, the moon’s waxing and waning, short and long days. “If one side is increasing, some other side is decreasing. . . . The able commander does not resist the rhythm of change, but finding its pulse, translates defining conditions into correlative terms as a means of controlling the situation, anticipating the enemy’s movements, and making his victory inevitable.”61 Generals developed campaigns and selected battlefields “to evade the strong and attack the weak” around changes in endogenous and exogenous Shih. More critical for the ruler making national policy was selecting the natural time to fight, when the enemy’s Shih was at its lowest and friendly Shih was at the highest.62

Changing Hsing While an army’s morale Shih, reflecting national Tao, was stable over both time and space, terrain Shih and opportunity Shih relied heavily upon the commander’s operational concept and a battle’s location. Across a war theater and through a long campaign, changing conditions continually strengthened Shih in one sector, while weakening it in another. Recognizing changes in Shih, commanders managed them by changing Hsing over time and space. Generals created formless Hsing to deceive an enemy as the battlefield changed, just as shrewd rulers and diplomats created it in interstate relations. Combined in Hsing, the orthodox and the unorthodox sometimes mutated into each other as the battle flowed, commanders changed their intents, and situations changed. Especially over long campaigns, commanders’ indirect approaches, which were invisible to the enemy, accumulated with deception to become Shih at the ultimate objective, although no changes appeared in Hsing. In the campaign’s final stages, a completely new relative Shih emerged with a corresponding new Hsing.

The Idea of Li Like Shih, Li carries many meanings clear to Chinese from the context. In direct contrast to Shih, the most familiar meanings for Li referred to personal advantage, benefit, desire, or interest and to the tangible things of nature that people could accumulate. Despite simplistic parallels with modern, pragmatic realism, Sun Tzu relegated this Li of advantage to little more than a technique for building and sustaining Shih, while Confucius opposed it to virtue. “A gentleman [superior person] seeks virtue; a small

The Idea of SHIH

31

man seeks land. . . . A gentleman seeks justice; a small man seeks favours.”63 Since Li would ensure that inferior persons dealt with life’s prosaic details and natural things, Li was not a gentleman’s concern. Rather than seeking Li, “the higher type of man, having gathered wide objective knowledge from the branches of polite learning, will regulate the whole by the inner rule of conduct.”64 For both Sun Tzu and Confucius, a vague Li within Tao referred to material things that were outside the domain of superior persons, rulers, and generals. While people merged natural things—Li—with human actions in Shih, the natural force in Li operated forever incomplete beneath and within Tao, which included both people and nature—Li and Shih. By expanding Li to the state and Shih to the ruler—both within Tao— Confucians transformed Li into pragmatic rites and duties of citizenship and the public ceremonies of office. Intrinsically meaningless and shallow, Li became the public symbol of harmony between ruler and people— Shih—in Tao. As the Warring States period recycled human affairs from Yin to Yang, Chinese began to understand national interest not as Tao but as a grand Li—sovereignty—containing politics and war as intermediate Lis. Rulers replaced Confucian principles and Shih within Tao with hierarchic symbolism to preserve their subjects’ loyalties—Li within sovereignty. Beneath the grand Li, however, lay the polar Yin to Li’s Yang. The greater visions of Sun Tzu and Confucius, however persisted and prepared men’s minds and Chinese strategic culture for a better way—Shih. The persistent Confucian “belief in the political value of personal goodness . . . [and] the great and inspiriting pattern which he sought in vain among the princes of his time”—Shih—recycled to from and direct Chinese strategic culture around Shih. Three other teachers and their thought are comparable to the Confucian foundations beneath China’s Shih-strategy—“Gautama’s self-sacrificing sojourn among men, the stormy career of the Arab prophet, and the sinless years which found their close on Golgotha.”65 The famous dialogue between Mencius and King Hui Wang of Wei (369?–333 BC) likens the King’s realist approach to Li and Mencius’s Confucian approach to Shih. King Hui asked Mencius, “what is the strategy to expand the territory and to make the nation rich and strong.” Mencius responded “why do you ask me only for Li? You should take Yin (benevolence) and Yi (justice)[within Tao] as did your ancestor rather than pursuing Li. . . . What is important is not lands, of which there are always enough, or wealth or war-like power—these things mean nothing without the adhesion and support of the minor gentry and the common people— but men.”66 It was not proper for the King, a superior person, to pursue Li, which was an inferior person’s concern. If he achieved Tao, his people would achieve wealth and power—the national interest, a grand Li—naturally.

32 Table 2.1

Philosophy of Chinese Military Culture Comparison of Shih and Li Shih

Power

People TAO Hsing

Li

Power combines material things and human beings People’s attitudes and actions are essential Tao brings the people into accord with the ruler People transform material things to Shih by creating Hsing

Material things alone form power Weapons and armies combine to form military power Material things are sufficient Weapons and technology are primary Tao does not contribute to power Hsing is an outward appearance of material things or employment and deployment of military forces

Like Confucius, Mencius included Li in Tao, but only as a small element of a nation’s proper life. For philosophers and strategists, living and fighting were two distinct domains—Shih and Li. Within Tao, people achieved harmony with nature and self in Li and accord with the ruler in Shih, which included everything in Li. The convergence of Shih—including Li—in ruler and people was Tao. Within the Shih domain, power combined people and things; within Li, things were the only elements of power and existed in a natural Hsing— outward appearance—that people recognized. Since Li things had no purpose beyond existing, Tao did not contribute to Li-power. In the Shih domain, harmony between ruler and people created the people’s power to pursue their purposes in manipulating nature—Li—and the future—Shih people transformed things into instruments for pursuing Tao by creating a new Hsing around them. The distinct philosophical domains of Shih and Li led to distinct approaches to strategy within China’s strategic culture (see table 2.1).

Shih, Li, and Strategy Strategic thought involved two broad approaches to the final goal: direct and indirect. The direct approach—Li-strategy—accumulated partial or local victories—small Lis—along the direct path to the strategic objective— a great Li—in the national interest—the grand Li. To conquer an enemy’s territory, a direct strategy would seize provinces in sequence until all were under control. To fight and win every battle for every Li, the Li-strategic general needed combat superiority—his primary source of power—and exogenous Shih on every battlefield. The Li-strategic ruler needed to preserve his base of power—the people—through a large, powerful army.

The Idea of SHIH

33

The indirect approach created strong national Shih through Tao and continuously weakened an enemy’s Shih enough to gain victory without fighting and avoid the costs and risks of battle. Since the ultimate great Shih—the national interest—encompassed all intermediate goals—Lis— the Shih-strategic general needed neither combat superiority nor exogenous Shih and could afford to lose some battles. Resting on the premise that power arose in, and dwelt among, the people, Shih-strategy sought to expand the national Tao and deepen harmony between ruler, people, and army. For the Shih-strategist, the essence of military art was deception expressed in a formless Hsing to change or frustrate the enemy’s intent rather than to defeat his forces (see figure 2.1).

The Strategic Example of Wei-Chi The Chinese Wei-Chi game provides a familiar and benign model for comparing Shih-strategy and Li-strategy in a visible form less catastrophic than interstate war.67 Victory in Wei-Chi goes to the player whose stones surround more territory on the board at the game’s end. Controlling local Wei-Chi territories is comparable to gaining local victories in a military campaign. Both results—surrounded Wei-Chi areas and battlefield victories—are Lis. Among Wei-Chi players, one prominent Li-strategy pursues victory— grand Li—by allocating stones to controlling many small territories—local Lis. The player places stones to strategic advantage over the entire board: to achieve the grand Li through Shih. A typical beginner concentrates stones directly and visibly on surrounding a few intersections (local territories, Lis). A competent opponent spreads influence indirectly, insidiously, and broadly over the board (Shih) with his stones.68 (See figure 2.2.) In figure 2.2, the Black player has adopted a Li-strategy, whereas the White player has chosen a Shih-strategy. Black has seized a territory by using ten stones. White has seized no territory but has used his ten stones to influence the entire board. At this stage, Black leads in controlling territory. With greater influence over the whole board, however, White has the advantage. At this stage, each strategy remains viable. Despite White’s advantage in preparing for future battles, failure in the next competition for territory will lose the game—advantageous Shih will have been in vain. Shih-strategy carries a high risk that an immediate, local loss can prevent any victory at all. For the two strategists, the recurring problem is always the next battle. Although controlling territory carries a clear advantage in Black’s visible Hsing, Black must compete where White has strong Shih and a potentially powerful invisible Hsing. Although Black, with only weak

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NATIONAL INTEREST (SHIH = GRAND LI )

Primary focus on future progress is continuous

Primary focus on present progress is sequential

SHIH Relative and changing in time and space winning or losing battles is incidental or consequent toTAO

LOCAL L In ..... LOCAL LI2. LOCAL LI1. Each Li is absolutely dominant in present time and space winning or losing each battle is critical and decisive

↑

Deception = Hsing = Appearance ↑

SHIH-Strategy Circuitous, Indirect: Taking an alternate path-approach to the ultimate, most important objective to which the direct path-approach is either nonexistent or very difficult

Li-strategy Direct: Taking the primary, obvious path-approach to the ultimate objective.

Expansive, Offensive

Conservative, Defensive

People and Army Ruler and General

Figure 2.1

Shih-Strategy and Li-Strategy

Shih, may be unable to exploit his strong Hsing, if he wins the next battle by fortune or skill, White will lose the game. If either player fails in any future battle, however, any prior achievements or advantages will become irrelevant. For the Li-strategist, every battle is decisive. For the Shih-strategist, some—but not all—battles are irrelevant. While the Shih-strategist can afford to lose these unimportant battles, losing a decisive battle will lose the

The Idea of SHIH

Figure 2.2

35

Shih-Strategy and Li-Strategy in Wei-Chi game

game. Although some players—like generals and rulers—prefer Li-strategies, whereas some prefer Shih-strategies, all players must weigh the opportunities and risks of each strategy when faced with particular conditions and situations.

Balancing Shih and Li To balance Shih with Li, Sun Tzu taught generals and rulers to use Li within Shih-strategy not as an objective to achieve on the path to victory but only as a means to the end of gaining national Shih.69 Deceiving and inducing an enemy to divert resources and efforts to a nondecisive Li balanced any

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Table 2.2

Indicators of Shih or Li in ruler’s national strategies

Shih-Strategy

LI-Strategy

Decides, initiates, and terminates war based on Shih Builds Shih through Tao Power based on invisible Shih Erodes enemy’s Shih Pursues ultimate objective Circuitous and indirect approach Focused more on cause Coordinates military and nonmilitary means Prefers to win a war without fighting

Decides, initiates, and terminates war based on Li Builds power through Li Power based on visible forces Ignores Shih Pursues immediate gain Direct approach Focused more on effect Uses military means only or primarily Attempts to win a war through fighting

shallow, visible disadvantages in sacrificing that Li with building stronger Shih.70 The need to balance Li within Shih extended beyond the battlefield into political and economic grand strategy. While the general’s best means to induce the enemy to move was Li, rulers had to rely on Shih in moving their own people. Taking an indirect approach, the ruler’s grand Shih-strategy balanced the people’s power with a Li-strategy to use professional or mercenary military forces that might not represent the people. The ruler’s Shih-strategy relied on dynamic power within national Tao, which balanced his general’s military Li-strategy resting primarily on static power.

Indicators of Shih and Li in Ruler’s Political–Military Grand Strategy Rulers did not routinely announce their grand or national strategies as Shihstrategies or Li-strategies. Reliance on different sources and types of power dictated different decisions, policies, and actions. Nine broad indicators that distinguish Shih-strategy from Li-strategy at the strategic-political level reflect their respective properties (see table 2.2). Although any indicator in table 2.2 may be irrelevant or not observed in a particular situation or strategy, their broad, collective impression offers a robust profile for each strategic approach. 1. Shih-strategy stresses Tao in assessing national power, decides war based on Shih, executes war through Shih—rather than material

The Idea of SHIH

2. 3. 4.

5.

6.

7.

8. 9.

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resources—and terminates war for Shih. Li-strategy decides war based on Li, executes war through Li and material resources, and terminates war for Li. Shih-strategy builds and concentrates power by creating Tao, which generates Shih. Discounting Tao, Li-strategy concentrates power in visible forces to achieve combat superiority. Shih-strategy relies on the invisible, dynamic power hidden in the unorthodox beneath the visible Hsing. Li-strategy uses the visible, static power displayed by Hsing in the orthodox. Since the opponents’ respective Shihs within their respective Taos determine victory and defeat, for Shih-strategy, increasing friendly Tao is as important as eroding enemy Shih. The Li-strategic perspective disregards Tao and Shih as irrelevant for military operations. Shih-strategy focuses on broad national interest as the ultimate end for using power. Shih-strategists pursue final ends through national Shih although they may lose intermediate, small Lis. Li-strategists focus on immediate benefits and tangible interests to achieve a final end by accumulating local Lis. Shih-strategy takes a circuitous, indirect approach to the final objective through Tao and Shih, and sometimes Li. Li-strategy takes a simple, direct approach to a final objective through several intermediate objectives. The Shih-strategic approach prevents inference or estimation of the final objective by observing initial movements. A Li-strategy’s initial actions expose the final objective, which lies on a direct path from the initial movement. Shih-strategic analysis and war planning focus heavily on causes of action, national interests, and the ultimate objective. Li-strategy relies on threat analysis, relative force structures, and concentrating force for achieving decisive victory. Shih-strategists mobilize all available means, not merely military forces, to create a strong Shih to achieve the end. Li-strategy focuses on military assets, forces, and expertise to accomplish military missions. Whereas Shih-strategy seeks to defeat the enemy without fighting, Listrategy seeks decisive battle to destroy the enemy’s capability to resist.

Military Applications Sun Tzu clearly preferred Shih-strategy to Li-strategy in war. “The highest realization of warfare is to attack the enemy’s plans; next is to attack their alliance; next is to attack their army; and the lowest is to attack their

38


fortified cities.”71 In applying the ruler’s Tao—harmony between people and ruler—to war, the general’s first command decision had to narrow his strategic perspective to Li or Shih. He might seek to defeat his enemy without fighting by thwarting his intent through deception and indirection— Shih-strategy. He might focus intently on winning every battle through combat superiority and applying immutable principles of war to defeating the enemy’s forces directly—Li-strategy. Although the principles of war absorbed some Shih-strategic features, the Shih-strategic ideal—winning without fighting—disappeared in translation in the Euro-American focus on defeating the enemy’s forces instead of his intent.

Strategies Based on Forces or on Intent For Shih-strategists, domestic populations were the objects of Tao to build their ruler’s Shih, whereas the enemy was the object of deception to change his intent. Shih-strategists advised rulers to build national Shih first, through Tao, and then fight their wars by defeating the enemy’s intent through superior Shih. For Li-strategists, people were natural assets, the stuffings for armies, the carriers of military supplies, and the victims of battles. Winning successive battles through superior military force would inevitably bring victory in war and promote the national interest—the grand Li.

Strategy Based on Forces At strategic and operational levels the Li-general depended on combat superiority, strict Confucian hierarchy, and natural forces for victory. Forces-based strategists concentrated coercive combat power under single command on a decisive place and decisive time to attack the enemy’s vulnerable core. A consummate Li-strategist, Clausewitz recognized “only one means in war: combat. . . . The decision by arms is for all major and minor operations in war what cash payment is in commerce. . . . Destruction of the enemy forces is always the superior, more effective means, with which others cannot compete. . . . Direct annihilation of the enemy’s forces must always be the dominant consideration. . . . We simply want to establish this dominance of the destructive principle.”72 Li-strategists expected both sides to confront each other with coercive strategies based on force. “If one side wins, the other has to lose. In constructing any coercive campaign, it was vital to appreciate and anticipate the enemy’s reciprocal attempt to coerce.” Only their respective, relative capabilities constrained Li-generals’ choice of methods for coercion. While capability limited some options to hollow threats, even real and formidable forces were ineffective without the political will and resolve to

The Idea of SHIH

39

use them. Deepening the commander’s dilemma within every force-based strategy was the enemy’s will and determination—national Shih. During the Bosnian campaign in the early 1990s, “the West had plenty of capability but little resolve, and the Serbs consistently [exploited] that weakness. It was not one’s own resolve that actually matters—it is only the target’s perception of that resolve that counts.”73 Although a commander could construct a forces-based Li-strategy around either superiority or inferiority, either approach depended on political will—Shih—which was beyond his control. While Clausewitz finessed this problem by making war a policy instrument and leaving political will to politicians, it disappeared in ruler’s Shih, harmony with the people, and Tao.

Strategy Based on Intent China’s strategic culture included political will, resolve, and morality, in Tao and enjoined rulers to build strong Tao in harmony with the people explicitly as military force capability. Whatever the army’s strength, accord between ruler and people in Tao would provide political will and resolve to execute a forces-based Li-strategy by presenting an intimidating Hsing. Even with inferior forces, the general could exploit the enemy’s conviction of his own ruler’s Tao as opportunity Shih within a broader Shih-strategy based on enemy intent and the unorthodox. Although the immediate battlefield threat was a visible, military force, the target of Shih-strategy was the enemy’s political cause, rather than the broad, Li-strategic focus on his forces. The enemy’s invisible intent was more important than the visible enemy troops—Hsing—which were only military instruments for his intent. Only by knowing the enemy and attacking his intent by exploiting terrain, weather, time, and forces—exogenous Shih— could the general create combat advantage and victory on the battle field. Using forces-based Li-strategy, the weak could never defeat the strong. Intent-based Shih-strategies made it possible that the weak could defeat the strong. Every commander faced the dilemma that intent-based Shih-strategic “warfare was the way of deception,” which was immoral in the Confucian context of Tao.74 While philosophers neatly finessed the problem within the ruler’s obligation to behave morally, Shih-strategists have never resolved this apparent conflict between the political, the moral, and the military.

Campaigns Based on Li or Shih Forces-based Li-strategists conducted campaigns to destroy the enemy’s forces and did not accept possibilities of subjugating the enemy without

40


fighting or of transforming intact enemy troops to friendly forces. For intent-based Shih-strategy, the primary campaign objectives were to subjugate the enemy, manipulate him, or deceive the enemy’s commander—to defeat the enemy without fighting.

Campaigns to Subjugate or to Destroy Li-strategists conducted campaigns by destroying enemy soldiers, weapons, and equipment—often in battles of annihilation—to prevent the enemy from using them in battle. Shih-strategic campaigns subjugated enemy forces to transform them into friendly assets by changing their intents, sometimes in battles of annihilation to weaken the enemy’s morale Shih. Every general faced the possibility that sieges might transform his approach—destroying or subjugating—into a campaign of exhaustion relying on means other than battle borrowed from both Shih-strategy and Li-strategy. Integration. Presuming that soldiers did not belong permanently, Sun Tzu taught that “captured soldiers should be kindly treated and kept” to augment one’s own strength.75 Since soldiers could serve any general and weapons were neutral, neither were primary targets for destruction, but resources to integrate into friendly forces. “Substitute our flags for the enemy’s; mingle the chariots and use them with ours”—a Shih-campaign of integration.76 Incompatible with Li-strategies that destroy forces, integration into friendly forces subjugated enemy forces without destroying them. Exhaustion. Campaigns of exhaustion or attrition relied on means other than battle to subjugate an enemy by eroding his combat power and political will over time. Generals attacked enemy forces whenever opportunities arose, but did not seek decisive engagement. Instead of a narrow focus on destroying enemy forces, a campaign of exhaustion targeted resources, military intent, and political will. The campaign, operations, and tactics were both cumulative and sequential in their continuous pressure on all enemy resources and vulnerabilities. Forces-based Li-strategies that failed to achieve decisive victory easily decayed into contests of national endurance that weakened both sides. Commanders, and rulers, could preserve their resources and Shih from inevitable erosion by transforming an exhaustion campaign into either a forces-based annihilation strategy or an intent-based integration strategy.77

To Manipulate or to Destroy Intent-based Shih-strategists manipulated the enemy to distract him from his strategic aim, change his intent, or create and exploit his weaknesses.

The Idea of SHIH

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Forces-based Li-strategists sought enemy weaknesses to find the enemy’s center of gravity and to destroy it with superior forces. For Shih-strategists, an enemy’s endogenous Shih was more important than the size or disposition of his forces—Hsing. “If he is superior, evade him . . . Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant.” Beyond manipulation through tactical initiatives, deception, and Hsing, Shih-strategy recognized that “holding out baits” (Li ) was the best means to entice an enemy and keep “him on the march.” Aggressive commanders also manipulated the enemy by controlling the battlefield. “If he is resting, harass him; if well supplied, starve him; if quietly encamped, force him to move.” From the first battle, by robbing the enemy commander of his confidence and his army of its spirit, Shihstrategy preserved operational and strategic initiative. The clever commander imposed his will on the enemy, but did not allow the enemy to impose its will on him.78 Relying almost exclusively on combat power, forces-based strategists were skeptical about manipulating the enemy. They reluctantly recognized enticement and manipulation as exceptional plans or instruments and only as the last means to avoid defeat, not as normal operational plans. Although Clausewitz departed from his stress on decisive combat when considering using military forces for resistance, such a tactic was, at best, temporary while rebuilding combat superiority. He did not intend tactical resistance to destroy the enemy forces, although it might erode the enemy’s strength. Although resistance might frustrate the enemy’s intent, its aim was to gain time not to manipulate the enemy’s intent.

To Deceive or to Destroy The Wiles of War comprised 36 ideas distilled from Chinese experiences and techniques to deceive the enemy in Shih-strategic warfare: “Make noise in the east and attack in the west . . . Lure the tiger out of the mountain. . . . Muddle the water to seize fish . . . [or] Climb up the roof and remove the ladder.”79 Traditionally, military deception has included misleading the enemy by manipulating, distorting or falsifying evidence, or by inducing him to act prejudicially to his own interests.80 Whereas Sun Tzu based all military arts—strategy, operations, and tactics—on deception, forces-based Li-strategists distrusted deception, since it was entirely subjective, not readily measured or quantified, and probably immoral. Primarily concerned with deploying and maneuvering forces for combat operations, they rejected the Shih-strategists’ convictions that Shih could differ from Hsing. Denying formless Hsing as an operational concept and rejecting inaction as a powerful technique for employing forces, they limited deception to small tactical units. Neither did Clausewitz accept deception as a primary planning or operational technique, but only

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as an exceptional last resort for the weak and the desperate. “Plans and orders issued for appearances only, fake reports designed to confuse the enemy . . . have as a rule so little strategic value that they are used only if a ready-made opportunity presents itself. . . . They should not be considered as a significant, independent field of action. . . . Normally they call for more than can be spared, and consequently so-called strategic feints rarely have the desired effect.”81 Two pillars of Sun Tzu’s operational arts—combining the visible orthodox with the invisible unorthodox and circuitous, indirect operations—were both legitimate offspring of deception. Within endless deceptive maneuverings— or even static nonaction—an enemy could identify neither the commander’s orthodox approach nor his campaign’s ultimate aim—formless Hsing. Although Sun Tzu’s 14 tactics provided operational guidance, they relied primarily on deception: “When able to attack, we must seem unable; When using our forces, we must seem inactive; When near, we must [appear] away; When far away, we must [appear] near.”82 Deeper than modern ideas about tactical cover and concealment, Shih-strategists actively used distortion, deception, and falsification at all levels. These were not exceptional, optional, or additional instruments, but main operational concepts for maneuver, fire planning, intelligence, propaganda, diplomacy, and news coverage. While Euro-American strategists customarily understand surprise as distinct from deception—and often an end in itself—China’s strategic culture blends lower-level surprise into higher-level deception. Chinese commanders, and rulers, have consistently opened wars and campaigns with deception to create surprise in offensives that the enemy had not expected in time, place, or means. Since Shih-strategies targeted an enemy’s intent, surprise operations did not necessarily destroy the enemy, since it was better to win without fighting. In the Chinese Civil War’s Liaoxi-Shenyang Campaign (Manchuria), Lin Biao’s strategic deception surprised and subjugated the enemy directly without fighting.

Battles Based on Shih or Li Taking either approach, commanders designed strategies and conducted campaigns around battles. When victory without fighting was impossible, Sun Tzu emphasized fighting through Shih without relying primarily on forces even in local battles for Li where soldiers destroyed soldiers. Like Listrategy, intent-based Shih-strategy stressed battles of annihilation, although Shih-strategists differed from Li-strategists in their heavy emphasis on the first battle.

The Idea of SHIH

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Annihilation Both strategies routinely included battles of annihilation in their campaigns. Forces-based Li-strategies annihilated both troops and equipment with superior power in decisive battles to achieve quick, complete victory that would compel an enemy into compliance.83 Intent-based Shih-strategies often opened campaigns with tactical battles of brutal annihilation as an unbearable shock to instill fear in survivors and prevent their commander from pursuing his intent. As a Shih-campaign’s first step, a single battle of annihilation not only weakened their morale Shih, but established a credible threat to the survivors. “The second step is to make the enemy realize that the threat can be [executed again] at will . . . to demonstrate to the victim that he is impotent.” Perceiving his own impotence effectively subjugates the enemy to the friendly commander’s will. “It establishes in the mind of the enemy the futility of fighting: If the [result] is inevitable, why then should I give my life in a hopeless cause?”84

The First Battle Seeking to influence both friendly Tao and the enemy’s intent, Shih-strategists emphasized a campaign’s first battle as crucial in creating Shih. By gaining the initiative in the first battle, a Shih-strategist could change the enemy commander’s intent and weaken his endogenous Shih by forcing him into a permanent position of reacting. As a Shih-strategist, Mao Tse-tung consistently emphasized winning the first battle to gain the initiative, especially in the Civil War’s Jiangxi campaigns and in the Korean War. Less concerned about the enemy’s intent, forces-based Li-strategies emphasized winning the first battle—like all others—as an opportunity to destroy an enemy’s essential capabilities and troop strength. To gain decisive advantage and superiority by surprise, forces-based Li-strategists have begun wars with preemptive strikes on enemy weapons, supplies, and equipment—Japan’s 1941–1942 attacks on Pearl Harbor, Manila, and Indochina.

Indicators of Shih and Li in Commander’s Military Strategy Like their political rulers, generals did not declare openly whether they were employing Shih-strategy against an enemy’s intent or Li-strategy to destroy his forces. Several indicators have consistently distinguished strategy based on intent from strategy based on forces. On the tactical battlefield and during operational campaigns, Shih-strategy featured deception, indirection,

44 Table 2.3

Philosophy of Chinese Military Culture Indicators of strategy based on intent or on forces

Intent-based strategy

Forces-based strategy

Ruler’s grand strategy is Shih-strategy Fight to subjugate enemy By means of deception and surprise Combine orthodox and unorthodox Annihilation for shock Target is troops (men) and commander Prefers to win without fighting Shih is different from Hsing Circuitous and indirect approach

Ruler’s grand Strategy is Li-strategy Fight to destroy enemy By means of combat power Combat superiority Annihilation for disabling Target is forces and terrain Attempt to win by destruction Shih is equal to Hsing Direct approach

and confused the orthodox with the unorthodox in its focus on the enemy’s intent. Li-strategy stressed local combat superiority based on the contending forces’ visible Hsing. Just as reliance on different types of power and purpose distinguished rulers’ political-military strategies, commanders’ priorities on intent or forces distinguished their military strategies (see table 2.3).

Chapter 3 Ancient Chinese Wars

While China’s ancient warriors often countered Shih-strategy with Li-strategy, two major wars provide especially clear comparisons. In the Warring States period, Xiang Yu (?–203 BC) of Chu emerged as the prototypical Li-strategist facing Liu Bang (?–195 BC) of Han. In the Three Kingdoms period, Liu Bei (AD 161–223?) of Shu Han used Shih-strategy against Cao Cao (AD 155–230?) of Wei.

The Development of Shih As the Zhou dynasty (1100?–256 BC) declined, new powers emerged in a struggle for dominance over continental China. When Zhou moved its capital from Hao to Luoyang in 770 BC, central government’s authority began to decline. During the Spring and Autumn period—770–403 BC—most states in most wars relied on direct, forces-based Li-strategies in sequential battles of attrition. In the early sixth century BC, the roots of Shih-strategy began to emerge with Taoism and Confucianism. Through the Warring States period—403–221 BC—Shih-strategy and principles began to form China’s strategic culture and influence weaker states’ uses of force. The struggle for hegemony, as states rose and fell, continued until Qin Shih Huangdi prevailed and finally unified them all in 221 BC.1

Spring and Autumn As the Spring and Autumn period opened in the eighth century BC, the major Chinese states were Yue and Wu in the southeast, Chu in the south,

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Qin in the west, Jin in the northwest, Yan in the north, Zhai and Lu in the northeast. Several smaller medium powers—Wei, Song, Zhen, Cai, Xu, Zheng, and Zhou—occupied the central-eastern plain. Chu began to expand north directly into the central plain in the early seventh century BC. After an alliance led by Zhai stopped Chu’s advance in 656 BC, Zhai succumbed to internal power struggles, and Jin assumed leadership of the antiChu coalition in 632 BC. After nearly a century of war, Jin and Chu reached a peace agreement in 546 BC. In the spirit of Shih-strategy, during the Jin–Chu struggles, Wu, Chu’s southeastern neighbor, patiently watched its warring neighbors weaken each other. Meanwhile, Wu remained aloof and consolidated its own internal power—Shih—just as Mao Tse-tung and Chiang Kai-shek would do in the early 1940s. In 506 BC, when Wu captured Chu’s capital in a brief assault, Chu drew support from its western neighbor, Qin, for a counterattack, which Wu did not resist. Wu’s primitive strategy of attacking its larger neighbor quickly and then retreating immediately suggests modern China’s wars with India, the Soviet Union, and Vietnam. Unlike modern China, however, Wu expanded beyond its capabilities into neighboring states. In 473 BC, Wu fell to Yue, which had adopted a similar indirect strategy of letting its neighbors exhaust themselves in battle with each other. Instead of confronting the great-powers, Yue focused its strategic attentions on absorbing its weaker, isolated neighbors. The Spring and Autumn wars ended as three dominant clans—Han, Wei, and Zhao—split the northwestern great power, Jin, among themselves in 453 BC and formed separate states.

Warring States In the Warring States period, Wei first attempted to subjugate its neighbors—Qin, Han, Zhao, and Zhou—by expanding north into Zhao in 354–352 BC. The king of Zhai, east of Zhao, threatened by Wei’s expansion chose, like the king of Wu, the indirect path to victory without fighting. Anticipating Wei’s overexpansion, Zhai watched Wei expand into Han—just as Mao led Chiang into Manchuria in 1946–1947. In 344 BC, Zhai’s counteroffensive intervened to trap Wei between Han and Zhai armies in a two-front war, which decisively defeated Wei in 340 BC. Victory over Wei prompted Zhai to adopt Wei’s aims for hegemony with a forces-based Li-strategy. Zhai’s new direct strategy of conquest and domination led to decisive defeat by an anti–Zhai alliance in 284 BC.

Ancient Chinese Wars

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The Rise of Qin and Shih-Strategy Historically weaker than other great powers, Qin’s strategic situation in the west—military weakness, strategic isolation, and slow economic development—precluded a forces-based, direct Li-strategy. While defending against the barbarians beyond the Yellow (Huanghe) River, Qin had, like Wu and Zhai, adopted an indirect Shih-strategy of watchful waiting as its powerful neighbors destroyed each other. Qin had been the balancer between Jin and Chu in the seventh century BC, and between Chu and Wu in the sixth century BC. Each side had actively sought Qin’s alliance but did not dare an invasion that would combine Qin with its enemy. Although Qin had saved Chu from conquest by Wu in 506 BC, it later lost the Yellow River’s west bank to Wei in 419–385 BC, when Chu refused to support it against Wei. When Qin exploited Wei’s crushing defeat by Zhai to seize Wei territory in 341 BC by guile and deception, the strategic balance shifted irreversibly toward Qin. In 312 BC, to break the alliance between Zhai and Chu, Qin offered a bribe to the king of Chu, who readily accepted. When Qin reneged and Chu launched poorly planned and executed unilateral attacks in revenge, Zhai remained neutral, despite the alliance. After several humiliating defeats, Chu’s loss of territory, population, and cities shifted the strategic balance even more toward Qin. In 293 BC, Qin’s success in annihilating the Han and Wei armies seduced other states into a coalition that defeated Zhai in 284 BC. After patiently concentrating domestic power, and learning from neighbors’ strategic adventures, by the mid-fourth century BC, aggressive reforms, self-strengthening policies, and indirect strategies positioned Qin second only to Zhai among China’s great powers.2 While Qin’s strategies, policies, and reforms were neither novel nor dramatic, the Qin dynasty had “put them into practice more systematically than had any of [their] precursors.”3 Over several generations, Qin’s rulers discovered that power dwelt with the people and that bringing the people into harmony with the ruler generated the irresistible power of Shih. Comfortably relegated to strategic irrelevance beneath Zhai’s unipolar dominance, Qin’s growing Shih lay hidden beneath a deceptively, formless Hsing. Only in 288 BC did China begin to recognize Qin as a rising great power using a new type of strategy that had defeated them all and would crush Zhai in 284 BC. After Qin seized Chu’s western territories in 279 BC, only primitive Yan in the north and Zhao remained to challenge Qin. Qin had integrated Taoist unity and Confucian organization into the fuguo qiangbing (rich country and strong army) system deeper than earlier direct links between conquest, taxation, prosperity, and power. When

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China’s traditional aristocracies carried Confucian social organization to a legalist, authoritarian extreme, Qin abolished the nobility and replaced ancestral aristocracy with an administrative hierarchy. The Qin rulers exercised their Tao through baojia, which “allowed the Qin court to penetrate deep into the society down to individual households. With this unprecedented capacity for direct rule, Qin could then engage in total mobilization for war,” as the people became one with the ruler within the state’s Tao. Sweeping reforms of land ownership and taxation raised productivity to support Qin’s growing military might. “Qin developed an elite professional force and introduced military conscription, . . . handsome rewards for victories (including lands, honors, and servants) and severe punishments for evasion, desertion, surrender to enemies and losses in war.” The Qin reforms of the late fourth century BC were not unlike those undertaken by Mao Tse-tung in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. Separated by 2,300 years, both Qin and Mao pursued national interests through Shih-strategies.4 Like its predecessors, the self-strengthening Qin adopted an offensive strategy-policy later in the fourth century. Unlike its predecessors, Qin had learned not to abandon its patient approach to creating opportunities for expansion without difficult, high-cost direct wars of attrition. Whereas traditional strategies had launched huge armies in long columns marching through hostile territory to decisive battles for an enemy’s capital, Qin launched short, shallow attacks into poorly-defended, adjacent territories. After absorbing them, Qin transformed these small territories—Lis—into logistic depots and forward bases for further lianheng—divide and conquer—strategies to encircle and defeat enemy forces in detail. While preserving a formless Hsing, Qin’s armies made short marches in small formations to encircle and annihilate targets in Chu, Han, Wei, Zhai, Yan, and Zhao. To divide the enemy’s forces, reduce logistical costs, or inspire false confidence, Qin diplomats were “never reluctant to lie in diplomatic meetings, to acquire information on other states by espionage, and to bribe key figures in the courts of other states into collaboration.”5 Qin further divided and weakened the enemy’s forces by “attacking not only territory but also people.”6 Beyond occupying territory, Qin’s armies destroyed enemy soldiers en masse in battles of annihilation that warned other states not to resist and prevented a vanquished army from recovering. As the disparities in military capabilities multiplied, Qin’s enemies became so demoralized that they often adopted appeasement policies and surrendered territory without fighting. As Shih- strategy congealed into patterns and principles between 356 BC and 221 BC, Qin won 47 (92%) of the 51 small wars that it launched against the other great powers and three of the five that they launched against Qin.7


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Although the other great powers recognized the Qin threat, they did not adopt individual Shih-strategies and were unable to cooperate in a balancing strategy—hezong.8 “They were overwhelmingly concerned with shortterm gains and pursued their own opportunistic expansion. They fought bitterly amongst themselves to scramble for territories from weaker neighbors and from one another.”9 With its indirect, opportunistic strategy, Qin often exploited confusion in the enemies’ camps and competition between their courts to invade targets when other opponents had already engaged them. In a threatening multipolar world, Qin’s diplomacy easily deceived its opponents about its own threatening intentions and often gained territory without fighting.

Zhao’s Shih-Strategic Resistance to Qin By the late fourth century BC, Zhao had begun to imitate Qin’s selfstrengthening reforms, which began to generate national Shih as ruler and people achieved harmony. With a military focus on innovating cavalry as an independent arm, Zhao quickly built a significant army around its superb, indigenous horses. Instead, however, of challenging Qin directly, Zhao exploited Qin’s expansion as opportunities to pursue its own ambitions in the shadow of great-power struggles. Almost unnoticed, Zhao absorbed Zhongshan—a peaceful, medium power in the north—and expanded its frontiers into barbarian lands. In 279 BC, when Qin invaded western Chu, Zhao’s agreement to remain neutral secured Qin’s rear, which was also Zhao’s rear in its own expansion to the north and the west. The peace lasted until 262 BC when Qin invaded Zhao across the Yellow River from the south. With its irresistible cavalry and strong national Shih, Zhao’s inferior and smaller infantry forces resisted Qin’s invasion with the Shih of desperation for their state’s survival. As Qin’s own battlefield Shih began to fade, facing stalemate on the battlefield, Qin bribed Zhao officials to dismiss Zhao’s field commander-in-chief. In 260 BC, Qin’s armies routed the disspirited Zhao troops in a major victory, which led to Zhao’s decisive defeat in 257 BC.

Unification under Qin While Qin developed, refined, and pursued a Shih-strategy during its fourcentury rise, when the conditions finally seemed right for unification, in 236 BC, Qin successively confronted the remaining Chinese states in swift, decisive, conquests—a Li-strategy. In his advice to Qin Shi Huangdi (259–210 BC), Li Si (?–208 BC) explained that the other states fighting for survival were gaining Desperation Shih and would resist as fiercely as Zhao

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had done. Li Si also realized that asymmetric situations—overwhelming power on one side and desperation on the other—were rare and demanded particular strategies. “Qin’s strength and your honor’s competence are enough to annihilate the states and build an empire. This is a rare opportunity in history. If Qin proceeds slowly, then the states may recover and form another hezong alliance.”10 To prevent desperate resistance and to preempt alliances, Qin combined irresistible military campaigns with handsome bribes, deception, and smooth administration for conquered peoples. Embracing a Li-strategy—swift, focused, efficient, deadly campaigns— within a grander Shih-strategy of unification, Qin quickly conquered and unified all of China’s states. As Qin’s armies swept across China, states became provinces and counties. The Qin Shih-strategy—transforming conquered lands into forward bases— not only reduced logistic and operational costs but quickly transformed people from prisoners into citizens. The new strategy—Li within Shih— carried Qin to victory over Han in 230 BC, Zhao in 228 BC, Wei in 225 BC, Chu in 223 BC, Yan in 222 BC, and Zhai in 221 BC. Shi Huangdi founded the Qin dynasty and proclaimed himself the emperor of all under heaven.

The War Between Xiang Yu and Liu Bang Qin Shi Huangdi’s death in 210 BC split China again into several states competing in civil war and rebellions. Primary among the new regional kingdoms, two major rivals, Chu and Han, sought hegemony over the entire continent. More powerful than Han, Chu formed alliances with other states and defeated Qin in 208 BC. Although Xiag Yu, Chu’s most powerful, skilled, and experienced general subjugated all china, his cruelty, violence, and pillage were not popular among the people. His arrogance and slaughter of conquered people in occupied territories lost for him the confidence, respect, and trust of the king’s advisors. Within Xiang Yu’s army, another Chu general and person of merit, Liu Bang led the Chu armies into Xianyang, the Qin capital. He forced the king of Qin to surrender almost without a battle and took the city intact with about a fifth of Xiang Yu’s military strength. Later, Xiang Yu arrived, killed the king, and destroyed the city.11 Despite his army’s relative military inferiority, the king of Chu, Yi Di (?–206 BC) and his senior officials respected Liu Bang for his talent in military strategy and command. The common people particularly esteemed Liu Bang not only for his excellent leadership but more for his high virtue.


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After the war, Xiao He, Liu Bang’s primary strategic advisor, predicted that in war with Xiang Yu, Liu Bang would lose 100 battles in 100 engagements. Zhang Liang, Liu Bang’s chief of staff, explained that Qin had lost the war of rebellion when its endogenous Shih collapsed with the loss of national Tao. All people under heaven turned their backs on Qin due to its tyranny.12 Xiang Yu’s victory did not arise from his great military power or from his own great Shih, but because his enemy’s endogenous Shih had collapsed. The victory was less an indicator of Xiang Yu’s power than a broad reaction against Qin’s tyranny. In 207 BC, Xiang Yu seized power in Chu through his military influence. When Liu Bang recognized that Xiang Yu had unified China not because his military power was great, but because Qin had lost its Tao, the two generals became rivals. After exiling the young Chu ruler, Yi Di, Xiang Yu crowned himself king of kings with his capital in Pengcheng. Although he had held and exercised power in Chu, Xiang Yu could neither justify nor legitimate his regime while the people remembered and respected the exiled king, Yi Di. To suppress popular discontent, Xiang Yu put his loyal clients in critical government posts. In May 206 BC, he began to rule the new re-unified China by dividing the country into eighteen subordinate kingdoms and appointing their kings. Despite their political obligations, a sense of political justice prevented some of the kings from respecting Xiang Yu or accepting the legitimacy of his regime. Among Xiang Yu’s appointed kings, Liu Bang became the king of Han, a remote mountainous area in the Wei River valley, in western China. To prevent Liu Bang—his primary rival—from advancing on the Chu capital, Xiang Yu used his other subordinate states to establish a military blockade around Han. Several dissident kings suggested to Liu Bang that he destroy Xiang Yu to re-establish justice in the realm. In summer 206 BC, Liu Bang accepted their counsel, decided to destroy Xiang Yu, and declared war against Chu. Xiang Yu remains the prototypical Li-strategist, while Liu Bang symbolizes Shih-strategy in China’s strategic culture. The four-year war between Chu and Han began as Liu Bang declared war against Xiang Yu in 206 B.C.13 Liu Bang’s Shih-strategy was to consolidate his military base, establish an alliance with kings discontented with Xiang Yu, and launch a coordinated offensive to destroy Chu’s military base. In three successive campaigns, Liu Bang and his allies eventually defeated Xiang Yu. (See table 3.1).

Contending Strategies Liu Bang planned the war against Xiang Yu around a circuitous, indirect, intent-based Shih-strategy. Any direct forces-based approach would have

52 Table 3.1

Philosophy of Chinese Military Culture Chronology: Liu Bang–Xiang Yu

Dates August 206 BC November 206 BC

April 205 BC May(?) 205 BC

August 205 BC April 204 BC August 204 BC October 204 BC

December 203 BC

Events Liu Bang’s army broke through Xiang Yu’s military blockade Xiang Yu had one of his men slay King Yi Di. Liu Bang held a funeral for Yi Di and invited all kings to join him in war to punish Xiang Yu Zhai, in the Shandong peninsula, revolted against Xiang Yu Xiang Yu left the capital to suppress the Zhai revolt. Liu Bang formed an alliance with five kings and seized the Chu capital. Xiang Yu hurried to his capital, defeated the united forces, and recovered the city Liu Bang launched his second offensive Severely injured in battle, Liu Bang could not continue the campaign. Liu Bang’s second offensive failed Liu Bang launched his third offensive Liu Bang’s army destroyed the Chu forces that had not joined the alliance, subdued the north of the Yellow River, and reached Xiang Yu’s camp Liu Bang’s armies enveloped Xiang Yu. When a guerrilla force joined them, Xiang Yu abandoned the war

required mobilizing armies at least five times his current strength merely to balance his enemy’s forces, and then overcoming his operational disadvantages. Xiang Yu relied, instead on Li-strategy based on his powerful military strength and strategic-political advantages.

Opening Phase In August 206 BC, Liu Bang began to repair the supply and transport routes for advancing eastward. The best axis of advance to the east was a direct route through the southern corridor from Liu Bang’s base to Xiang Yu’s capital through former-Qin territory. It was a fine route that many armies and traders had used in the past, but had deteriorated since Liu Bang had come into the region.14 Liu Bang’s strategy, however, was to break the blockade in the north while pretending to attack the south—classical Shih-strategic combination of the orthodox and unorthodox. Xiang Yu established his blockade astride the southern approach in former-Qin territory around its capital, Luoyang. Although Xiang Yu’s troops controlled the region and its people, they were not loyal to him, since they had been citizens of Qin until a few years earlier. Since most officers


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and men in the troops enforcing the blockade had been in the former-Qin army, they were not aggressive in this blockade mission. As Liu Bang repaired the southern roads through the mountainous terrain—an unorthodox approah—Xiang Yu’s blockade commanders concluded that Liu Bang would soon advance to the east in an orthodox military campaign. As operational and strategic focus emphasized the southern approach, Xiang Yu’s staff recognized the same threat, and prepared the defense by concentrating troops to the east of Liu Bang’s base. Liu Bang’s apparent preparations, however, were a clever combination of strategic deception and an indirect policy of building endogenous Shih among the people by promoting domestic prosperity. Contrary to Xiang Yu’s expectations, Liu Bang’s main force’s orthodox approach march advanced in the north along steep, narrow, secondary routes. Unable to recognize Liu Bang’s orthodox, Xiang Yu perceived Liu Bang’s unorthodox—in the south—as orthodox and fell victim to Liu Bang’s deception. Liu Bang’s main force easily penetrated the northern blockade, where Xiang Yu had neglected defensive preparations. With the disastrous breach of the northern blockade, Xiang Yu’s generals in other regions and states lost confidence and surrendered without fighting.15 With little endogenous Shih in these northern states, neither Xiang Yu’s Shih nor his minimal forces were strong enough to prevent Liu Bang’s advance. Liu Bang’s Shih-strategy achieved victory in this first offensive by confusing Xiang Yu’s troops about the unorthodox and the orthodox. His Shih-strategy broke the blockades without fighting.16 Liu Bang prevailed in Shih through his efforts to improve the Tao in the states that he occupied and gain the minds of the people. As Liu Bang penetrated the former-Qin territory and quickly expanded his area of influence, Xiang Yu consolidated his own power. Having failed to build his Shih and Tao among the conquered peoples, Xiang Yu anticipated rebellion. To prevent any popular uprising to restore Yi Di, in 206 BC, Xiang Yu ordered Qing Bu to slay Yi Di in exile. Expecting the people to forget their king soon after his death, he did not appreciate how much honor and respect the Confucian culture preserved for their legitimate ruler. His decision to prefer immediate interest to abiding Tao reflected his Li-strategic perspective. Recognizing the opportunity, Liu Bang ordered his army to hold a public funeral ceremony for Yi Di. He dressed in personal mourning and lamented Yi Di’s death publicly with the soldiers and the people for three days. As he prepared a second campaign, Liu Bang sent written appeals to all subordinate kings petitioning them to participate in a war to punish Xiang Yu. Already alienated, five subordinate kings in central China joined Liu Bang with allied forces of about 560,000 in the war. From their

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dispersed bases, the allies could assault Xiang Yu’s concentrated force from all sides, whereas Xiang Yu had to resist each subordinate state’s separate threat alone without allies or support. Threatening Xiang Yu’s rear from the Shandong Peninsula, Tian Guang (3rd–2nd century BC) of former-Zhai, was also in rebellion. As Liu Bang approached from the west, Tian Guang mobilized troops and moved against Xiang Yu in the east. Peng Yue, a former Zhai general, organized guerrilla units to threaten Xiang Yu’s rear. With no support from subordinate states or allies, Xiang Yu had to dispatch his own troops to distant battlefields in response to every rebellion.17 It was neither rational nor politic for the commander and soldiers to interrupt a successful campaign to hold a funeral for a foreign ruler and mourn for three days. Neither was it regular to seek new allies during an active campaign. This ostentatious, public funeral and appeal, however, won popular support for Liu Bang, and most subordinate states either joined him or declared neutrality. Liu Bang gained great Shih by paying sincere respect to the late King Yi Di. Most people of Han, Zhai, and Qin were deeply moved, felt Liu Bang’s Tao, and turned openly against Xiang Yu. Liu Bang easily gathered huge forces against Xiang Yu, achieved strategic advantage, and advanced into Chu’s capital without fighting. It was a Shihstrategy based on popular support. Later, Hu Yin, a Confucian Shih-scholar of the late Northern Song period (AD 960–1127), recognized that people might have perceived Liu Bang’s initial military campaign as actions of personal revenge. When Liu Bang exposed Xiang Yu’s crime of slaying his king, however, and declared a war of justice, the people joined his campaign to punish Xiang Yu. Xiang Yu became “isolated without any help,” and Liu Bang’s army became the army of justice.18 Philosophers and scholars in the Warring States period, including Confucius and Mencius, did not accept war as a means to resolve conflicts between states unless it was just. Sun Tzu could not justify any war to gain either honor or profit. Confucius, however, urged his king to raise an army to punish an evil, neighboring country where a minister killed his king to seize power—as Xiang Lu had done.19 As a just war in punishment for regicide in the Confucian tradition, Liu Bang’s war against Xiang Yu claimed the legitimate support of the people. A critical strategic move, the funeral ceremony gained great Shih for Liu Bang and transferred the people’s rebuke and disdain to Xiang Yu.

Middle Phase In continuing a second campaign after penetrating blockades, Liu Bang again adopted an indirect Shih-strategy through a circuitous approach along two axes, whereas Xiang Yu continued his Li-strategic direct approach.


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Liu Bang’s main force, commanded by General Han Xin, advanced rapidly eastwards north of the Yellow River to join Tian Guang’s forces in the Shandong Peninsula. Liu Bang himself led the allied forces south of the Yellow River and approached Xiang Yu’s capital, Pengcheng. With no allies to suppress the Shadong rebellion for him, Xiang Yu left the capital undefended to lead his own troops in destroying Tian Guang’s rebellion. Liu Bang’s allied forces launched a major attack on Pengcheng while Han Xin advanced toward the Shandong Peninsula. Facing enemies in two directions, Xiang Yu’s powerful military force first suppressed Tian Guang in Shandong before returning to recover his capital. After defeat by Xiang Yu’s exhausted troops, Liu Bang’s retreat to the west with the allied forces invited Xiang Yu’s pursuit. While Xiang Yu was pursuing Liu Bang’s allied forces in the west, General Han Xin arrived in Shandong with fresh troops as Liu Bang had anticipated. With Tian Guang’s troops, the combined forces created a new, severe threat to Xiang Yu’s rear and capital, which he could not ignore. Between two superior enemies—Liu Bang’s regrouped allies in the west and Han Xin’s fresh troops in the east—Xiang Yu was unable to continue the pursuit. Liu Bang’s trap closed when General Peng Yue’s guerrilla units began to threaten Xiang Yu’s supply lines in both east and west. Xiang Yu decided to destroy Liu Bang’s allied forces decisively and quickly in the west by massing his superior combat forces. Delaying any counterguerrilla actions, he could then move quickly to the east to destroy Han Xin’s troops. Instead of submitting to annihilation, however, Liu Bang’s allies avoided decisive engagement, dispersed, and delayed to hold Xiang Yu’s troops in the west in operational stalemate. During the four-year war, Xiang Yu’s territory had shrunk, and those of Liu Bang and the allied states had expanded. Throughout the war, Xiang Yu could never rebuild Shih or recover Tao and harmony with the people because he had exiled and slain their legitimate king, Yi Di, and crowned himself. Although Xiang Yu recognized Liu Bang’s advantage in Shih, without either Tao or Shih for himself, but confident in his military forces that seemed absolutely superior he relied on simple, forces-based Li-strategy.

Final Phase As Liu Bang’s refusal to engage deepened into operational stalemate, Xiang Yu’s troops were unable to disengage and lost spirit. Liu Bang’s popular support in former-Qin and in Chu expanded when Han Xin and Tian Guan joined Liu Bang and the allies surrounded Xiang Yu. Despite his superior forces and ability to gain tactical victory in local battles, he was unable either to engage Liu Bang or to disengage to face Han Xin in decisive

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operations. As his troops lost their spirit, he, too, gradually became weary, eventually abandoned the war, and died in 203 BC.

Xiang Lu’s Li-Strategy With confidence in his military superiority and capability, Xiang Yu relied consistently on a Li-strategy for defending against Liu Bang. Like many realpolitik politicians, strategists, and diplomats, Xiang Yu valued relational power relationships among states as important, but he did not recognize the structural power of endogenous, national Shih. Instead of building national Shih after the earlier war with Qin, Xiang Yu had been most concerned with maintaining his own advantages in the balance of military power among states. He divided several large states into many small ones to prevent them from overpowering him in rebellion.20 He had also taken rigorous political and military measures to contain Liu Bang, his primary—more popular— opponent, in Han. Controlling the vast, central-China plains Xiang Yu deployed troops in strategic points through which Liu Bang had to pass—Hanguguan and Wuguan—in any eastward advance. Seeking absolute geopolitical advantage and external Shih, Xiang Yu imposed a military blockade around Han to prevent Liu Bang’s recovery and to isolate his bases in the mountains of western China. Xiang Yu’s orthodox perspective exposed his strategic right flank in Liu Bang’s first offensive and left his rear vulnerable in the second offensive, when he was unable to disperse against multiple threats. Although Xiang Yu’s armies were always superior and he won all the battles that he fought, his loss of endogenous Shih before and early in the war isolated and weakened him. The subordinate states’ refusal to cooperate after Liu Bang branded him a regicide forced him to face every threat with his own army. Despite his superiority, in the final phases of the war, Xiang Yu could not concentrate to engage one enemy or disperse to engage another. In 203 BC, as he lay dying, within his Li-perspective, Xiang Yu recalled his life as winning in a series of battles: “Until now I have never lost in about 70 battles for 8 years. Thus, I could become the supreme ruler of the whole country.” He felt that he had lost the war not because he was a poor commander but because Heaven had decided to destroy him.21 His Listrategy of winning 100 victories in 100 battles concealed his own weakness in his loss of endogenous Shih and the support of the people. Later, Lin Zhiqi, a Southern Song (AD 1127–1279) scholar in the court of King Gao (r. AD 1127–1162), commented that “although Liu Bang lost 100 battles in 100 battles against Xiang Yu, he became the king as he won one decisive victory in the end. Although Xiang Yu won 100 battles in 100 battles, he


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was destroyed since he lost one decisive battle.”22 He never recognized the importance of endogenous Shih from the beginning and depended only on his military power, which was limited to physical force and strength within Li.

Liu Bang’s Shih Strategy Facing a stronger force, after building Shih for two years in Han, Liu Bang estimated the strategic situation by comparing Han’s national Tao with Chu and adopted a Shih-strategy.23 From his first road-building works in the Han mountains, Liu Bang built broad, deep, popular support and endogenous Shih wherever he went, even when he lost immediate military advantages. His circuitous, indirect, unorthodox approaches repeatedly deceived, confused, and surprised his enemy at tactical, operational, and strategic levels. Not only was Liu Bang a Shih-strategist, but his chief of staff, Zhang Liang, was a brilliant student of Tai Kung (1212?–1073 BC), the predominant Zhou-dynasty Shih-strategist. Liu Bang developed his strategies under the influence of Tai Kung’s view that revolution was a legitimate and just form of war. In challenging Xiang Yu, Liu Bang borrowed the strategy that Tai Kung had taught King Wu to overthrow the Shang dynasty (1766?–1122 BC). King Wu inquired of Tai Kung: “I want to attain our aim of overthrowing the Shang, but I have three doubts. I am afraid that our strength will be inadequate to attack the strong, to estrange his close supporters within the court, and disperse his people. What should I do?” Tai Kung replied: “To attack the strong, you must nurture them to make them even stronger, and increase them to make them even more extensive. What is too strong will certainly break; what is too extended must have deficiencies. Attack the strong through his strength. Cause the estrangement of his favored officials by using his favorites, and disperse his people by means of the people.”24 Obviously informed by Tai Kung’s thought, Liu Bang let Xiang Yu build the surrendered Qin generals and conquered armies into forces five times stronger than his own. He watched and waited while Xiang Yu imposed a blockade around his Han base and constructed strong defenses at strategic choke points through the mountain passes. During the war, however, Xiang Yu’s allies defected to Liu Bang and joined him in a just war to destroy Xiang Yu. As Tai Kung predicted, what was too strong certainly broke. Liu Bang let Xiang Yu appoint kings for 18 states in what appeared to be Xiang Yu’s consolidation of his rule over China. During the war, Liu Bang invited them to join in a just war to punish Xiang Yu, an evil king. When

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people accepted the war as just, and Liu Bang as commander of the army of justice, he gained strong, endogenous Shih from the people and alliances with other kings. Of the 18 kings, five initially joined the alliance and later even Qing Bu, the closest general to Xiang Yu, defected to Liu Bang. Beyond kings and generals, Liu Bang captured the mind of the people— endogenous Shih—through Tao, while Xiang Yu’s tyranny alienated them. Although Liu Bang and his staff recognized Xiang Yu’s military superiority, they knew also that Xiang Yu had followed Qin’s every step in destroying its own endogenous Shih. Liu Bang recalled that people had felt Xiang Yu’s cruelty during the war and suffered under his tyranny which was no less than Qin’s despotism. Although Xiang Yu’s armies controlled the entire Chinese continent, his endogenous Shih was no better than that of Qin Shi Huangdi. Like him, Xiang Yu had lost his Tao. Xiang Yu would lose his strength, just as the lack of Tao had ruined Qin.25

The War Between Cao Cao and Liu Bei After the Warring States period, except for a brief discontinuity, China enjoyed stability for more than four hundred years as the Han governed the entire Chinese continent.26 At the end of the second century AD, attacks by northern barbarians posed a continuing external threat, while the internal Yellow Scarf revolution left the country in perpetual insecurity.27 Under these pressures, the Han court lost political authority to the eunuchs, as warlords emerged in competition for hegemony. Some attempted to overthrow the disabled dynasty while others tried to restore the house of Han. As China entered another period of wars, the war between Liu Bei and Cao Cao exemplified the period’s contrasting strategies. Among the many second-century warlords, Yuan Shao (?–202) and Gongsun Zan dominated China north of the Yellow River. Liu Bei—a distant descendant of the Han royal family—controlled the west and southwest. While the elderly Liu Biao still controlled Jingzhou on the upper Yangzi (Great) River, beyond the Yangzi, in the south and southeast, Sun Quan enjoyed peace while Cao Cao and other warlords struggled in central China. Since his large and prosperous territory was self-sufficient and stable behind its natural barrier, the Yangzi River, he did not maintain large military forces. He could mobilize a powerful force if necessary, but with no need to compete with other warlords, Sun Quan was defensive and sought to preserve the status quo. Although he opposed Cao Cao’s intent to unify China, Sun Quan would not mobilize troops because of his deeply conservative Confucianism.


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Cao Cao had emerged as a brilliant general in suppressing the Yellow Scarf revolt. He became supreme commander nominally protecting the court against the warlords’ revolts. Exercising the emperor’s full authority, he had become de-facto emperor, although, unlike Xiang Yu, he did not exile the legitimate emperor. Instead, he justified his authority legally with the seal of the Han court, with little regard for what the Emperor, Xian (r. 189–220), intended. Initially, people respected the emperor’s authority and complied with sealed directives from the court. As Cao Cao’s influence expanded and Emperor Xian tried to regain imperial power, people realized that he was abusing imperial authority. After defeating Gongsun Zan north of the Yellow River, in AD 199, Yuan Shao began to challenge Cao Cao’s imperial administration in the north. In the west and south, Liu Bei and Sun Quan also came to resent Cao Cao’s assumption of imperial prerogative. With Yuan Shao’s defeat, in AD 199, and a secret letter written with his blood, the emperor urged patriotic persons to eliminate Cao Cao and restore the authority of the Han court.28 When Liu Bei disclosed the emperor’s secret plea, and people readily transferred their support from Cao Cao, who appeared in the people’s deepening Confucian culture as a traitor to China’s Tao. As Cao Cao lost Shih, Liu Bei began to raise an army to remove him from the court. To focus his rising Shih, he gathered a league of heroes in the west to serve the emperor. Among them, Lord Guan (?–219 AD) and Zhang Fei swore brotherhood with Liu Bei. Idealized in China’s cultural heritage in anticipation of King Arthur’s Round Table, their oath in the peach garden remains fresh in Chinese society as a symbol of faithful honor—Te.29 With his heroes’ league, Liu Bei rejected Cao Cao’s hypocrisy and determined to destroy Cao Cao and restore the house of Han. With Yuan Shao’s cooperation, Liu Bei attempted to eliminate Cao Cao from the government. Asserting his mission to destroy rebellious factions raising armies against the court, after several inconclusive battles, Cao Cao defeated Yuan Shao in AD 202 and consolidated his power in central and northern China. Yuan Shao’s defeat placed the initiative for any campaign to restore the Han directly on Liu Bei, whose seat in remote Han, however, offered no foundation for strategic action. Cao Cao’s victory in the north also placed central Jingzhou under threat from four sides. Since Jingzhou’s aged ruler, Liu Biao, could not imagine that his sons could preserve the land from Cao Cao’s advances, he sincerely urged Liu Bei to rule Jingzhou after he died. For Liu Bei, Liu Biao’s proposal was a clear strategic opportunity. A base in Jingzhou was a Li on the path to the greater Shih—restoring the house of Han. Liu Bei, however, declined the proposal. He realized that the people of Jingzhou would understand his acceptance as exploitating Liu Biao’s peril to seize his

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estate. Instead, he sought to build endogenous Shih among them by agreeing to support Liu Biao in resisting Cao Cao’s advances into Jingzhou.30 In AD 208, Cao Cao mobilized a huge army and marched south into Jingzhou toward Liu Bei and Sun Quan. Cao Cao’s initial aim was to destroy Liu Bei under the guise of restoring imperial order. Although Sun Quan held a larger territory and commanded a greater army, he was a statusquo force, whereas Liu Bei was a revisionist. In a primitive campaign of preventive war, Cao Cao sought to eliminate Liu Bei before he grew strong. After initial, slow advances through Jingzhou, Cao Cao advanced to the Yangzi River, eventually failed at Red Cliffs against the allied forces of Liu Bei and Sun Quan, and retreated north. Liu Bei recovered central China, consolidated his base in the west, and expanded his influence to the north. Although Sun Quan shifted his support to Cao Cao, the war continued until Cao Cao and Liu Bei both died naturally. Neither, however, achieved his aim to reunite China in his own lifetime. (See table 3.2).

Contending Strategies Cao Cao’s strategy of unifying China by destroying Liu Bei and Sun Quan through superior military force was a direct, forces-based Li-strategy of

Table 3.2

Chronology: Liu Bei–Cao Cao

Date

Events

July 208

Cao Cao mobilized half a million troops for his southern invasion. Liu Bei began delaying operations against Cao Cao’s offensive through Xinye, Fancheng, Jiangxia, and Jiangling, by conceding territories in Jingzhou Cao Cao pushed Liu Bei south of the Yangzi River; Cao Cao proposed that Sun Quan join him in destroying Liu Bei; Sun Quan eventually joined Liu Bei against Cao Cao Cao Cao defeated the allied forces of Liu Bei and Sun Quan, which subsequently defeated Cao Cao’s forces at the Red Cliffs of the Yangzi River Liu Bei recovered Jingzhou and established his base for continuing operations against Cao Cao in central China Sun Quan attacked Liu Bei’s strategic base in Jingzhou and killed Lord Guan. The alliance between Liu Bei and Sun Quan collapsed Liu Bei attacked Sun Quan in revenge for Lord Guan’s death

August 208

November 208

January 209 Autumn 219

February 221


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preventive war. His aim was to destroy Liu Bei’s forces before they became a serious threat. Recognizing his inferiority to Liu Bei in Shih, Cao Cao concluded that “We must eliminate Liu Bei now. Otherwise, he will certainly become a great trouble later, for he is an extraordinary man.”31 Cao Cao judged Liu Bei the most significant strategic competitor although Liu Bei’s military power was not as great as either his own forces or those of Sun Quan. Cao Cao did not perceive Liu Bei within a narrow military perspective, but estimated his relative power based on his national endogenous Shih. Cao Cao realized that although Liu Bei’s army was currently small and weak, it could become a powerful force if he could transform the endogenous Shih and Tao into military power. Since Cao Cao commanded strong military forces in being, he believed that he could destroy Liu Bei if he attacked immediately. Mobilizing a half-million-man army explicitly to destroy Liu Bei, Cao Cao based his analysis of power relations between Liu Bei and himself on Shih-theory. Paradoxically, however, the strategy that Cao Cao adopted—to destroy Liu Bei by force alone—was not Shih-strategy. His reliance on military force alone to eliminate Liu Bei in a single great decisive battle—a Listrategy—ultimately failed. In contrast to Cao Cao, Liu Bei adopted a Shih-strategy of defeating the stronger with a weaker military force. Despite his military strength of barely a fifth that of Cao Cao, Liu Bei gained the people’s determined support— Shih—against Cao Cao to restore the house of Han—Tao. Like Liu Bang, he relied on superior Shih to overcome military strength as the war continued and anticipated that Cao Cao’s inferiority in Shih would enervate his military superior army—the essence of Shih-strategy.

Opening Phase Despite recognizing his inferiority in Tao, in summer 208, Cao Cao launched his campaign against Liu Bei through Jingzhou to annihilate his enemy in a catastrophic, decisive, preventive war before Liu Bang’s greater Shih could prevail. Liu Bei developed his campaign plan around mobile operations, delaying tactics, and preserving his own forces, while inflicting as much damage as possible on Cao Cao’s forces. Liu Bei maneuvered to avoid decisive battle to gain time while sacrificing terrain in Jingzhou. By keeping his forces intact and mobile, he delayed Cao Cao’s massive offensive effectively without decisive engagement. Although Liu Bei’s army was small, his respect and support for old Liu Biao had created great endogenous Shih in Jingzhou. The people of

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Jingzhou followed Liu Bei when he retreated south from Fancheng to Xianyang and supported him as best they could, despite many deaths and hardships. To preserve his Shih, Liu Bei accepted the logistical burdens of the throng of displaced people and refugees that joined his army. He ordered his commanders to care for them and the local people even when they hindered the troops’ advance. When Cao Cao learned of the refugees, he tried to exploit them by ordering five thousand horsemen to overtake Liu Bei’s withdrawing army. Those same refugees prevented Cao Cao’s pursuit or envelopment and escorted Liu Bei’s troops into their new delaying positions.32 Cao Cao’s soldiers were primarily infantry or cavalry from northern tribes that had fought together under Cao Cao across China since AD 192. This army had been successful in a series of land campaigns and was very proud of its capabilities in mobile land warfare, but had no experience in riverine or maritime operations. Anticipating battles in riverine terrain, as he advanced through Jingzhou, Cao Cao organized new marine troops from surrendered navies and captured commercial fleets. Ignorant in riverine warfare, Cao Cao appointed two skilled riverine generals, Cai Mao and Zhang Yun, from Liu Biao’s former navy, as superintendent and lieutenant superintendent of his naval forces. Combining their former sailors, marines, and boats with the northern infantry created Cao Cao’s new riverine capability. Fully responsible for riverine and marine operations, Cai Mao and Zhang Yun exercised full command and control in training and combat operations. Cao Cao’s proud, victorious veterans from the north became students of surrendered, defeated sailors from Liu Biao’s surrendered navy! While Cao Cao’s new navy strengthened his Hsing and his forces-based Listrategy, the unstable mixture of northern land soldiers and southern mariners disturbed his army’s morale and unity. Complaints from northern soldiers that Cao Cao gave captured generals—Cai Mao and Zhang Yun— exalted ranks exposed his failure to build Tao and Shih in his joint forces.33 Although Cai Mao and Zhang Yun were southerners, they did their best for Cao Cao. They struggled to suppress the discords between northern infantry and southern sailors. As disharmony deepened, the expeditionary force’s former Tao and strong Shih faded. Cao Cao’s endogenous Shih was very poor when the army arrived at the Yangzi River to face difficult terrain in bad weather—low exogenous Shih. Finally, just before crossing the river, Cao Cao put the two southern generals to death and immediately appointed two northern generals as new naval commanders.34 When Cao Cao reached the northern bank of the Yangzi River, he recognized that although he had seized all of Jingzhou, he had failed in destroying Liu Bei’s forces. While Liu Bei had succeeded in withdrawing and delaying, Cao Cao had failed in obtaining a decisive engagement.


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Having failed in his initial campaign to force a decisive engagement and annihilate Liu Bei, what Cao Cao feared most was an alliance between Liu Bei and Sun Quan against him.

Middle Phase Since neither general could gain a decisive advantage, each sought additional forces. To preempt Liu Bei, Cao Cao proposed in summer 208 that Sun Quan join him in the war to destroy Liu Bei. As he withdrew south of the Yangzi River, Liu Bei also sent Gongming, his chief advisor, to Sun Quan to propose a defensive alliance against Cao Cao’s offensive. While larger than Liu Bei’s weak delaying forces and smaller than Cao Cao’s huge army, Sun Quan’s army had no combat experience.35 Sun Quan rejected Cao Cao’s proposal and allied his forces with Liu Bei.

Cao Cao’s Li-Strategy As Liu Bei withdrew across the Yangzi River, Cao Cao recognized a crisis and an opportunity within his Li-strategy. Since Liu Bei had withdrawn southwest from central China through Jingzhou, to pursue Liu Bei further, Cao Cao would have to overextend his lines of supply and communications. His own flank and rear would be vulnerable to attack and interdiction by Sun Quan’s forces, which he expected also to be hostile. He needed Sun Quan to press the attack on Liu Bei, whose rear and flank were also especially vulnerable to action by Sun Quan. With Sun Quan as Cao Cao’s ally, Liu Bei would be alone in his loyalty to the Han dynasty. Cao Cao’s military and political superiority could eliminate Liu Bei and unify the continent on his own terms. If Sun Quan chose to stand with Liu Bei in opposition, all China south of the Yangzi River would be hostile. Within Cao Cao’s Listrategic perspective, it was best to make an ally of Sun Quan before taking the offensive against Liu Bei. Although the haze of time has blurred the details, historical fiction and folklore suggest that Cao Cao offered Sun Quan half of Jingzhou—a valuable, territorial Li—for his support in defeating Liu Bei. Exaggerating the size of his army as one million that included infantry, cavalry, and marines, Cao Cao also threatened to destroy Sun Quan’s own immediate security and territorial interests—Li—if he rejected the proposal. Chinese tradition has captured the spirit of Li-strategy in the idealized essence of Cao Cao’s proposal to Sun Quan. “Under the imperial mandate, I have authority to act against state criminals . . . We have one million hardy warriors and a thousand able generals. We propose that you join us,

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General, in a hunting expedition to Jiangxia in order to strike the decisive blow against Liu. Then, sharing the territory between us, we may seal an everlasting amity.” The powerful Li-strategic argument was that “commanding a host of one million, cloaked in the Emperor’s authority, Cao Cao has campaigned the length and breadth of the land. To resist is to rebel.” No rational person would dare to confront Cao Cao with a million-man army. Within the military perspective, Sun Quan’s major advantage had been the Yangzi River until Cao Cao took Jingzhou. “Now Sun Quan shared the river’s strategic benefits with Cao Cao. Really, there was no force able to oppose him, and it would do better with the total security which submission would afford.”36 The proposal, however, contained a clear self-contradiction. The first part was a de-facto imperial order to Sun Quan—a dependent subject— to participate in destroying Liu Bei. The last part, explaining the rewards for participation in the expedition, addressed Sun Quan as an independent ruler of a sovereign state. Despite the self-contradicting complexities of hazy imperial politics, Cao Cao was asking Sun Quan to choose either to be another criminal or to be an everlasting friend. Resting on his Li-strategy, Cao Cao’s argument did not consider either Tao or endogenous Shih of the opposing sides. It compared only the two sides’ military forces and concluded that no one could resist Cao Cao’s attack.

Alliance and Shih-Strategy With proposals for alliance from both opposing sides, Sun Quan faced a decision between the current Li offered by Cao Cao and the eventual Shih—Han restoration—proposed by Liu Bei. Sun Quan’s Li-courtiers respected Cao Cao’s cloak of the emperor’s authority, but ignored the significance of Tao. They advocated a Li-strategy and accepting Cao Cao’s invitations. Within a Confucian-Shih-perspective, Sun Quan could honorably reject Cao Cao’s proposal, since his loyalty to the Han court and opposition to any attempt to destroy it preserved Tao. Although he had not joined Liu Bei in the campaign against Cao Cao, he was in accord with Liu Bei in Tao—the just war to destroy Cao Cao and restore the house of Han.37 Just War and Shih. Many nobles in Sun Quan’s court, however, had imbibed the Shih-spirit and advocated war against Cao Cao. “Posing as prime minister of the Han, Cao Cao is in reality a traitor to the dynasty. . . . Now is the time to make your [Sun Quan’s] might felt the length and breadth of the empire and eliminate a cruel and violent enemy for the sake of the ruling house.”38 Any war against Cao Cao would be a just war to punish the traitor. Honoring Liu Bei’s heroic defense against Cao Cao’s superior forces, Sun Quan could not personally justify submitting to


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Cao Cao, a betrayer of the Han dynasty. Alliance with Liu Bei against Cao Cao would risk a war in which his smaller army could not stand against Cao Cao’s greater force. If he risked submission, Cao Cao might not accommodate him and his people as he promised but could insist eventually on absorbing his kingdom—Wu—as a subordinate fiefdom. After debate and controversy, Sun Quan’s court concluded that alliance with Liu Bei was preferable. Within Liu Bei’s Shih-strategy instead of Cao Cao’s Li-strategy, Sun Quan could mobilize his people’s national Shih for a just war against the traitorous Cao Cao. Adopting his own Shih-strategy, his decision to join Liu Bei was a Shih-strategy for both Liu Bei and Sun Quan.39 He sacrificed the Li of immediate territorial interests offered by Cao Cao, while putting his country under the threat of Cao Cao’s powerful army. His Shih-strategy assumed the position of the weak confronting the strong. Joint Strategic Estimate. Sun Quan realized that alliance with Liu Bei would increase his endogenous Shih by enrolling him in Liu Bei’s just war. With their own Shih-strategies, both allies adopted a course for winning the war by increasing national endogenous Shih in a just war. Gongming, Liu Bei’s chief advisor, shared with Sun Quan his Shih-strategic estimate of Cao Cao’s army. Although Cao Cao had more soldiers, his army’s Shih was weaker than that of the allied forces of Liu Bei and Sun Quan. Cao Cao had no experienced mariners in his forces to navigate the flat plains and canals of southern China. Instead, his hastily assimilated local boatmen, who had surrendered in Jingzhou, had neither Tao nor Shih and served in his army only under duress. Untrained for operations in the riverine terrain of the south, his northern infantry also had very low morale. Forcibly drafted from grudging, local people, Cao Cao’s rear-area security and logistical support were especially vulnerable. Expecting a quick campaign, Cao Cao had not prepared for winter operations, had not collected depots of stores and weapons, and had not even provided winter clothing for his troops. Although Cao Cao’s Hsing was impressive and formidable, his battlefield Shih was inferior in every aspect to those of Liu Bei and Sun Quan and would fall when his troops found themselves fighting against two enemies. His endogenous Shih would disappear in a war that neither the Chinese people nor traditional Confucian values could justify in Tao.

Red Cliffs In August 208, Cao Cao marched east, while the allied forces of Sun Quan and Liu Bei prepared a defensive campaign around the Red Cliffs. Although

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he had anticipated crossing the Yangzi River, Cao Cao arrived at the Red Cliffs in early winter. The unpredictable direction and force of the wind and the cold, wet weather did not favor riverine or river-crossing operations, while the terrain provided for the allies a natural barricade and defensive position. The main battle at Red Cliffs was a riverine engagement as Cao Cao struggled to cross the Yangzi River. Sun Quan’s maritime forces destroyed most of Cao Cao’s battle boats and the transportation barges that had supplied and moved his army. Although Sun Quan’s infantry only damaged Cao Cao’s army and prevented its crossing the river at Red Cliffs, Cao Cao could only retreat from the river’s bank to the north. Liu Bei awaited the survivors’ retreating columns in ambush and destroyed them in a moving battle of mobile land operations. Cao Cao’s failure at Red Cliffs was due neither to insufficient naval equipment nor to poor riverine tactics. Rather, while faced with disadvantages in exogenous Shih, the army’s endogenous Shih before the decisive battle was also in the worst state since AD 192. Cao Cao’s disastrous defeat at the battles of Red Cliffs ended the alliance’s first campaign in November 208. The strategic alliance between Liu Bei and Sun Quan strengthened not only the allies’ endogenous Shih but also their exogenous Shih. Experienced and capable in mobile land warfare, Liu Bei’s forces lacked naval capability. Sun Quan had an excellent navy with little capability for land warfare. The alliance reinforced one’s weakness with the other’s strength and combined their strengths in a formidable combined-arms force. The allied forces achieved superiority over Cao Cao’s army for all five of Sun Tzu’s estimation factors: Tao, weather, terrain, generals, and troop readiness.40 Although Cao Cao claimed authority to act against state criminals under a recent imperial mandate, he could not justify his cruelty toward Emperor Xian and his empress. When Liu Bei revealed Emperor Xian’s secret letter, people lost faith in Cao Cao and supported Liu Bei’s just war. They did not accept Cao Cao as a prime minister, but a traitor to the emperor and to China’s national Tao. The weather and terrain also favored the allies with high winds and unpredictable storms around the natural obstacles along the river bank. Sun Quan had many excellent generals experienced in marine and riverine warfare, while Cao Cao had to draft marine soldiers and leaders from conquered lands. The allies’ ships, weapon systems, and marine training were qualitatively—if not quantitatively—superior to Cao Cao’s maritime capabilities. Sun Tzu’s estimation factors were clear. Any confrontation with the allied forces at Red Cliffs under these conditions would be a strategic mistake for Cao Cao.


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Recovering Jingzhou At Red Cliffs, Sun Quan gained valuable supplies and weapons that Cao Cao had abandoned on the river’s bank and eliminated the threat from the north. Liu Bei seized a territorial base for further advance to the north. Ambition and hubris, however, gradualy overcame Liu Bei and Sun Quan with their decisive victory at Red Cliffs. After defeating Cao Cao’s army at Red Cliffs, Liu Bei and Sun Quan advanced north of the Yangzi River west and east of Jingzhou in an allied effort against Cao Cao. They also competed with each other for territories in central China. With better land-warfare capabilities and higher mobility, Liu Bei advanced in western China faster than Sun Quan maneuvered in the east. Liu Bei gradually recovered all territory in Jingzhou lost during Cao Cao’s offensive and consolidated his endogenous Shih among the people. He appointed Lord Guan to build a new operational base and retain the initiative in advancing north. Sun Quan, however, was not happy with the rapid expansion of Liu Bei’s territory and Shih. He eventually asked Liu Bei to concede Jingzhou, the foundation for the northern advance, to him. Liu Bei’s rejection of his ally’s request planted the seeds of discord and eventual hostility between the two warlords, although their strategic alliance against Cao Cao persisted. As the victorious allies slowly expanded north, Cao Cao recognized the growing discord between Liu Bei and Sun Quan. Finally, in about AD 218–219, Cao Cao again offered Sun Quan a valuable territorial Li—all of southern China as Sun Quan’s fief if he would restore peace. This time, Sun Quan accepted the proposal and formed a covert force to attack Liu Bei’s rear while Liu Bei continued his northern advance against Cao Cao. Unaware of the arrangement between Sun Quan and Cao Cao, Liu Bei neglected his rear security and left his logistics bases in Jingzhou vulnerable. When Lord Guan was fighting in Fancheng, Cao Cao’s forward position, Sun Quan seized Liu Bei’s rear positions and isolated him before he could reinforce at Fancheng. Sun Quan’s attack on Liu Bei for territorial interests—Li—broke their strategic alliance. Although Lord Guan defeated Cao Cao’s forces at Fancheng without reinforcement, Sun Quan’s seizure of Jingzhou gave local superiority to the now cooperating armies of Cao Cao and Sun Quan. In October AD 219, when Sun Quan captured Lord Guan and killed him, Liu Bei’s northward advance lost its momentum and faltered. Cao Cao’s faction quickly seized the opportunity to destroy both competitors. War between the Allies. Betrayed by his ally who had killed his friend, Liu Bei resolved to avenge Lord Guan by force and to destroy Sun Quan’s dynasty in Wu. Without consensus among his five Tiger Generals— Gongming, Lord Guan, Zhang Fei, Huang Zhong, and Zhao Zilong—who had supported him since he was crowned, he ordered full mobilization for

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war against Sun Quan.41 Gongming and Zhao Zilong urged Liu Bei to continue the advance north instead of going east. General Huang Zhong’s last words emphasized that the ultimate objective was the struggle for the northern heartland. Zhang Fei was assassinated in preparing dutifully for the eastern invasion. Since Sun Quan was not strong enough to resist Liu Bei’s full strength, he sent an envoy to Liu Bei for reconciliation with a proposal to return Jingzhou. Liu Bei rejected the proposal and reaffirmed his intention to destroy the house of Sun Quan. In alarm, Sun Quan requested Cao Cao’s support. Since Cao Cao had already died, his son, Cao Pi, was in command. In Cao Pi’s camp, some urged invasion of Sun Quan’s territory while he was under attack by Liu Bei. Cao Pi, however, adopted his own refined version of Shih-strategy. Instead of involving himself in the war, he decided to wait until his enemies destroyed each other. By not supporting either belligerent and waiting until both became weary, he achieved superiority over both without fighting.

Neither Shih nor Li Abandoning Shih and Tao, the two victors at Red Cliffs broke their alliance in war without achieving their mutual aim of destroying Cao Cao. Neither Liu Bei nor Sun Quan continued a Shih-strategy. Sun Quan continued his Li-strategy of using force and diplomacy in his own territorial interests. Liu Bei followed another Chinese path of honor—Te—on which he had embarked with his oath in the Peach Garden twenty years earlier. Sun Quan. Sun Quan’s Li-strategy to attack Liu Bei and seize Jingzhou was an explicit response to Cao Cao’s promise of southern China as a great Li. He abandoned his original pact with Liu Bei to destroy Cao Cao, and used force for his own territorial interest—Li—contrary to the original covenant, which was to pursue and follow Tao. After Lord Guan’s death escalated Sun Quan’s limited conflict into a total war, Sun Quan proposed to return Jingzhou for reconciliation with Liu Bei. Liu Bei. After Lord Guan’s death and Sun Quan’s perfidy, Liu Bei merged his public responsibility as ruler—Tao—with personal duty—Te—and used public power to pursue personal feelings. Liu Bei’s strategy to attack Sun Quan was neither Li-strategy nor Shih-strategy, but was based on Te. It did not contribute to destroying Cao Cao and restoring the house of Han, nor did Liu Bei accept Jingzhou—a Li—to reconcile himself with Sun Quan. Liu Bei’s war against Sun Quan neither brought any immediate material benefits—Li—nor contributed to improving Tao or building


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national Shih. Neither Li nor Shih, Liu Bei’s objective against Sun Quan was personal Te. With Lord Guan and Zhang Fei, we bound ourselves in honor and allegiance in the peach garden, swearing to live or die as one. . . . My second brother, Lord Guan, met his doom at the hands of Sun Quan of the Southland. Unless we take revenge on this enemy, the covenant is betrayed. Therefore we intend full mobilization for war against the south to take alive the renegade traitor and to redeem our shame.42

Confucian culture demanded popular respect for Liu Bei’s Te to die as one as they swore in the peach garden. That respect, however, did not contribute to the harmony between people and ruler—national Tao. Without Tao, Liu Bei could not expect a strong Shih in an expeditionary war. He might have mobilized strong Shih by continuing his just war against Cao Pi, Cao Cao’s son, who usurped the throne and exiled Xian, the last Han emperor. For the people, the traitors were Cao Cao and Cao Pi, not Sun Quan. Popular indignation would have supported Liu Bei in bringing these hateful renegades to justice. By focusing his public power in his personal revenge on Sun Quan, Liu Bei lost not only national Shih but the opportunity to destroy Cao Pi and to regain China’s Tao. Despite compelling Sun Quan to withdraw from Jingzhou, without Tao or Shih, Liu Bei could not achieve victory. Still at war, he finally died without achieving even his immediate personal objective of destroying the house of Sun Quan.

Ending Phase Although Cao Cao and Liu Bei competed for dominance over China, each died without achieving his goal. Cao Cao’s pragmatism understood Tao as a means and stressed its legal aspects in pursuing particular Lis. For Liu Bei, however, Te and Tao assumed the highest values. Liu Bei’s resolution to attack Sun Quan after his treacherous surprise attack had killed Lord Guan reflected his commitment to Te as the most valuable human relationship. Within the endogenous Shih-perspective, however, Liu Bei’s action was a critical blunder, which sacrificed both Shih and Tao to his personal feelings of Te. Although less passionate than Liu Bei, since he had lost many generals at Red Cliffs, Cao Cao combined revenge on Liu Bei and Sun Quan with his Li-strategy to unify China. Instead, however, of coninuing his father’s personal feelings, his son, Cao Pi, calmly allowed circumstances to draw Sun Quan and Liu Bei into war against each other. It is too much to ascribe third-century China’s decline to Cao Cao’s indiscretion and Cao Pi’s shrewdness in letting Liu Bei and Sun Quan destroy each other. After the

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war between Liu Bei and Sun Quan, the two states both lost their Shih and declined rapidly. During the third century, the three warlords adopted various refinements and versions of Shih-strategy in their continuing wars. Liu Bei’s Shu Han was the first state to fall (AD 263) and Sun Quan’s Wu shortly followed (AD 280). Only Cao Cao’s and Cao Pi’s Wei benefited from this first war of the century. Despite losing nothing from the war, Cao Pi’s Shih was never strong enough to unify China as his father had dreamed. Liu Bei, Sun Quan, Cao Cao, and their generals were adept Shih-strategists, although none of them relied exclusively on Shih-strategies.

Comparing Liu Bei and Cao Cao Medieval Chinese strategists compared Liu Bei to Liu Bang as successful Shih-strategists, while likening Cao Cao to Xiang Yu as Li-strategists. Although compelling, the comparison is simplistic, since each strategist was unique within some broad commonalities.

Attitudes toward Tao Liu Bei emphasized endogenous Shih through Tao in most of his strategies. Despite any decisive or immediate interest that he might gain, when it violated his principles of Tao or Te, he did not pursue that interest. Accepting Liu Biao’s proposal to rule Jingzhou—a significant Li—would have established his strategic foundation for a northern invasion early in AD 208. He might have destroyed Cao Cao before the battles at Red Cliffs and restored the house of Han. Instead, China’s strategic culture remembers that he preserved Tao when he died by restoring Jingzhou to Liu Biao’s son, despite a legacy of continuing warfare.43 Cao Cao, like Liu Bei, believed that power dwelt among the people. Although he adopted Shih-strategy through Tao as his ultimate goal, he was reluctant to lose any immediate benefit—Li—if he could gain it. While often hesitating to violate Tao to gain decisive benefits, Cao Cao emphasized exogenous battlefield Shih by manipulating a trapped enemy. He stressed more deceiving the enemy to create Shih than caring for the people through Tao. Since Cao Cao did not hesitate to deceive his friends while deceiving his enemies, he could neither find national Tao nor justify his authority. Although he tried to build national Tao through the emperor, even as a nominal ruler, he could never expect a strong endogenous Shih through Tao. Instead, he relied heavily on exogenous Shih and often pursued immediate interests—Li—in his strategy.


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Consistency and Theory Throughout the wars, Liu Bei preserved his Shih-strategic principles. Only in the final stage did he introduce reservations and adopt the anomalous Te-strategy against Sun Quan. Cao Cao adopted Shih-strategy at his convenience and usually followed the path of Li-strategy. Unlike Xiang Yu, who did not recognize the importance of Shih even when Liu Bang defeated him and used Li-strategy as a default, Cao Cao was adept as an experienced general in both strategies. Although Cao Cao did not apply Shih-theory consistently in his strategy, the foundation of his strategy rested firmly within the Shih-perspective of war.

The People Liu Bei did his best for the people even in cases that might threaten his military campaign. He respected the Shih-strategic principles of preserving the people’s power through Tao while also deceiving the enemy. Liu Bei did not let the people despair even when his troops were losing battles in retreat. Cao Cao, in contrast, insulated his troops from the people. He insisted on securing his lines of communication for logistics and provisions that did not depend on the local people. During his delaying campaign in AD 208, accompanied by multitudes of refugees from Jingzhou who were part of his Tao, Liu Bei could move only ten li a day.44 Despite this campaign’s great difficulties in caring for the refugees, later he gained great Shih when he recovered Jingzhou after the battles at Red Cliffs. Liu Bei’s Shih-strategy based on endogenous Shih of the people ultimately brought success as he recovered Jingzhou rapidly and established a firm foundation for his further advance northwards.

Personal Interests Liu Bei’s Shih-strategy deteriorated when he began to avenge himself on Sun Quan for his Te-brother, Lord Guan. Since Liu Bei was bound to keep the oath of the peach garden, he had no choice within his personal ethics. During the final phase of his war against Cao Cao and in his campaign against Sun Quan, Liu Bei failed to distinguish private Te from public Tao. Although Liu Bei and Cao Cao were both Shih-strategists, Cao Cao’s Shihstrategy deteriorated in his desire to avenge Red Cliffs, while Liu Bei distorted his Shih-strategy with personal Te.

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Predominance of Shih The war between Liu Bei and Cao Cao began and ended in the logic of Shih. Liu Bei, Cao Cao, and Sun Quan fought by adopting Shih-strategies, which dominated both campaigns and diplomacy until the deaths of the principals. Technological progress had expanded the area and scope of battle, while policy emphasized the importance of coordinated, joint warfare and logistics. The essence of the commanders’ strategic thought, however, continued to rest firmly within the logic of Shih-strategy.45

Chapter 4 The Chinese Civil War

In the quarter-century Chinese Civil War, Mao Tse-tung’s ill-equipped, poorly trained million-man peasant army defeated Chiang Kai-shek’s modern, well-equipped, three-million-man armored force. Although Mao and Chiang both sought to rebuild a self-respecting, independent China within their shared strategic culture, their contrasting strategies epitomize the poles of Shih-theory—Shih and Li.

The Context By the late nineteenth century, the declining Qing Dynasty could no longer repel foreign intrusions or control domestic discontent.1 Domestic governance had decayed from ancient Confucianist-Legalist controversies into a complicated network of baojia, bureaucracy, and common law. While local warlords fought foreign armies, secret societies kept order and resolved disputes, and huge trade guilds managed China’s wealth and commerce. Over generations, this fragmented governance system had destroyed imperial Shih and transformed China’s Tao into little more than popular opinion. China’s political existence depended on the 1899 U.S. Open Door policy—equal access to China’s markets and resources for all countries that respected China’s sovereign independence. The pervasive, growing American presence—diplomats, traders, adventurers, missionaries, and relief agencies—and their European competitors protected China from partition.

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Secret Societies By the late Qing dynasty, Chinese society had developed the Confucian baojia of family responsibility to care for itself into mysterious secret societies operating outside any law. While baojia and imperial law allowed no appeal or discussion, the secret societies influenced Chinese society at all levels by exerting power through extralegal supports and indirect linkages among millions of people. Some societies emerged as protective peasant brotherhoods to provide security for members’ families—the Red Spears. Some were pragmatic, or criminal, in controlling commerce and wealth— the northern Green Circle or the southern Red Circle. Other religious societies—White Lotus or Red Swastika—developed into anti-imperial and anti-Nationalist revolutionary groups. The patriotic, benevolent Society of Elder Brothers—Ko Lao Hui—claimed Sun Yatsen as a member in its struggles against the Qing dynasty.

The Revolution The Xinhai revolution deposed the Qing dynasty in 1911 and established the Chinese Republic in 1912 with Sun Yatsen as president. To support the republican government, Chiang enlisted the trade guilds and politicized the Ko Lao Hui as a Christian philanthropic organization of wealthy merchants and guild chiefs within the Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang: KMT). As Chiang and Sun eventually alienated the secret societies and warlords with proposals for reform, General Yuan Shikai displaced the new republic with military power. With his death in 1916, China slid into chaotic competition among political factions, secret societies, trade guilds, and warlords. As Chiang consolidated political power around merchants’ wealth and trade-guild discipline in his KMT, Mao began to build legitimacy and solidarity around popular anti-Japanese protests in 1919. In July 1921, as Chiang’s strongest competitor, he established the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) within the Communist International (Comintern) and absorbed most secret societies in the 1920s. In contrast to Chiang’s foundations for reform in wealth and discipline, Mao built his revolutionary organization around the secret societies’ baojia-like authority and used their solidarity as the nucleus for China’s national Shih. When the Comintern urged a CCP–KMT united front, Sun Yatsen, while repudiating the communist class struggle, accepted collaboration to unify China in the short-lived Peking Republic. Despite Chiang’s misgivings, officially, the KMT led the national revolutionary government in coalition with the CCP from 1922.2 Although Chiang and Mao both adopted

The Chinese Civil War

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Sun’s three famous people’s principles—nationalism, democracy, and livelihood—their visions of the revolution were uncompromisingly different.3 Chiang’s nationalist revolution sought self-government, self-reliance, and self-respect by applying Soviet revolutionary lessons—military unification, political tutelage, and establishing a constitution—to correct imperial corruptions and distortions.4 Like Lenin’s vanguard party, Chiang’s KMT and the army would save China by creating a Chinese elite trained in Russia, Germany, Japan, Italy, and the United States. This elite would properly guide and inspire the common people, build political support for the generalissimo and his government, and modernize Chinese society. Although he urged better treatment for the peasants, Chiang never suggested that landlords should lose land or the wealthy transfer their wealth. Even as he strengthened the army, his New Life Movement urged people to resolve their disputes within traditional moral standards without violence or harsh methods.5 Fundamentally different from Chiang’s army-led nationalist revolution, Mao pursued a “people’s democratic dictatorship,” in which workers and peasants were to have leading roles.6 His goal was communist revolution to mobilize people’s power from the peasant majority of Chinese society. In contrast to Chiang’s reliance on military power, for Mao, Tao and Shih were the only sources of revolutionary power. With Sun’s death in 1925, Chiang, supported by China’s conservatives, succeeded him to lead the KMT, the CCP–KMT united front, and the coalition government. Although Chiang had worked with Mao’s Communists for reform, he insisted on leading the revolution, since he rejected both the communist class struggle—like Sun—and the social revolution.7 Deeply distrusting Mao, the CCP, and their Comintern patrons, Chiang hoped to transform the warlords’ private armies into a national army of 60 divisions under his own command.8 In early 1926, he launched his Northern Expedition with the CCP to suppress the warlords and absorb their armies into his Nationalist forces. As the campaign succeeded, Chiang absorbed the smaller armies, although some powerful warlords persistently resisted as autonomous military forces. In March 1926, as the KMT accelerated reform into revolution and arrested leftist individuals and radical groups, Chiang’s revolutionary army continued north from Guangzhou. When he captured Shanghai in 1927, Chiang exploited success by denouncing Mao’s Communists—his major opposition—for their excesses and cruelty in Nanjing and repudiated their support as no longer useful.

After 1927 In another step away from harmony between ruler and people—Shih— Chiang replaced the uncomfortable political coalition by adding the

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Philosophy of Chinese Military Culture Chronology: China’s Civil War

Dates

Events

December 1930– October 1934 October 1934– October 1935 December 1936 September 1937

Chiang Kai-shek launched five successive campaigns to eliminate Mao Tse-tung’s base in Jiangxi Mao’s Long March

August 1945 July 1946 March 1947 July 1947 1948–1949 April 1949

Xian Incident Chiang and Mao established a United Front against Japanese invasion Japan lost World War II and retreated from the Chinese continent Chiang launched an offensive against Mao’s forces Chiang’s army seized Yanan, Mao’s Headquarters Mao launched a counteroffensive Mao’s three successive campaigns against Chiang’s army Mao’s army crossed the Yangzi River

Shanghai bankers to the Ko Lao Hui and KMT. To consolidate his economic power base, Chiang agreed to suppress the labor unions, which joined Mao’s Communists as they withdrew to Jiangxi in Central China. From Shanghai, Chiang quickly captured Peking and became president of Nationalist China. As Chiang and Mao concentrated their opposing forces, Yan Xishan in Shanxi province maintained a growing third autonomous force. Mao organized the Red Army in 1927 and began the armed struggle against the KMT, which became the Chinese Civil War with active combat operations against Chiang’s nationalist forces in 1930. During the 1930s, while Chiang led Nationalist China toward EuroAmerican modernity, national politics, and foreign relations, Mao returned to the people, ancient baojia, and secret societies to rebuild China’s Shih. “Chiang seemed to forget the debt [that] he owed to the societies, and the common people [that] they represented, when he became rich and powerful. Chiang forgot about the farmers; he seemed to forget that the farmers were 90 percent of China’s population.”9 (See table 4.1).

Contending Strategies As they consolidated power during the 1920s, Mao and Chiang took their strategies, doctrines, and philosophies along diverging paths toward a


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common goal—a strong China occupying its rightful place in the world. Using different force structures in different ways, Mao took the indirect path indicated by Shih-strategy, while Chiang’s direct path presented a series of Lis. Chiang’s Li-strategy relied on modern, foreign weaponry and conventional power drawn from abroad, whereas Mao’s Shih-strategy relied on the people’s power. The war between them comprised three phases as combat advantage shifted gradually from Chiang to Mao. A beginning phase—dominated by Chiang’s superior forces—included the encirclement and elimination operations in Mao’s Jiangxi base, the Long March, and the united front against Japanese invasion. After a strategic pause during World War II, the middle phase included conventional campaigns after World War II. Dominated by Mao’s superior Shih, the ending phase concluded active Civil-War combat operations.

Force Structures and Doctrines The Northern Expedition had convinced Chiang of the need for a central, professional army to defeat and absorb the armies that opposed him. A graduate of the Japanese Military Academy, Chiang drew power from foreign sources to build a unified military force armed with modern weaponry and trained within modern doctrines. In contrast to Chiang’s legitimate contacts with Euro-American ideas and military forces, Mao’s only source of power was the people.

Chiang’s Elite Army After breaking relations with the Kremlin and dismissing his Soviet advisors in the late 1920s, Chiang invited European strategists to reorganize his Nationalist army. His German advisors, under General Hans von Seeckt, urged a large central force built on firepower and strict discipline around a few elite units led by an elite officer corps.10 Although the depth of von Seeckt’s influence remains unclear, Chiang stressed a military elite—officers and regulars—leading both a huge, central conscript army and the warlords’ local armies through feudal arrangements. As he consolidated power for military reform and unification, Chiang established the German-style Whampoa Military Academy in 1924 “to teach every cadet, as well as every soldier he may command after graduation, to be loyal to his nation, his people, party principle, and the Chinese revolution.”11 Within Chiang’s legalist perspective of Shih-strategic culture, the Whampoa spirit of gallant self-sacrifice and discipline, imbued in every

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military officer, was the most important source of his revolutionary power. Even as the KMT’s political leader, Chiang’s power had deeper roots in the disciplined, hierarchic military community than in the harmony between people and ruler—Shih—uniting all under heaven in Tao. Chiang’s General Staff controlled his Nationalist armies on the German model, although priorities to the central army raised serious discontent among local units.12 Despite firm discipline, however, Chiang could neither create elite Chinese troops nor train China’s armies to implement the blitzkrieg introduced by the Reichswehr in Europe. From about 1940, Americans replaced Germans in training and equipping Chiang’s halfmillion-man army.13 Although Chiang personally adopted American conventions, his troops found it difficult to meld China’s strategic culture, Leninist revolutionary ideology, German doctrine, and American technical assistance.

Mao’s People’s War While Chiang built Chinese forces on foreign equipment, training, and doctrines, Mao’s forces had only grenades, which peasants produced in Yanan, and the Chinese people’s own power. To avoid the asymmetry, Mao needed to conduct a protracted war against Chiang’s weaknesses and vulnerabilities while building Shih to overcome Nationalist strengths.14 Refining Sun Tzu’s and Wu Tzu’s recognition that the few could defeat the many, Mao realized that the weak could defeat the strong in a people’s war based on Tao and Shih.15 From 1927, Mao developed his innovative people’s war doctrine in three strategic phases—guerrilla war, protracted war, and wars of annihilation. The first two phases reflected the setting of Mao’s struggle: a vast country, unevenly developed; a large, powerful enemy; a small, weak army; and the great agrarian revolution.16 To pursue his people’s-war strategy, Mao deployed his main forces—regular army—throughout China in response to operational requirements. Regional forces—reserves—operated only in their respective regions to support, reinforce, and complement main forces. Local part-time militias, trained and directed by regional forces, assumed combat support and logistical missions to support main- and regional-force operations. Like Germany’s Erwin Rommel, Mao found his tactical solutions in mobile operations, surprise, and deception. Guerrilla War. Mao began with Sun Tzu’s 14 principles for transforming static power into dynamic combat power. (See table 4.2). Mao refined Sun Tzu’s principles into four Shih-strategic operational principles for employing troops in his modern China. Mao’s first

The Chinese Civil War Table 4.2

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Sun Tzu’s 14 principles

1. When able to attack, we must seem unable 2. When using our forces, we must seem inactive 3. When we are near, we must make the enemy believe that we are away 4. When far away, we must make him believe we are near 5. Hold out bait to entice the enemy 6. Feign disorder, and crush him 7. If he is secure at all points, be prepared for him 8. If he is superior in strength, evade him 9. If your opponent is of choleric temper, seek to irritate him 10. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant 11. If he is taking his ease, give him no rest 12. If his forces are united, separate them 13. Attack him where he is unprepared 14. Appear where you are not expected

principle—When the enemy advances, we retreat—restated Sun Tzu’s principle 8, while the second—When the enemy camps, we harass—was Sun Tzu’s principle 11. Mao’s third principle—When the enemy tires, we attack—refined Sun Tzu’s principle 13, and the fourth—When the enemy retreats, we pursue—combined Sun Tzu’s principles 13 and 14.17 Around these four Shih-theory principles, Mao’s main and regional forces conducted low-intensity mobile, guerrilla operations and developed a network of dispersed base areas in northern and central China. Protracted War. Mao conceived protracted war (chijiuzhan) to avoid the enemy’s strength, to attack his weaknesses, and to gain time for transforming the people’s latent power to combat power. While tactical mobility was critical in guerrilla war, it was essential in protracted war from strategic bases where Mao focused the people’s Shih through military strength into China’s national Tao. Mao envisioned three stages in protracted war— strategic defensive, operational stalemate, and counteroffensive—as sequential processes to draw power from the people, reverse military asymmetry, and use it to win the war.18 Sun Tzu taught generals to avoid wars that the enemy could protract in indecision and embedded his preference for short, decisive wars in his priority for offensive operations. Since Chiang shared this legacy and also adopted Euro-American principles of attack, Mao needed to overcome Chiang’s advantages in seeking quick, decisive victory through overwhelming combat power. Embedding offensive operations within a defensive strategy, Mao’s strategic defensive forced Chiang to violate

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both Clausewitzian principles and Sun Tzu’s precept by accepting protracted war. Mao’s strategic defensive preserved Sun Tzu’s preferences in his active, “offensive defense, or defense through strategic engagements” ( jiji fangyu), which focused tactical offensive engagements on strategic defensive attrition.19 Although positional defense (xiaoji fangyu) remained a valuable tactic, especially in strategic bases, it was advantageous only when integrated with rapid, mobile operations into a broader strategic concept. To retain the initiative, Red Army commanders stressed flexibility and deception by shifting unexpectedly between offense and defense as opportunity and terrain required. As exogenous Shih shifted from the Nationalist attackers to Mao’s defenders, Mao solidified protracted war into operational stalemate— second stage—while consolidating his forces for the final stage— counteroffensive. With superior Shih—endogenous and exogenous—main and regional forces escalated people’s war from low-intensity operations to high-intensity, third-phase mobile campaigns and battles supported by the mobilized militias. Annihilation. When Mao retreated to Jiangxi, Chiang used his military superiority to pursue, attack, and destroy the communist forces quickly while they were still weak. As Chiang’s supply lines lengthened and constrained his flexibility, tactical retreat toward base areas shortened Mao’s interior lines and shifted the operational initiative. From this military platitude, Mao developed Sun Tzu’s principles 5, 6, and 10 from the strategic defensive into his annihilation principle, the third phase of people’s war. Mao’s light infantry used mobility and deception to lure the enemy deep (you de shenru) into killing zones where terrain, intelligence, and preparation transformed tactical engagements into annihilation. Instead of merely frustrating, confusing, and weakening a tactical enemy, annihilation sought quick, decisive engagements to destroy the enemy at the operational level. “Unless we fight campaigns and battles of annihilation, we cannot effectively and speedily reduce his strength and break his superiority and initiative.”20 Although through the 1930s, Mao lacked strategic capabilities to exploit annihilations, beneath the local Hsing of overwhelming superiority, thirdphase annihilation focused on enemy intent—commanders and troops. Instead of slow attrition of capability through active defense, operational annihilation rapidly weakened both the adversary’s strategic Shih and his operational capabilities. Since annihilation, however, required massing and concentrating absolutely superior forces on an inferior enemy, it was not feasible until protracted war had shifted Shih and Tao to Mao’s weaker forces.


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Opening Phase In 1927, Mao’s Red Army had initiated the first phase of people’s war— guerrilla operations—as a tactical attrition campaign. In December 1930, Chiang escalated to the second phase—protracted war—with a direct attack on Mao’s Jiangxi base liberation district defended by only about 40,000 Red Army troops, mostly defected from Chiang’s White Army.21 Although this first Jiangxi operation was only a White Army encirclement and elimination operation, it established Chiang’s and Mao’s contrasting patterns for using force. Chiang’s attack reflected his training and experience in European tactics and doctrine in his direct, forces-based Li-strategic approach Mao responded with his strategic defensive in an indirect, intent-based Shih-strategy. Chiang’s campaign sought decisive victory as he had achieved in the Northern Expedition—a forces-based Li-strategy. Mao conceived this first strategic-defensive stage of protracted war as weakening the White Army enough to force Chiang to abandon his campaign and consolidate his strategic position—intent-based Shih-strategy. Mao’s forces would then assume the initiative, impose operational stalemate, and trap the White Army in its garrisons. With unconstrained freedom of movement, Mao’s guerrilla forces would prepare for the third stage—strategic counteroffensive— with attacks on White strongholds and ambushes along supply routes. When persistent attrition had transferred strategic superiority to the Red Army, Mao’s operational and strategic initiative could destroy the White Army, if Chiang refused to yield without fighting.

The Jiangxi Campaigns As Mao had anticipated, Chiang executed five successive campaigns to encircle and eliminate Mao’s Jiangxi base over four years.22 Dispersed in the mountains, “the Red Army was essentially a guerrilla force having terrorist control of the countryside which was the source of food supply and manpower.”23 Mao and Chiang alike recognized that the Jiangxi people were cooperative with the Red Army, while surly toward the White Army. Despite Chiang’s superiority, Mao’s troops moved secretly between White Army units “due to popular support of the people in the base area and to lack of coordination among enemy units.”24 Mao could easily monitor White operations through peasants’ reports, while the White Army could only search for the Red Army in patrolling operations. Throughout the Jiangxi campaigns, the Red Army fought a visible enemy, whereas the White Army faced an enemy with formless Hsing. While Mao’s Shih-strategy defeated Chiang’s units in battle, Chiang’s forces-based strategy Li-strategy

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of attrition eventually overwhelmed his inferior enemy. Instead of carrying his people’s war to Mao’s intended close, the Red Army relinquished the Jiangxi base and made the Long March, the well-known 12,000–km strategic withdrawal. The First Campaign. In December 1930, Chiang committed 7 divisions, “about 100,000 men, divided into eight columns, to advance southward from the Kian-Chienning line against the Red Army’s base area.”25 Mao selected two White divisions, the 18th led by Zhang Huizan, and the 50th commanded by Tan Daoyuan, for annihilation because they marched well separated from Chiang’s main body. Chiang’s operation opened smoothly as “the troops occupied Tonggu . . . inside Jiangxi base, but victory in this preliminary operation brought calamity.”26 With rapid, mobile maneuvers, the Red Army induced the 18th and 50th White divisions to prepared killing zones. After ambushing the 18th Division, the Red Army annihilated two brigades and the command group. As the division’s remnants retreated in disorder, the White Army lost the will to fight and withdrew from Jiangxi base. Chiang’s and Mao’s patterns in using force in this first campaign contrasted in aims, operational concepts, and Hsing. 1. Chiang aimed to destroy enemy troops—Li-strategy—while Mao sought to destroy the enemy’s intent and will—Shih-strategy. To make Chiang abandon the attack, it was enough to shatter his Army’s will without destroying the troops. 2. Chiang’s operational concept was to find and destroy Red units by dispersing White units. Mao sought to isolate one unit—the 18th Division—in a killing zone and annihilate it by concentrating Red efforts in overwhelming local superiority.27 3. The White Army’s Hsing—marching in eight columns—exposed Chiang’s operational intent to disperse. With a formless Hsing, the White Army could not discern Mao’s intent until the Red Army attacked in a decisive battle. The Second Campaign. In February 1931, Chiang assigned 200,000 troops to the second attack.28 With the same operational concept, but more troops, five White columns moved south in separate search-and-destroy operations. Mao counterattacked each column in sequence from the western column eastward. Since rugged terrain isolated Chiang’s columns and prevented mutual support, and since the Red Army fought only when it had the advantage, each counterattack succeeded. After losing 20,000 rifles and suffering high casualties, despite an absolute superiority of 20 to 3,


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the White Army withdrew in defeat.29 While the White commanders’ forces-based Li-strategy stressed operations to detect and destroy the enemy, Red commanders focused on the enemy’s intent and sought to destroy the enemy’s will to fight—Shih-strategy. While Chiang had heavy numerical superiority, Mao’s superior Shih—morale, terrain, and opportunity— defeated Chiang’s second Jiangxi campaign by overcoming his military inferiority. The Third Campaign. In July 1931, Chiang began his third Jiangxi campaign by committing 300,000 men to press the Red Army back against the Kan River and destroy it. Early in the campaign, the White Army defeated the Red Army and seized Mao’s headquarters at Tonggu. Although the White Army’s advance into the mountains increased logistical difficulties, Chiang’s concept of operations remained limited to pursuing Red units. While slower White units lost contact, units that moved too rapidly often fell into prepared Red traps. After the loss of Tonggu, on August 11, 1931, the Red Army’s main body moved east to Huangpo. Although Chiang followed and encircled Huangpo, the Red Army had already escaped south to Xingquo. When the White Army caught the Red Army after a forced march, Chiang’s soldiers were too tired to fight.30 on September 18–19, 1931, when Japan began its Manchuria campaign, Chiang recognized that he could not continue operations against Mao. As he withdrew, the Red Army recovered Tonggu without fighting. Although the Red Army recovered Jiangxi, communist leaders criticized Mao’s operational concept, which allowed the White Army to penetrate into Ruijin, the capital, and replaced Mao with Zhou Enlai as commander. Fearing that another deep White penetration into Jiangxi would alienate the people and weaken both Shih and Tao, the CCP adopted a new positional-defense strategy.31 To protect cities or territory, the Red Army had to shift to traditional defensive operations. The new political strategy shifted the purpose of military operations from destroying the enemy’s will to fight—Shih—to preserving terrain—a Li. Rather than concentrating only briefly for battles of annihilation, the new Li-strategy dispersed the Red Army in reinforced battle positions to hold critical terrain and prevent the enemy from penetrating. The new fortifications would offer the White Army visible objectives to attack and destroy the Red Army’s advantages of mobility. The White Army could concentrate its forces and destroy Zhou’s defenders with its superior strength and firepower. The Fourth Campaign. Chiang launched the fourth Jiangxi campaign with about 300,000 troops in 1932.32 Within the new Li-strategy, Zhou’s Red

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Army was more concerned with defending the Jiangxi base’s center, Ruijin, than with annihilating enemy forces to compel Chiang to abandon the war. Whenever the White Army destroyed positions on the perimeter, the Jiangxi base shrank. For the restricted Red Army, it was fortunate that in January 1933, Japan’s intrusion into the Great Wall pass forced Chiang to discontinue the fourth campaign and withdraw. Convinced of the people’s power (Shih), sure of his intent-based Shihstrategy, and dedicated to his mobile tactics and concentration for battles of annihilation, Mao denounced the Red Army’s operations in Chiang’s fourth campaign. Failure to appreciate the strength of the people (Shih) in the base area has often given rise to unwarranted fear of moving the Red Army too far from the base area. . . . Part of the enemy’s overall plan is to reduce the size of our base area, but if the Red Army concentrates its force to annihilate one of his columns, the enemy’s supreme command will be compelled to focus greater attention on the Red Army and concentrate larger forces against it. Hence, it is possible to wreck an enemy plan.33

The Fifth Campaign. In October 1933, Chiang launched the fifth Jiangxi campaign around a new operational concept. Relying a third on military measures and two-thirds on political maneuvering the White Army enlisted the peasants in encircling and eliminating the Red Army.34 In contrast to the former concept—search and destroy, Chiang constructed mutually supporting blockhouses along the Jiangxi perimeter to isolate the Communists inside the base. With more than 500,000 men, the White Army advanced systematically into the base and reduced the Communist-controlled area by one-fifth from its 1932 size. As in the fourth campaign, Chiang’s primary concern was to shrink the Communist-controlled area. His novel political initiatives for the fifth campaign prevented the Red Army from applying Shih-strategic mobile operations.35 As the concentric White advance shrunk the area for maneuvering, the Red Army struggled to find suitable opportunities to concentrate local superiority for annihilation. Chiang’s new political operations also separated the Red Army from the people who had supported it with intelligence, food, and ammunition. Facing the systematic White advance, the Red Army withdrew to a small area in southern Jiangxi. Unable to sustain the base, the Red Army abandoned Jiangxi in October 1934 as Mao began the Long March to Yanan in northwestern China.

The Long March From October 1934 to September 1935, the Long March, passing through 11 provinces and crossing 18 mountain ranges and 17 rivers, covered about


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12,000 kilometers. Of about 100,000 people who left the Jiangxi base, only about 7,000 reached Yanan.36 Within Chiang’s Li perspective, Mao was in the weakest state of military strength with only about 5,000 armed Communists. Chiang estimated that Mao and the CCP were about to collapse and no longer posed serious threats.37 Within Mao’s Shih-perspective, the Long March was an indirect approach to establishing a firm political-operational foundation to integrate many independent communist activities under his own leadership. Mao and the CCP used the Long March to publicize their revolution to the entire Chinese people. “In one sense, this mass migration was the biggest armed propaganda tour in history.”38 The privations and difficulties shared during the Long March indirectly transformed the collection of undisciplined guerrilla bands into the operational hard core of the revolutionary Red Army. Early in the Long March, Mao proposed to unite all Chinese in resistance to the Japanese invasion while ceasing the wars between domestic factions, despite the political implications. Although Mao and the CCP did not have the direct power to confront the Japanese Army, the Chinese people, weary of war among the warlords but shocked by Japanese atrocities, agreed with Mao’s indirect strategic approach. On August 1, 1935, when the CCP was at its weakest, Mao took a further strategic step in declaring full CCP participation in an anti-Japanese united front.39 He warned that China would become a permanent Japanese colony rather than a European pseudocolony and urged all classes and factions to join the anti-Japanese campaign for national survival. Mao’s declaration had the same effect as Liu Bang’s mourning ceremony for Emperor Yi Di in solidifying the Chinese people in great national Shih around Liu Bang. Just as ancient Confucian culture could not forgive Xiang Yu for murdering Yi Di, modern Chinese shifted their anti-Japanese loyalties from Chiang to Mao. In contrast to Mao’s proposals for unity, since the 1931 Japanese Manchurian campaign, Chiang had made “internal pacification a prerequisite to resistance against external aggression.”40 Even though he had ended his fourth Jiangxi campaign when Japan invaded China, his insistence on eliminating the Communists before fighting the Japanese alienated the people and weakened his Shih. Despite committing his Nationalist army against the Japanese and refusing to cede sovereignty to Japan, he became a target of active, public protest as if he opposed Mao’s anti-Japanese war. Mao’s public position increased his Tao and Shih, although he had not committed his forces to the anti-Japanese War. As Japanese plunder and atrocities intensified, Mao’s Shih grew stronger, while Chiang lost the people’s support.

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The Aborted Yanan Campaign After Mao and the CCP established their base in Yanan, Chiang tried to end the civil war with a sixth, final, direct campaign against Mao’s debilitated Red Army isolated in Yanan. As KMT leader and president of China, Chiang intensified and widened the political pressures and suppression campaign begun during the fourth and fifth Jiangxi campaigns. As commander-in-chief, he mobilized the Northwest Army commanded by Yang Hucheng and the Northeast Army commanded by Zhang Xueliang as a massive task force. Chiang’s dual intent was to destroy the CCP as a viable opposition through political and legal suppression and to destroy the Red Army with a direct-approach, forces-based Li-strategy. Mao responded to Chiang’s sixth offensive with an indirect-approach Shih-strategy by mobilizing people’s power for the anti-Japanese campaign. In February 1936, Mao mobilized the CCP for an offensive to the east under the slogan, “March east to resist Japan.” The Red Army seized northwestern Shanxi province at once and prepared to cross the Yellow River. In May 1936, in a political maneuver toward the KMT, Mao again proposed a united front against Japan—an immediate Li in his greater Shih-strategy. He urged all Chinese “to stop the war fighting by Chinese against Chinese and to unite for an anti-Japanese war.”41 Beyond the anti-Japanese united front, his greater purpose was to solidify and focus the people’s power on military defeat for Chiang’s White Army and political defeat for his Nationalists. On December 12, 1936, however, Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng detained Chiang, their commander-in-chief, in his camp near Xian. Zhang urged Chiang to stop the CCP suppression and unite with Mao and the Red Army for the anti-Japanese war. Although Zhou Enlai negotiated Chiang’s release, Zhang and Zhou compelled him to accept the second united front with the CCP.42 Although the Nationalist suppression campaign might have destroyed the CCP, aborting Chiang’s sixth campaign lost any chance of eliminating the Red Army in battle and achieving his objective by superior force.43

Learning from Campaign Experience Victorious in the Jiangxi campaigns, Chiang confirmed the effectiveness of his own forces-based Li-strategy of encirclement with superior forces. Although Mao retreated in defeat, the campaigns and his own experiences confirmed the effectiveness of his Shih-strategic principles—guerrilla war, mobile operations, and annihilation. Chiang’s Li-strategy. Chiang imputed Mao’s 1927–1933 successes to Russian revolutionary techniques learned from Mao’s Soviet advisors and to


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the violent methods used by roving armed brigands throughout Chinese history.44 While he understood the communist revolution and determined to suppress it, he dismissed Mao’s military strategy, tactics, and operations as simple banditry. Chiang’s inveterate response was to apply more force—more troops, firepower, airpower, and political pressure—in a classic Li-strategy recalling Qin Shi Huangdi’s and Xiang Yu’s campaigns in the third century BC. With overwhelmingly superior combat power, including a modern air force, and controlled political pressure, Chiang’s White Army forced Mao’s Communists to withdraw.45 Mao’s Shih-strategy. For Mao, the Jiangxi campaigns had been combat experiments to compare intent-based Shih-strategy and forces-based Listrategy. Although Chiang’s new encirclement concept in the fourth and fifth campaigns was effective, Mao complained that operational mistakes in the CCP’s new direct-resistance Li-strategy had brought defeat. Mao insisted that the Red Army had to “fight when they could win, move away when they could not win.”46 Without the Red Army’s former fluid mobility in the fifth campaign, Mao concluded that positional defense was inappropriate for the few to fight the many. The risks were large, the benefits were small, and the costs for the weak were high. Mao stressed three lessons from the Jiangxi campaigns: “The first battle must be won; the plan for the whole campaign must be taken into account; the strategic stage that comes next must be taken into account.”47 Controlling the enemy commander’s intent and his soldiers’ morale established any operation’s momentum and pattern within a greater campaign and strategic aim.

Strategic Pause: Crisis and Opportunity In May 1937, Mao joined the coalition government as Chiang’s subordinate political partner. On July 7, Japan invaded China. In September, Chiang and Mao agreed a united-front alliance against the Japanese, which renamed Mao’s Red Army as the 4th and 8th Route Armies within the Chinese National Army Command. In operations, Chiang commanded the former White Army, while Mao commanded his own former Red Army with consultation only as necessary, since the Communists would accept Chiang’s orders only through Mao.

Beneath the United Front Although China appeared unified facing the Japanese threat, neither Chiang nor Mao abandoned their contradictory revolutionary goals; they

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had merely agreed to defer their domestic military struggle. For each, the Japanese war was an intermediate Li, which the United States would ultimately win for them. More important was their final struggle when the Americans defeated Japan, the grand Li—decisive victory—on the path to unity, harmony between people and ruler—Shih—and independence— China’s Tao. Throughout the war against Japan, each stressed preparing for the future struggle more than fighting Japan. Also within the united front, Yan Xishan in Shanxi province had developed his own Shih-strategy. Yan was content to let the Nationalists, the Communists, the Japanese, and the Americans fight each other to mutual exhaustion, decisive victory, or frustration. While Chiang and Mao struggled in Jiangxi and Japan occupied eastern China, Yan created a formless Hsing and deceived them all by switching allegiance as needed, without committing his formidable armies.48 Although Chiang had dominated most warlords through greater power, the secret societies, or political promises, many shared Yan’s misgivings about Chiang and deferred to him only in their own interests.

Fighting the Japanese To occupy China quickly, Japan committed more than one million troops to compel the Chinese government to surrender. By October 1938, Japanese troops had occupied eastern China’s major cities, all defended by Chiang’s Army. In separate, uncoordinated campaigns, Chiang’s U.S.supported regular army retreated west while Mao’s 4th and 8th Route Armies reverted to guerrilla warfare. Chiang consolidated his government in Chungking around a conventional defensive war, while Mao fought an irregular war with guerrilla forces supported by the Chinese people. Status Quo in Xian. The fortress-city of Xian in Northwest China marked the intersection of the three domains in wartime China. Marshall Hu Zongnan held the city itself with 300,000 Nationalist troops and guarded the Yellow River’s southern bend. Mao was secure in his fortress in Yanan, while the Japanese occupied all China east of Shanxi. While KMT and CCP guerrillas operated in all three areas, in Shanxi, Henan, and Hubei provinces, the three forces engaged each other indiscriminately in continuing minor skirmishes. All three seemed content with indecision; only the Americans seemed anxious to change the status quo. Japan’s Northern Offensive. In summer 1944, the Japanese launched final offensives in the north and the south to destroy U.S. bases and separate Mao’s forces in Northwest China from Chiang’s armies in Sichuan.


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A northern campaign crossed the Yellow River into Henan to occupy the Hanchung Valley. The Nationalist commander, Tang Enbo, massed 300,000 troops to confront the smaller Japanese force in a classical Listrategic defensive position. Using tactical maneuver and terrain advantages, the small Japanese army—60,000 troops—easily defeated Tang’s army. As the Nationalist troops retreated in disorder, local peasants disarmed them and KMT-CCP guerrillas resisted the Japanese advance in mobile, attrition actions. Although the U.S. 14th Air Force destroyed the Japanese forces, many surviving Nationalist forces defected to the Communists. Neither the Nationalists nor the Japanese ever recovered in northern China. Offensive in the South. Japan’s southern strategic objective in 1944 was to link Hankou and Guangzhou to isolate the Chinese in the coastal provinces. Unlike Tang’s forces in Henan, General Li Tsong-jen’s troops mounted fierce, determined, and disciplined resistance to the superior Japanese forces. In Chiang’s pattern of commanding the Jiangxi campaigns, “Chinese field commanders were hopelessly handicapped by the necessity of referring important decisions to Chungking [Chonqing]. . . . The local commander could not act on his own initiative. . . . Under orders from Chungking [Chonqing], . . . the Chinese drew their troops up in battle order across valleys. . . . The Japanese thereupon advanced along commanding ridges and flanked the Chinese positions. . . . Chungking [Chonqing] armies on the flanks mysteriously withdrew, leaving the [southwestern command’s] armies of the center to extricate themselves as best they could.”49 Japan eventually linked Hankou with Guangzhou, captured Liuzhou, Quilin, and other U.S. bases, and advanced west toward Quizhou, where General Stilwell’s forces from Burma finally stopped them. Convinced of betrayal by Chiang’s Chonqing government, Li Zongren’s defeated forces retreated east to the sea. Ignoring the Nationalist debacle, Washington continued to support Chiang, as hundreds of thousands of U.S.–trained Chinese armed with U.S. weapons defected and joined Mao’s communist forces over the next five years.

Contrasting Approaches and Priorities As during his fourth, fifth, and aborted sixth campaign, Chiang’s first priority was his grand Li—decisive military victory over Mao. Only then could he build Shih in national unity and harmony between people and ruler. While Chiang used U.S. military assistance directly to increase his military capabilities—firepower, airpower, and doctrines—Mao used indirect strategy built his own Shih as both ruler and general.

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Chiang’s Regulars. From the late 1920s, Chiang had sought to integrate the warlords’ private armies into his national, regular army. In the 1940s, despite warlords’ misgivings, Chiang trained and equipped his huge 3,700,000–man conscript army with U.S.-provided heavy weapons and aircraft—a conventional Hsing. He sought and received U.S. military assistance and political support in centralizing his command structure, adopting modern technologies, and expanding his forces to defeat Mao in decisive battle—a Li-strategic direct approach. The combination of baojia, secret societies, and the corrupt conscription system in Chiang’s government deeply disappointed the peasants, while German military discipline and KMT political indoctrination alienated them. By 1944, Chiang had lost any Shih that he had had a decade earlier, while Mao’s Tao seemed in close harmony with the people. Mao’s Volunteers. Since the 1920s, Mao had built his Red Army and CCP around the secret societies’ baojia responsibility and solidarity as the foundation of China’s national Shih. By 1945, Mao’s strength had increased to 1,300,000 volunteers and 2,680,000 militiamen—armed with captured weapons—from about 42,000 in 1937.50 Mao relied heavily on peasant movements and people’s power in building national unity, ruler’s Shih, and general’s Shih within a deceptive Hsing to achieve the great Shih, possibly without fighting. The Peasants’ Support. Most Chinese—rural peasants—suffered not only invasion and subjugation by Europeans and Japanese. They were also victims of exploitation by Chinese landowners in semi-feudal serfdom. By identifying his CCP with the peasants, Mao combined both the war against the Japanese and his struggle with Chiang in a popular agrarian revolution. To draw power from the people, he declared his Land Ownership Principle on May 4, 1946 and announced a Land Reform Charter on October 10, 1947 throughout his liberation districts. Nullifying feudal landowners’ proprietary rights, land reform distributed land evenly according to the principle that “lands should belong to farmers.”51 Millions of jubilant peasants who obtained land volunteered for combat units and service in logistical units supporting Mao’s Red Army on the frontlines. In many liberation districts, local commanders organized irregular guerrilla and peasant regional forces. Land ownership united front-line soldiers and peasants in the rear in a solidarity and determination that brought them into harmony with the ruler—Mao and the CCP.52 While strict Red Army discipline appealed to peasants alienated by Nationalist corruption, Mao’s Eight Rules emphasized the importance of peasants’ support even at the cost of a local battle. Established in 1928 as

The Chinese Civil War Table 4.3

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Mao’s eight rules

1. Return the rented door, used as a bed, in its original condition 2. Return the rented straw, used in bed, tied up in a bundle in its original condition 3. Speak in a respectful manner 4. Every deal should be fair 5. Return borrowed objects 6. Compensate for damaged objects 7. Bathe in places where women are not nearby 8. Do not put hands inside prisoners’ pockets

Six Rules, they became the Eight Rules on December 10, 1947 as the Red Army transformed itself into the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). To complement the operational transition from guerrilla warfare to conventional combat in protracted war, Mao introduced the more rigorous edict at a Central Committee meeting at Yangjiagou.53 (See table 4.3).

Middle Phase By 1944, Mao was transforming his guerrilla armies into conventional armies for third-phase people’s war to annihilate Chiang’s superior forces. By 1946, he had prepared his forces for escalation into the counteroffensive and wars of annihilation that would end the civil war. In June 1946, China’s Civil War resumed with Chiang’s massive offensive into northern China. When Chiang’s regular armies with heavy weapons moved deep into the inland mountains, Mao launched counteroffensives on their extended supply lines. By 1949, when the Red Army had become a powerful third-phase conventional army of annihilation, the strategic advantage had shifted to Mao’s peasant troops.

Chiang’s Final Offensive Although the middle phase of China’s Civil War broadened the Jiangxi campaigns, Mao and Chiang preserved their basic strategic concepts. Chiang’s aim was to destroy Mao’s troops and control the territory that they had occupied—a forces-based Li-strategy. His operational concept was to detect Mao’s guerrillas or light infantry and destroy them with his mechanized infantry supported by superior U.S.-provided armor, firepower, and airpower.54 Chiang took the initiative and advanced north with a 200,000man army led by General Hu Zongnan directly into Mao’s new liberation

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districts. Initially, Chiang’s armies were victorious, occupied strategic cities, seized Yanan—defended by 30,000 Maoist troops—in March 1947, and forced Mao to retreat to preserve his troops and equipment.55 Mao also sought to destroy Chiang’s troops in battle. His aim, however, was to destroy the enemy’s will to fight rather than simply destroying enemy troops themselves—an intent-based Shih-strategy of annihilation. Less interested in defending or occupying any territory as local Lis, or even in destroying Chiang’s soldiers, Mao resumed the strategic defense—first-stage protracted war. As Chiang continued inland, Mao’s guerrilla units hid in the mountains whenever they chose not to fight. Despite modern reconnaissance aircraft, since Mao’s forces operated within the pro-Communist populace, Chiang’s advancing troops often could not contact or identify their enemy. Avoiding Chiang’s strength, while inviting him to overextend into operational stalemate as in 1936–1937, Mao sought to annihilate one unit to instill fear in all enemy units. Upon learning the result of fighting against Mao’s forces—brutal annihilation—other Nationalist units would lose morale Shih. To build China’s national Shih in harmony with himself as ruler, Mao had to inculcate his own strength and Chiang’s weakness deeply into the soldiers’ minds. Mao stressed that every decision to fight had to lead to victory. He directed them to “concentrate an absolutely superior force, encircle the enemy forces completely, strive to wipe them out thoroughly and do not let any escape from the net.”56 As in the early Jiangxi campaigns, Chiang’s artillery, armor, and airpower became logistical burdens—rather than combat advantages—as supply lines lengthened. Each occupied city required more soldiers for otherthan-combat missions, and longer supply lines were more vulnerable to guerrilla attack. As Mao’s main forces led Chiang’s regular armies deeper inland, Mao’s sea of people isolated them on islands surrounded by Mao’s regional forces and guerrillas. Since Mao did not respond to Chiang’s direct attacks with direct defenses, Chiang’s forces-based Li-strategy fell into Mao’s intent-based Shih-strategic trap.

Mao’s Counteroffensive Late spring 1947 found Chiang’s 1946 offensive halted as Mao and Chiang again faced each other in operational stalemate. In July 1947, surrounded in isolated islands by a hostile populace, with few supplies, little food, and no reinforcement, Chiang’s weary troops were weak and vulnerable. Mao advanced his second-phase protracted war to its third-stage conventional counteroffensive to discourage the enemy from fighting and position his own forces for the final phase of people’s war—annihilation. Poor ground transportation and Mao’s counteroffensive guerrilla operations had kept


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supplies from Chiang’s troops as they slowly consolidated to defend the Peiping–Tianjin region. Although Soviet military intervention was improbable, Soviet control of Lüshun (Port Arthur) and Dalian (Dairen) and military presence in the Liaodong Peninsula prevented Chiang from reinforcing by sea. While Mao may not have arranged the Soviet presence, he identified and exploited his opportunity Shih—Huai Nan Tzu’s Yin Shih.57 Forced into isolated battles in communist territory without naval support, Chiang’s Li-strategy lost the synergy of joint operations and left his armies disadvantaged in terrain Shih—Huai Nan Tzu’s Ti Shih. As battlefield Shih shifted, Mao’s Northern China Army assumed a primary mission against Yan Xishan in Taiyuan, Shanxi, while Lin Biao consolidated his Northeastern Army—53 divisions: about 700,000 men—in Manchuria. About 300,000 additional communist troops operated as guerrillas and garrison forces supported by cooperating local people who considered Mao’s forces as liberators.

The Decisive Campaigns Mao opened the annihilation phase of his people’s war in three successive campaigns: Liaoxi-Shenyang (Liao–Shen), Huai River–Lunghai Railroad (Huai–Hai), and Peiping-Tianjin (Ping–Jin). With the Northern China Army securing the right flank in Shanxi, Lin Biao’s opening Liao-Shen campaign secured communist control in Manchuria and northeast China and secured his left flank. The Huai–Hai campaign brought the east-west river routes, the north-south rail lines, and the east-China commercialindustrial areas under communist control. The climactic Ping-Jin campaign occupied the dynastic capital, Peiping, and converged the tactical and operational results of the preceding campaigns in Mao’s strategic Shih and Tao. The Liaoxi-Shenyang Campaign. Mao’s counteroffensive opened in Manchuria with the Liao–Shen campaign, which developed into the first campaign of annihilation. From September 12, through November 2, 1948, Lin Biao’s forces secured the Shanhaiguan–Zhangchun corridor through central Manchuria.58 Concentrated around Shenyang, Chiang’s 550,000 troops—480,000 in 44 divisions with 70,000 in garrison—relied on the Shandong-peninsula railroad and shipping through the Yellow Sea. While the railway was always vulnerable to Mao’s guerrilla forces, maritime supply operations were unreliable since Chiang had no navy and the U.S. Seventh Fleet was not committed to support him. Although Chiang assumed personal command in Manchuria in October, he could not coordinate his disheartened commanders who were losing confidence in him and their troops.59

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Mao’s Shih-strategy envisioned the Liao–Shen campaign as the first battle to set the pattern—local superiority used in unorthodox operations to annihilate local enemy forces. Lin Biao opened the campaign by violating the orthodox principles of war—Objective, Mass, Economy of Force, and Surprise. He committed three divisions to a pitched engagement near Heishan to isolate his main battle and objective—Shenyang—from Nationalist reinforcements in the west. While Euro-American orthodoxy preferred broad attacks to surprise the entire front and prevent mutual support between enemy units, he launched a narrow attack along the primary supply line from Tianjin. Rather than assaulting Shenyang itself, garrisoned by Chiang’s main force, Lin Biao seized the Shanhaiguan-Jinzhou railroad and highway and isolated the main force from its forward positions. (Cao Cao and Li Quan taught: “Cut off their supply routes, guard their return routes.”60) Concentrating his strength in a surprise attack on the enemy’s logistical weakness, he quickly split the Jinzhou defenders, encircled each segment, and annihilated it. Although he sacrificed surprise and concentrated force away from the main objective—Shenyang—Mao sought a greater victory. His priority was the enemy’s will, morale Shih, and intent across all his positions, rather than any tactical advantage of surprise. Further discouraging Chiang’s troops while inspiring his own by annihilating the enemy in the first battle created greater Shih than simply taking a town could have done. The Jinzhou action let the Communists seize Changchun, Shenyang’s northern gate city, without fighting when the garrison revolted and surrendered after the Jinzhou annihilation.61 Despite air and artillery support, the isolated, demoralized garrison in Shenyang could not stand long against Lin Biao’s massive assault. On November 1, the Nationalist commander surrendered the city and evacuated 140,000 Nationalist soldiers through Huludao on November 2. Since July 1948, Mao’s northeast counteroffensive had reduced Chiang’s strength by about 1 million, while Lin Biao’s Liao–Shen campaign had killed and wounded more than 470,000 Nationalist troops.62 Among the surrendered and captured Nationalist troops were the new U.S.–trained and equipped 1st and 6th Corps, which the new PLA—formed on December 10, 1947— absorbed intact.63 The Huai–Hai Campaign. As the Liao-Shen campaign reached its climax, Mao and Lin Biao began to move the Northern China and Northeastern armies south toward Peiping-Tianjin. Mao’s strategy was to divide the battlefield into three sectors—Zhangjiakou, Peiping, and Tianjin—and annihilate resistance on each flank while the concurrent Huai-Hai campaign encircled Peiping from the south. From November 6, 1948 through


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January 18, 1949, Mao’s forces destroyed Chiang’s troops around Xuzhou and the Shandong peninsula in the civil war’s largest battles, the Huai–Hai campaign. Rejecting field commanders’ recommendations to consolidate along the easily defended Huai River, Chiang regrouped his 56 infantry divisions— 555,000 men—around Xuzhou, although he exercised personal command— as in 1944—from Nanjing. While Chiang’s commanders reinforced their defenses, many soldiers had lost confidence and feared facing Mao’s troops under officers who no longer trusted Chiang, their colleagues, or their troops. When Mao attacked before they were in position, nationalist Shih was near its lowest state. Mao had gained strategic and operational initiative by his shift to counteroffensive and annihilation during the Liao–Shen campaign. For the Huai-Hai campaign, he committed more than 600,000 main and regional forces with tanks and artillery to isolate and annihilate Chiang’s main infantry positions around Xuzhou. To gain tactical initiative and to free combat troops for battle, Mao’s political commissars mobilized hundreds of thousands of volunteers for moving supplies and constructing battle positions and fortifications. Throughout the campaign, rural peasants and urban workers volunteered to support Mao’s forces conducting a difficult strategic encirclement as the foundation for tactical-operational annihilations.64 While Mao—like Chiang—exercised command personally, unlike Chiang he commanded from the battlefield and retained the strategic initiative. Bound to their commander-in-chief by mutual trust and confidence, field commanders exercised operational and tactical initiative within his strategic guidance. By October 11, 1948, while Lin Biao was annihilating the Nationalists at Jinzhou, Mao was moving about 550,000 troops from Shandong and Henan toward Xuzhou. They struck the incomplete Nationalist positions on November 6–8. Exploiting massive Nationalist defections, Mao’s advance units encircled and annihilated Chiang’s 7th Army at Nianzhuang (November 7–22) and isolated the battlefield from mobile reinforcements in the south. When a tardy relief column from the southwest approached, Mao’s forces blocked and surrounded the Nationalist 12th Army at Shuangduiji (November 23–December 17). Without mobility, the encircled Nationalist infantry units drafted massive labor gangs to build concentric trenches around fortified villages. As soldiers defected and peasants fled, the 12th Army finally collapsed after fierce fighting. Mao’s mobile forces quickly shifted front, surrounded, and destroyed the 6th and 8th Armies at Bengbu on the Huai River as they were trying to rescue the 12th Army. In a bitter battle, they then destroyed Chiang’s 2nd, 13th, and 16th Armies at Chenguanzhuang (December 16–January 16, 1949). Mao observed that

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“the campaign proceeded more smoothly than expected,” as Mao’s forces achieved complete victory.65 During the campaign, four intact Nationalist divisions and thousands of soldiers defected to Mao’s armies.66 With the decisive Huai–Hai campaign, Mao’s Shih-strategy began to produce tangible, visible political and military advantages. Although the war continued, the Liao–Shen and Huai–Hai campaigns destroyed most of the Nationalist forces and demoralized the survivors. While Mao’s forces were not superior in strength or equipment, Chiang’s Shih had disappeared and nationalist Tao had disintegrated in the three years since Japan’s surrender. His armies had lost morale Shih and their will to fight—essential foundations for any forces-based Li-strategy. As the Communists pushed south and west, Chiang—like Cao Cao—was also losing terrain Shih. Sun Tzu’s fourth power factor—the General—reflected dissension, fragmentation, disunity, defection, and treachery in Chiang’s ranks. Withdrawing in disorder after the Huai-Hai campaign, Chiang’s army no longer had either organized command or good discipline. The political impact of the 1948 campaigns was ultimately as profound as their military effect. When Chiang announced his retirement on January 21, 1949, the KMT could no longer dominate the National government. This result had been Mao’s Great Li within his Shih-strategy since 1927 and the nucleus for his consistent operational focus on destroying the enemy’s will to fight. The Peiping-Tianjin Campaign. The third annihilation campaign was the Peiping-Tianjin (Ping–Jin) campaign—November 21, 1948 to January 31, 1949—to seize the northern China plain concurrently with the Huai–Hai campaign in the south.67 Expecting imminent attack, Chiang’s army prepared to defend Peiping with the main body, 44–50 divisions—500,000– 600,000 troops—along the road connecting Zhangjiakou, Peiping, and Tianjin. The Nationalists also fortified the narrow Manchurian mountain passes between Qinhuangdao near the coast and Gubeikou north of Peiping to slow or stop attacks. Mao’s forces, including Nationalists that had defected and surrendered in the Liao–Shen campaign, had grown to about 900,000. His campaign plan refined Lin Biao’s Liao–Shen campaign by exploiting his troops’ reputation as invincible to minimize actual combat in the Ping–Jin campaign. Narrow, surprise flank attacks would expose the Nationalists to annihilation or retreat into encirclement at Peiping, while the concurrent Huai–Hai campaign blocked any withdrawal to the south. As the Liao-Shen campaign closed, Mao openly redeployed his Northern China Army from its blocking positions in Shanxi toward Zhangjiakou. His strategic deception in the west forced the Nationalists to reinforce the railway west of Peiping. Instead,


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however, of concentrating decisive force directly against Peiping, Mao massed his troops on the flanks in Zhangjiakou and Tianjin to isolate Peiping. Although Lin Biao’s infantry advanced rapidly toward Tianjin, they could not arrive before Mao had to begin operations to protect and support the Huai–Hai campaign. To hold Nationalist forces around Peiping and the Huludao evacuees around Tianjin, the initial attack at Zhangjiakou forced the Nationalists into battle. By December 7–8, on this western axis, the Nationalists were in general retreat. Instead of maneuvering under airpower and artillery to counterattack the inferior communist 12th Brigade, however, the Nationalist 35th Corps defended in place at Xinbaoan. Deliberately leaving an escape route open to preclude desperation Shih, the brigade fixed and surrounded Xinbaoan, annihilated one division, and pursued the corps’ remnants to Peiping.68 In the center, the Central Route and Northeast Field armies advanced on Chengde, north of Peiping. On the left, while restraining actions around Tianjin, Mao’s Shih-strategy deliberately deceived Peiping’s defenders by presenting a secure retreat route through Tianjin or Shandong province. Mao knew, however, that his Second Field Army advancing from Shandong and Lin Biao’s advance from Shenyang blocked any escape. By December 12, Mao’s forces had driven all Nationalist forces east and south into Peiping, while Lin Biao’s Northeastern Army, advancing south along the coast, had enveloped Tianjin. Lin Biao’s appearance with his Northeastern Army before Tianjin less than a month after Shenyang’s fall, in addition to Mao’s Northern China Army before Peiping surprised and shocked the Nationalists. Any Shih that Chiang may have still had shifted irretrievably to Mao. On December 14, Mao’s Central Route Army, attacking along the central axis from Chengde, enveloped and surrounded Peiping from the east. Mao concentrated armor, artillery, and 900,000 assault troops to use if his overwhelming superiority and dominant Shih could not bring them to surrender. Discounting any desperation Shih among already demoralized troops, his political commissars used radio broadcasts, leaflets, and infiltrators to present the only two possibilities: surrender or die. On January 17, 1949, Lin Biao seized Tianjin, Dagu, and the seaport complex after several long, costly battles. Tianjin’s surrender convinced the besieged defenders in Peiping. Without Tao, or even desperation Shih, on January 20, 1949, Nationalist General Fu Zuoyi agreed to evacuate the city. He transferred the loyalty, weapons, equipment, and obedience of his 250,000 soldiers to the PLA. The Ping–Jin campaign exploited maneuver, mobility, and mass on the western axis—Zhangjiakou—Xinbaoan—while the eastern axis—Tianjin— stressed the need to avoid the direct approach and urban combat. Mao’s

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deceptions and propaganda around the central objective—Peiping—reflected the power of Hsing and the unorthodox. While several battles of annihilation had deepened Nationalist troops’ fear of an invincible enemy into a helpless despair, the apparent Tianjin escape route kept them from desperation. Crossing the Yangzi. Despite heavy losses since 1946, Chiang had more than one million troops, 300 aircraft, and naval forces along the Yangzi River, where Sun Quan destroyed Cao Cao’s great army in AD 214. Since Chiang’s formidable army defending in fortified positions had absolute terrain advantages, Mao’s Soviet advisers, discounting local superiority and strategic momentum, discouraged the river crossing to preclude possible U.S. intervention.69 After considering the possibility, Mao insisted on crossing the river immediately. Although Nationalist units on the eastern wing defended the southern riverbank successfully, others did not fight, some revolted, and some defected.70 On April 21, 1949, Mao’s army crossed the Yangzi River without amphibious vehicles and broke Chiang’s heavily fortified defense line. More important for Mao’s imprudent decision than clear operational superiority for the crossing, was his estimate that his enemy’s Shih was broken, while his own Shih was at a peak. While victory had inspired Mao’s armies to the highest combat effectiveness, Chiang’s defeated troops were in the lowest state of morale Shih and Tao. Mao knew that an army at the highest pitch in Shih could suffer a rapid decline, while a defeated army could rapidly recover. “If something has reached the full state, its upward shift has ended and the downward shift has begun.”71 Mao had to win the war when his Shih was high, while Chiang’s Shih was low—the Euro-American principle of strategic momentum. Seizing the opportunity to exploit the high state of Shih was more important than avoiding the risk of U.S. intervention. After crossing the Yangzi River, Mao’s army seized Nanjing on April 23, and Shanghai on May 27.

Ending Phase The Chinese Civil War did not end at Peiping or the Yangzi River. In May 1949, after the PLA occupied Nanjing, Chiang retreated to Taiwan with his army—about 500,000—still largely intact and transformed the offshore islands into military bases. Rejecting the “liberation of Taiwan as a very difficult problem, whose final settlement would not come until the remote future,” on June 14, Mao turned his attention to Taiwan.72 In October, Mao declared victory and assumed political government of mainland China, although his troops pursued Chiang’s troops and continued fighting


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in southern China.73 On December 10, 1949, Mao opened the Taiwan campaign, as the final effort in his people’s war to unify China.74

Mao’s Shih-Strategy Mao developed his strategic thinking around his conviction that “the richest source of power to wage war lies in the masses of the people.”75 His operational concepts embodied the principle of unity between ruler and people, between army and people, and between commander and soldiers— Tao. His tactics created disunity among the enemy troops. Legacies from Shih-theory, Mao’s modern expression of unity epitomized the Tao defined by Sun Tzu as the state of full accord between ruler and people. Mao stressed learning Sun Tzu’s principles within China’s strategic culture and applying them to the modern world in his doctrines of political mobilization, people’s war, and force transformation.

Political Mobilization and Shih-Theory Like the wars of Liu Bang and Liu Bei, Mao’s protracted war mobilized peasants and workers—not merely soldiers—in total war as the key to achieving Tao. “Mobilization of the common people throughout the country will create a vast sea in which to drown the enemy, create conditions that will make up for our inferiority in arms and other things, and create the prerequisites for overcoming every difficulty in war.” Reproducing and refining Sun Tzu’s emphasis on the people’s mind to his Shih-strategic people’s war, Mao mobilized the peasants in national solidarity—endogenous Shih. To gain people’s mind and devotion, Mao used two approaches for mobilizing the peasants and organizing the people for the revolution.76 Rejecting any understanding of war as a purely military project, he united army and people in endogenous Shih by organizing the peasants who willingly supported his revolution. Red Army soldiers were not only CCP combatants but also missionaries, propagandists, and organizers for the revolution and instruments for mobilizing the peasants.77 Mao’s soldiers educated peasants, brought them into accord with Mao’s ideas, and recruited them as new soldiers. Armed with ideology and endogenous Shih, they worked with the peasants and gained their support. To support his huge regular army, Chiang erected institutional government with taxes, laws, budgets, police, patriotic slogans, propaganda, and inevitable corruption. Instead of levying taxes, concentrating resources, or fighting subversion, Mao built new liberation districts, recruited

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volunteers, mobilized secret societies, and implemented land reforms. Although both relied on Chinese nationalism in mobilizing spiritual strength, Chiang solicited political loyalty and patriotism, while Mao actively mobilized eager, peasant participation in his people’s revolutionary war. In contrast to Mao’s insistence on responsible care for both soldiers and peasants, the Nationalist policy of discharging wounded soldiers to go home rather than providing medical care deepened dissent. “All through the backcountry one could see disabled troops hobbling home as best they could. They had been given a few Chinese dollars . . . and turned loose.”78

People’s War and Shih-Theory Mao developed the doctrine, strategy, and operational concepts of people’s war (renmin zhanzhen) in the late 1920s and refined them in combat against KMT and Japanese forces over two decades.79 The foundations of Mao’s people’s war were the same Shih-principles that inspired Liu Bang and Liu Bei. Power dwelt among the people who were the primary participants in war. The enemy was the object to deceive into defeat without fighting or to destroy utterly in annihilation. Embodied in Tao and Shih, people’s power— rather than weaponry—was the key to Mao’s success and Chiang’s defeat. Without capabilities to expand his protracted-war counteroffensive into strategic annihilation until 1946, Mao’s strategic defensive of the 1930s studiously avoided heavy engagements in small battles of annihilation and immediate disengagement. In late 1940, when his One Hundred Regiments Offensive reverted to guerrilla warfare in east China, brutal Japanese counterguerrilla operations suppressed people’s war in a strategic pause. As Japan shifted its forces from China to defend the Pacific islands, Mao’s guerrillas moved into areas that the Japanese had vacated or defended only weakly and resumed second-phase protracted war. The Communists exploited operational stalemate to establish bases for the later counteroffensive against Chiang’s U.S.-armed forces in 1946–1947. In contrast to his earlier strategic defensive, each major 1947–1949 campaign of third-phase annihilation was an essential Li in Mao’s people’s-war Shih-strategy. Although World War II inserted a strategic pause and the Korean War prevented completing the final annihilation phase, Mao’s people’s war consistently pursued his Shih-strategy from his 1920s break with Chiang.

Transformation, Doctrine, and Combat Principles From 1927 through 1946, what became the Chinese PLA in 1947 established a solid foundation in China’s strategic culture. The operational


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doctrine of the PLA inherited from Shih-theory its offensive orientation, a reliance on stealth and deception, a preference for maneuver over positional warfare, and a clear dichotomy between attrition and annihilation. Adapting to the new operational, tactical, and material context and its challenges, Mao refined his Ten Basic Combat Principles from Sun Tzu’s 14 principles and his own 1930s guerrilla-war doctrine. He issued the ten principles in December 1947 at the Central Committee meeting in Yangjiagou as the PLA’s tactical–operational style for the next four decades.80 ●

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Defeating superior forces requires knowing the enemy, good intelligence, and detailed planning. “Those who face the unprepared with preparation are victorious,” and “If you know others and know yourself, you will not be imperilled in a hundred battles; . . . if you do not know others and do not know yourself, you will be imperilled in every battle.”81 Thorough reconnaissance must precisely locate enemy strengths and weaknesses, and the boundaries between units and operational commands. Active defense by technologically and numerically inferior forces requires offensive mobile warfare. Deep penetration to encircle enemy positions destroys enemy morale, prevents enemy reinforcement, and creates local combat superiority. “Make opponents lose contact between front and back lines.”82 Wang Xi taught: “Occupy a position of advantage, cut off their supply routes, and they will do as you plan.”83 Offensive operations must defeat an enemy in quick-decision battles of annihilation. “The important thing is victory, not persistence.”84 “Best is a quick victory and a speedy return.”85 Decisive victory requires concentrating absolute combat superiority at the point of engagement to annihilate the local enemy. Commanders must gain and retain tactical and operational initiative by winning the first battle. “Those who are first on the battlefield await the opponents at ease; those who are last to head into battle are worn out.”86 Commanders must deceive the enemy, attack his plan and intent, and exploit his mistakes. “Without deception you cannot carry out strategy, without strategy you cannot control the opponent.”87 “What is valued is foiling the opponent’s strategy, not pitched battle.”88 “When the strategy of opponents first makes an appearance, you operate secretly . . . to attack it.”89 The first operations must engage weak and dispersed enemy forces either in ambush or in isolated defensive positions. “Good warriors

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Philosophy of Chinese Military Culture cause others to come to them and do not go to others.”90 “Be unified while the enemy is divided.”91 Night attacks and close personal combat negate an enemy’s superior firepower and airpower.

Upon the solid foundation laid by Mao’s ten principles, the three main campaigns comprising the third phase of Mao’s people’s war emphasized the integrity of strategy, operations, and tactics in China’s strategic culture. Mao’s campaign orders firmly knit every operation, battle, and engagement—including those launched on a local commander’s initiative— into a single coherent strategic purpose. Combining central strategic guidance with local flexibility to exploit unexpected opportunities spontaneously orchestrated the Red Army’s use of the economic, political, psychological, and military elements of power.92

Shih and Li Although Mao and Chiang shared China’s strategic cultural legacy and were both students of Shih-theory, Chiang adopted Clausewitzian Li-strategy, while Mao fought his campaigns with his people’s-war Shih-strategy. With tangible power consistently superior to Mao’s forces and favorable operational conditions, Chiang’s strategy used superior force directly to coerce his enemy into compliance by winning every battle. Like the Wei-Chi player who accumulated Li early in the game, Chiang’s Li-strategy rested on the Li that he had gained early in the revolution. Just as the wiser Wei-Chi player did not seize any Li in the first stage but built Shih for the future, Mao’s Shih-strategy consolidated the people’s power and eventually weakened Chiang’s Shih.93 In the late 1940s, Mao’s Shih-strategy overcame his weaknesses in military strength, equipment and weaponry, and logistics to defeat Chiang’s Li-strategy decisively. Although Mao’s visible 1949 Hsing—conventional superiority—seemed to confirm Euro-American strategic expectations, “all see these tactics (Hsing) whereby I conquer, but none see the strategy from which victory evolves.”94 Mao’s victorious Hsing did not expose the 20 years of Shih-strategies upon which he constructed his victory.

Chapter 5 The Korean War

In October 1950, China entered the Korean War when the United Nations Command (UNC) estimated that the war was entering the last stage. China’s intervention surprised not only the United States but the Soviet Union, which had insinuated approval—if not support—for Beijing’s action. Orthodox Euro-American military doctrines could not envision China’s peasant army with its quaint maneuvers and operations challenging the modern U.S. army on the battlefield. It was inconceivable that China could achieve an armistice in Korea by force.

The Context China’s first Korean War began in 1592, when the ambitious Japanese shogun Hideyoshi sent a powerful fleet and army to invade and subdue Korea as a passage into China. The Ming emperor deployed a strong expeditionary army to check the Japanese south of the Yalu. After many costly engagements and huge casualties, Sino-Korean forces prevailed, and late in 1598, the Japanese withdrew. Instead of occupying Korea as a conquering protector, the Chinese also withdrew. China’s second Korean War in 1894 confirmed that: “China itself would not try to conquer Korea, but China would react against another power [that] interfered in the Korean peninsula, even at great cost.”1 After Chiang Kai-shek’s 1949 collapse, Washington intervened in Korea and effectively guaranteed Chiang’s regime on Taiwan. Convinced that the Communists had spread the Cold War to Asia, the Truman administration signed treaties of peace and alliance with Japan, extended U.S. protection

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over Australia and New Zealand, and supported France in Indochina. Critical in extending U.S.-designed regional defense pacts for the Middle East and Southeast Asia, the Northeast Asia assumed second priority to Europe in Washington’s containment strategy.

The Geopolitics of Cold War To Europeans, the North Korean attack on June 25, 1950 transformed the debate over collective security in the United Nations (U.N.) into a simple reaction to aggression. Recalling the League of Nations’ failures, many demanded an immediate, vigorous response beyond simply repelling the aggressor. To the inchoate, nonaligned movement clustering in neutralism around Nehru’s India, the Korean fighting was simply a civil war, not a threat to international security. Their concerns were to contain this domestic dispute and prevent great-power intervention, however the Koreans might deal with each other. Only the great powers saw China and Korea as emerging problems. As Americans and Soviets demobilized and the Cold War took shape in Europe, Beijing and Moscow drew hesitantly closer in Stalin’s grand, international experiment in transplanting industrial socialism. On February 14, 1950, Mao and Stalin signed a 30-year Friendship, Alliance, and Mutual Assistance Treaty to form a broad collaboration in the global struggle for revolution.2 Moscow contributed $300 million as a five-year loan, aid in some 150 Chinese industrial projects, and training for Mao’s senior cadre. Beijing deferred to Moscow’s leadership of world communism and provided aid and military-technical advisors to the Viet Minh in Indochina. Washington linked the Korean attack to the 1949 communist attacks in the Zhoushan Islands, Hainan’s fall in May 1950, and Viet Minh operations against the French in a communist expansion that threatened the entire world. More concerned about who lost China than with doing anything about Korea, official Washington debated supporting Chiang as “an unsinkable aircraft carrier and submarine tender,” neutralizing Formosa, or using U. S. troops to fight for the Kuomintang (KMT).3 Convinced that Chiang’s corrupt regime could not survive, U.S. public opinion and policy staffs in Washington proposed abandoning Chiang to gain Mao’s friendship and lure Beijing away from Moscow. When the North Korean attack resolved all doubt, Washington committed troops in Korea and deployed the U.S. Seventh Fleet in the Taiwan Strait. Mao suddenly faced active U.S. threats in the southeast and the northeast. He found only a hesitant patron in the north-northwest and uncertainty in the southwest. In the south, an anti-imperialist struggle by a traditional Chinese client promised only more trouble.

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The New China: Shih or Tao? Despite Maoism’s Stalinist legacies, Beijing was too stubbornly Chinese to follow the Stalinist path through national industrial socialism. While Mao’s Stalinist supporters called for developing China’s Shih through industrialization, Zhou Enlai and a few internationalists had condensed China’s broader Tao into an obsession with great-power status. For Zhou, a robust Chinese national identity as a great power would create national Shih. Recognizing that communism’s attraction for most Chinese lay in neither ideology nor glory, Mao’s priority was national solidarity around agrarian reform; everything else could wait. While the noncommunist world predicted that a Chinese nationalism “stronger than Titoism” would spontaneously emerge to engulf communism, Mao and Zhou knew that they were building Shih and Tao.4

Partition and War in Korea After World War II divided the Korean peninsula at the 38th parallel, in 1948, the North Korean Communist Party appointed Chairman Kim Il-sung as premier of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) (North Korea). The southerners elected Syngman Rhee as president of the Republic of Korea (ROK) (South Korea). Both men determined to unify Korea, although with different political systems. On June 25, 1950, after a short artillery and air preparation, 90,000 North Korean People’s Army (NKPA) soldiers crossed the 38th parallel with 150 Soviet T-34 medium tanks. Unprepared and unable to resist the massive NKPA invasion, the South Korean army retreated. U.S. General Douglas A. MacArthur’s prompt reaction delayed the NKPA as ROK and U.S. troops withdrew. On July 1, 1950, the first troops of the U.S. 24th Infantry Division landed in Korea. The 25th Infantry and 1st Cavalry Divisions quickly followed. As the 8th U.S. Army, the three U.S. divisions joined the desperate ROK units in their strategic delaying action. By mid–July, with assurances that U.S. operations in Korea and around Taiwan did not threaten China’s security, the United States was warning Beijing not to intervene in Korea.5 Beijing responded, through Indian diplomats, that China desired to confine hostilities in Korea.6 Ordering additional troops to Korea, President Harry S. Truman turned to the U.N. to legitimize further efforts to stop the invasion. When the U.N. Security Council met to consider Truman’s initiative, the Soviet delegate was boycotting meetings to protest U.N. failure to seat

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Beijing. In his absence, the council adopted a resolution opposing the invasion, which the U.N. General Assembly approved. Under the Charter’s authority in Chapter 7, the U.N. approved a police action and formed a United Nations Command (UNC) with General MacArthur as commander. Sixteen other countries agreed to provide troops to augment the U.S. and ROK forces.7 By late July, the NKPA had forced the allies into a defensive perimeter around Pusan. While the NKPA concentrated for the final offensive, the U.N. landing at Inchon on September 15, 1950 effectively cut the NKPA supply line. Unable to continue its offensive, the NKPA force retreated. As the U.N. counteroffensive gained momentum, Washington intensified diplomatic pressure through New Delhi on Beijing.8 When Kim Il-Sung requested Soviet intervention, Stalin suggested that the Chinese help the North Koreans rather than risking a Soviet–U.S. military clash, although Moscow was ambiguously noncommittal about war materials. When Mao offered to send military advisors, Kim Il-Sung rejected such patronal Chinese involvement.9 While some Soviet pilots flew interdiction and ground-support missions, Moscow provided financial aid, some military equipment, and logistical support for North Korean and Chinese forces. On October, 24, MacArthur launched the final U.N. offensive toward the Yalu River.10 China reacted by moving 300,000 Chinese soldiers across the border. After advising the Indian parliament that “We are on the very verge of world war,” Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru urged President Truman to confer with the great powers, including China, to establish an immediate ceasefire and a demilitarized zone between Chinese and U.N. forces.11 Washington politely rejected Nehru’s suggestion and continued operations until the parties negotiated a cease-fire in July 1951 (see table 5.1). Table 5.1

Chronology: The Korean War

Dates

Events

June 1950 August 1950 September 1950 November 1950 December 1950– May 1951 July 1951 July 1953

North Korea attacked South Korea U.N. forces halted the North Korean attack at Pusan U.N. forces landed at Inchon, Seoul’s port city China deployed troops into North Korea China fought 5 successive campaigns in Korea against U.N.forces. Armistice negotiations began Armistice agreement became effective

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Beginning Phase Before deciding to intervene, Mao advised the Central Military Commission (CMC) in July 1950. Haunted by China’s internal revolution, the CMC recognized a real external threat but appreciated both friendly and hostile influences. As the NKPA pushed U.N. forces to the Pusan perimeter, CMC staffs explored logistical, administrative, and operational problems.12

Mao’s Assessment Mao understood war as more than a confrontation between two states’ respective physical power. Facing a contest between two nations’ Taos, he assessed China’s military capability as more than simply resources and weaponry by translating Sun Tzu’s five factors into Marxian subjective and objective conditions. Sun Tzu’s most important factors, Tao and Shih, were Mao’s subjective conditions—endogenous Shih—including soldiers’ morale and fighting spirit—Chi Shih—and also people’s attitudes, beliefs, and political solidarity. Mao insisted on adherence to Confucian standards to win popular support—national Shih. He accepted Sun Tzu’s teachings that the ruler’s abilities in creating Shih and the general’s skill in directing the war could transform objective inferiority into decisive subjective superiority.13 Mao’s objective conditions—Sun Tzu’s Heaven, Earth, General, and Discipline—included firepower, mobility, logistics, friends, enemies, and the people.

Firepower, Mobility, and Logistics Anticipating heavy casualties from superior U.S. firepower, Mao’s generals generally opposed intervention. In refusing to command China’s Korean expeditionary force, Lin Biao noted that U.S. firepower surpassed Chinese firepower by twenty times. Limited to light infantry weapons, with neither counterbattery nor counterair capabilities, any Chinese forces sent to Korea could not counter U.S. firepower and airpower directly. Limited to foot infantry, Chinese mobility severely limited Mao’s traditional mobile warfare. Unable to pursue or surround the mechanized enemy on foot, Chinese forces could only exploit battlefield deception with swift surprise attacks by light infantry. Lin Biao and others—military and civilian—expressed concerns about supporting a large foreign war and reminded Mao that war might destroy China’s fragile industrial base and delay modernization indefinitely.14 More critical than the logistical challenges of operating in Korea was the backward, war-ruined Chinese arms industry’s inability to support

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the motley weapons and equipment inherited from various countries. Unlike Chiang’s Nationalist armies, the adversary in Korea was well armed, highly motivated, and supported by a huge, global industrial base. Even though General Su Yu began to redeploy his troops from the Taiwan campaign to Manchuria before the decision to intervene, primitive logistics and infrastructure prevented any rapid force concentration. Most troops walked from Fujian to Manchuria.

Friends, Enemy, and People Beyond his cautious, reluctant ally in Moscow, Mao had no possibilities for foreign support in a war against the United States. His only hope was Stalin’s equivocal ambiguity about Soviet support. Although Mao’s generals had served with him against Chiang and the Japanese, they knew U.S. doctrine and tactics only superficially. A few soldiers had served with U.S. soldiers in Burma, before defecting from Chiang’s army. Their experiences, however, carried little valuable information, which was largely obsolete.15 The Chinese had collected some information about the Americans through North Korea, but could not claim to know their enemy. Like the Chinese, U.S. troops had no familiarity with the Chinese army beyond its appearance— Hsing—and understood it as a peasant army. Each side began the war knowing itself but not the enemy.16 Among Marxian objective conditions, Mao—like the ancient Shih-strategists—stressed that “the richest source of power to wage war lies in the masses of the people.”17 As the people mobilized around communist ideals and regenerated their sense of China’s greatpower status, the Korean War could only build China’s Shih.

Advantages and Disadvantages Although Moscow’s failure to provide air protection promised high casualties, Mao concluded that the strategic advantages were more than the disadvantages. Engaging the United States outside China would establish China’s legitimacy as a global great power. The opportunities to build Chinese national Shih and solidarity were greater than the tactical, operational, and political costs of casualties. Mao found Chinese superiority in both subjective and objective conditions. Objective conditions gave to the United States “only one advantage, namely having a lot of steel, but three weak points. . . . Their front line is too long, stretching from Berlin to Korea; their supply line is too extensive, separated by two oceans; and their combat ability is very low.”18 Subjective conditions showed the United States suffering from political divisions at home, differences with allies, and isolation, whereas China enjoyed unity. Although the United States had objective, material superiority—firepower

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and airpower—China’s subjective advantage lay with the people. Since China had greater Tao and Shih—Sun Tzu’s first factor—the weak could defeat the strong.

MacArthur’s Estimate: The Strong Can Always Dominate As U.N. forces marched north from Inchon, Beijing warned that “China would not sit back with folded hands and let the Americans come up to the Sino-Korean border.”19 Ignoring Beijing’s warning, MacArthur advised Truman that even if U.S. forces crossed the 38th parallel, the Chinese would not intervene. Although China had assembled 300,000 troops in Manchuria, it did not have an air force. MacArthur estimated that if the Chinese tried to reach Pyongyang, U.N. forces would annihilate them.20 Even with Soviet air support, however, Moscow had no ground troops available for deployment to North Korea. Since air-ground operations required close coordination, MacArthur insisted that combining Chinese infantry with Soviet air forces could not produce an effective fighting force. Since China could not compete with the United States without air power, General MacArthur judged that “the Chinese Red Army would not intervene in this war.”21 Political leaders in Washington had similar views. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) concluded on October 12, that “from a military standpoint the most favorable time for Chinese intervention in Korea has passed.”22 Secretary of State Dean Acheson said, “It would be sheer madness for Beijing leaders to enter the Korean conflict when they themselves had numerous problems.”23 Most U.S. policy planners agreed that China’s domestic problems made intervention in Korea impossible. Intervention would cripple the Chinese economy, while political opposition factions would threaten Mao’s unstable regime.

Mao’s Conclusion: The Weak Can Defeat the Strong Recognizing China’s military inferiority, Mao’s Shih-strategy recalled Ho-Lü’s Shih-strategy for the battle of Jifu in 519 BC. He anticipated the weak overcoming the strong: “If the enemy attacks us with nuclear weapons, we will fight with hand grenades.”24 More than tactical defeat by superior U.S. firepower and airpower, Mao feared a unified Korea as an assault position—as in 1894–1895 and in the 1930s. He was ready to

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absorb tactical and operational disabilities in engaging U.S. military superiority outside China for China’s safety and security.25 Within his strategic defense, Mao adopted a cautious operational and tactical approach to limit the conflict through indirect Shih-strategic operations and tactical deception. “At the initial stage [the Chinese forces] will merely engage in defensive warfare to wipe out small detachments of enemy troops and ascertain the enemy’s situation; . . . they will wait for the delivery of Soviet weapons. Once they are [well] equipped, they will cooperate with the Korean comrades in counterattacks to annihilate American troops.”26 Beyond operational and tactical constraints, Mao sought a political ploy for intervening without eliciting Washington’s formal declaration of war. Instead of deploying the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) openly, Huang Yanpei, vice premier of the Administrative Council, suggested a strategicpolitical deception. By designating the army the Zhongguo Renmin Zhiyuanjun (Chinese People’s Volunteers [CPV]) the intervention would become an unofficial, nonpolitical operation. Mao quickly accepted the deception and terminology.27

Sacrificing Li for Shih: Korea Although Mao, like Xiang Yu, had come to control the mainland through military victory, like Liu Bang, his postwar task was to build Shih. As Liu Bang had built his Shih around Xiang Yu’s murder of Yi Di, Mao combined Korea, the United States, and China’s reactionaries as the foundation for China’s national Shih. “I want to call upon all the people and all the political workers of our country united . . . [in the] Great Movement to Resist America and Aid Korea . . . [to fight on the] newly opened front” for the revolution.28 Within a vigorous anti-American campaign, Mao condemned all reactionary activities as directed by U.S.-inspired imperialists. He criticized party members who neglected resistance to the U.S. enemy and failed to take “resolute measures to suppress reactionary activities.”29 Responding to Mao’s calls to individual, ideological, and social responsibilities to the people—Shih—and to China—Tao—spontaneous popular demonstrations, rigid social solidarity and party discipline complemented official policies in strong anti-Americanism. In his poem that he loved to sing in 1950, Mao expressed the depth of Chinese strategic culture in his own thinking about the revolution. “Millions of the People’s Liberation Army crossed the Yangzi River like a lion. We have to advance until the successful ending of the revolution by harshly pursuing Chiang Kai-shek’s forces based on our victory.

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If we reveal our weak point to the enemy, it will be similar to repeating Xiang Yu’s tragedy in ancient times and Consequently, our revolutionary task will end in failure.”30

His final phrases implied that Mao would not repeat Xiang Yu’s mistake of pursuing Li only to lose national Tao and Shih. Without Shih, Xiang Yu failed, while Liu Bang established the Han dynasty by sacrificing Li—at Pengcheng—for Shih. Although he might sacrifice Li—in Korea—Mao could not afford to lose Shih in China. Although fear led some to oppose intervention, patriotic war to defeat a powerful enemy in military confrontation appealed emotionally to most Chinese. Despite the huge risk, Chinese leaders accepted the need to sacrifice Li for the national interest.31 Recalling that World War II had “changed a disunited country into a relatively united one,” Mao blended China’s deep nationalism with antiAmericanism in national Shih, solidarity, and strong Tao.32 As the people accepted communist ideals and regenerated a sense of China’s great-power status, the Korean War could only build China’s Shih. Mao determined to pay a Korean Li for Chinese national Shih. “Entering the war is greatly to our advantage; conversely, it is greatly to our disadvantage if we do not enter the war.”33

Sacrificing Shih for Shih: Taiwan Although Korea presented a Great Li in Mao’s strategy to build Shih and find Tao, occupying Chiang’s Taiwan was integral to China’s Great Shih. Taiwan had been Chinese since 1683 when imperial forces had evicted rebellious renegades from the island and established Peking’s sovereignty. Since China had lost the island to Japan in 1895, China’s national Shih and Tao required uniting the entire Chinese territory—including Taiwan, Tibet, Hong Kong, and Macao. Without recovering Taiwan, Beijing could never consider China complete, its people united, or its Shih solid.34 While Washington supported Taiwan in rebellion, Beijing could only consider the United States as a threat to China’s survival. Nor could Beijing claim the great-power status that embodied China’s international Shih while Taipei claimed the same recognition under U.S. protection.

The Taiwan Campaign: A Great Shih On June 14, 1949, Mao had directed the 3rd Field Army “to prepare to seize Taiwan . . . complete all preparations during summer and autumn and occupy Taiwan in the coming winter.”35 Since the Taiwan campaign would depend heavily on air and naval operations, Mao sought and received Soviet

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support for developing PLA air and naval capabilities. Stalin had agreed in autumn 1949—without committing Soviet troops—to equip and train a Chinese air force and navy for Mao’s Taiwan campaign.36 By January 1950, Washington had excluded both Taiwan and Korea from the U.S. western Pacific defense perimeter, and President Truman had announced that Taiwan was part of China. Mao and his advisors expected that the United States would not intervene either in Taiwan or in Korea.37 In spring 1950, to support the Taiwan campaign, Moscow sent a Soviet air division with 99 aircraft to provide air defense in Shanghai and Xuzhou.38 The first Soviettrained pilots graduated in May 1950 and formed the first PLA air-combat unit on June 19, 1950. With generous Soviet support, the PLA air development schedule called for more than 900 pilots and 400 combat fighters by the end of 1950. With less Soviet support, the PLA navy mobilized on May 23, 1950 around teams of commercial vessels for cross-strait logistics and transport.39 At the Third Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party ( June 6–9, 1950), Mao re-emphasized the primary task to liberate Taiwan and Tibet. He envisioned launching the Taiwan campaign in summer 1951 when the PLA would have operational superiority on land, sea, and in the air.

A Korean Campaign: Greater Shih With U.S. intervention in Korea and the Seventh Fleet in the Taiwan Strait, Mao transferred the Taiwan campaign’s strategic reserve, the 13th Corps, to the new Northeast Border Defense Army (NBDA). When Lin Biao refused the command, Mao appointed the Taiwan campaign’s commander, General Su Yu, to assume command in the northeast and shift China’s military effort from Fujian to Manchuria. As U.N. forces advanced, Mao appointed Marshal Peng Dehuai to command Chinese expeditionary forces in Korea. On July 13, 1950, in Taipei, General MacArthur’s announcement that his headquarters in Tokyo would send advisors to Taiwan brought the United States to Taiwan’s defense. Mao’s CMC announced, on August 11, 1950, that “the decision is not to attack Taiwan in 1951. Whether [we will] attack Taiwan in 1952 will be decided according to the situation.”40 By September, as Chinese commanders reported U.S. air attacks in Manchuria, Indian diplomats reported that China had adopted an assertive policy. On September 9, 1950, Mao transferred the main Taiwan invasion force—9th Army Corps—from Fujian to northern China as the U.S. approach to the Sino-Korean border threatened invasion.41 In mid-October, Peng began to move the CPV into Korea as the CMC moved more PLA units from Fujian to the north. Although the Taiwan campaign was the final operation for unifying China—Great Shih—by mid-November 1950, the

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emergence of a Greater Shih—China’s survival—had re-oriented China’s priorities. “Everything in East China should be arranged on the assumption that the United States and Jiang Jieshi [Chiang Kai-shek] might be invading us.”42

The Decision to Intervene Mao announced his final decision to intervene in Korea on October 13, 1950, amid serious military doubt, political controversy, and ideological zeal. Mao’s generals realized that U.S. victory in Korea would position U.S. troops around China in three directions—Vietnam to the south, Taiwan to the east, and Manchuria to the north. Recognizing Manchuria as more favorable terrain for Chinese defense against U.S. naval superiority, Peng asked Mao to delay intervention for proper training and troop acclimatization. When Mao rejected his requests, despite strategic misgivings, field commanders requested more ammunition, better equipment, accurate information, and Korean terrain maps. Chinese Communist Party (CCP) ideologues and political commissars recalled the party’s primary mission to extend the socialist revolution into both Koreas by supporting communist parties throughout East Asia. Cautious about any Chinese adventure as anything more than a junior partner with the Soviet Union, the less doctrinaire Politburo was also concerned about counterrevolutionary, reactionary threats to China’s national Shih. Politicians insisted on priority for economic recovery and recuperation from war, land reform, and the several border provinces yet to be liberated. The most serious reservation was popular fear that the PLA, with its obsolete arsenal, could not resist the U.S. Army. Mao’s strategic assessment balanced the party’s messianic calls for political action and the Politburo reservations against the reactionary threats and the people’s fears. Beijing’s highest priority was to establish communist authority, legitimacy, and credibility by creating in the Chinese people a sincere, extensive support for the CCP—national Shih.43 Despite facile Euro-American explanations of China’s intervention as an effort to divert attention from Beijing’s policy failures, the people’s sentiments—rather than policy failures or political opposition—preoccupied Mao. He concluded that: “If we do not send troops [to Korea], the reactionaries at home and abroad will be swollen with arrogance when the enemy troops press to the Yalu River border. . . . We must enter the war.”44 Despite the 1951 nadir in reactionary unrest after China’s intervention, the peak in reactionary movements in 1953, as armistice negotiations were closing, suggests that Mao’s Shih-strategy exploited, rather than created, the

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Korean crisis. Rather than simply mobilizing resources, Mao used the war to create Shih and progress toward Tao through national solidarity.45

Middle Phase Although U.S. forces operated under U.N. command and the Chinese deployed as the CPV, the Korean War was de facto between the United States and China. For China, the Korean opportunity was a Great, but local, Li, although the U.S. intervention contained a catastrophic threat to China’s survival that could abruptly become China’s Greatest Shih. Darkened by the U.S. threat to China’s survival, Beijing’s Great Shih remained the reuniting of China’s lost territories—especially Taiwan and Tibet. As a strategic minimum, China’s intervention in Korea was an opportunity to build national Shih and advance nearer China’s great-power Tao. The United States, in contrast, was fighting a limited war with no impact on U.S. survival. A primary concern in Washington was to prevent Soviet entry into the war. For the United States, Korea became an Asian confrontation with the communist enemy, not—even potentially—a war for survival and not an opportunity for geostrategic gains. Although Washington deployed its nuclear capability and kept the nuclear option open, President Truman never seriously considered escalating or expanding the Korean War to a strategic attack on China. What was for Beijing the predominant event was for Washington a limited incident in a global containment strategy focused on the Soviet Union, not China—one of several geostrategic and policy problems. For Americans and Chinese, the war comprised five successive campaigns until they agreed an armistice on July 27, 1953. Throughout the war, the Chinese Army operated under a strategy based on the enemy’s intent within an active grand strategy built on Shih and Tao. The U.S. Army pursued a military strategy based on the enemy’s forces within an emerging, passive, grand containment strategy.

First Campaign: Deception and Surprise Mao and Peng relied on deception and surprise in the first attack. Mao enjoined his staffs and subordinates, especially the public media, to secrecy and reticence. “Only act and not talk. . . . No open propaganda about what they are doing should appear in their newspapers.” Soldiers could not send letters to families or friends before departing for Korea. “Only high-ranking cadres of the party will be notified of the actions undertaken.”46

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In strict secrecy, Mao put Chinese troops in North Korean uniforms when they crossed the border and instructed his commanders to engage the weaker Korean troops first to gain experience and build confidence. To avoid detection by U.S. air reconnaissance, “China’s forces should start to cross the river after dusk every day and stop crossing at four o’clock the next morning; by five all the forces should be completely under cover, which should be carefully checked.”47 After the initial campaign, Peng was to prepare strong defensive positions north of the Pyongyang–Wonsan railroad.48 After equipping and training his troops with the expected Soviet equipment, he was to begin offensive operations in summer 1951. In contrast to Chinese deception and secrecy in preparing their plans, MacArthur announced openly to the media, “that seven U.N. divisions— three of them American and four South Korean—as well as the British Commonwealth brigade, are ready for what is called the final push to clear the lower reaches of the Yalu River from the west coast to the point where South Korean troops have already reached it.” Expecting an imminent ceasefire, the Pentagon informed MacArthur that “it was canceling shipment of troops to the Far East scheduled for October and November.”49 Moving at night and resting under cover during the day, some 300,000 Chinese troops began to cross the Yalu River on October 19, 1950. The U.N. failure to penetrate the deception provided the opportunity for a Chinese surprise attack on October. 25, Pursuing defeated NKPA forces, when the 7th South Korean Regiment reached the Yalu on October 26, it suddenly faced strong, coordinated Chinese fire from concealed, prepared defensive positions. After stopping the U.N. advance, the Chinese exploited the deception with swift surprise attacks by light infantry. From October 25, through November 1, 1950, Chinese forces engaged the 1st, 6th, 7th, and 8th South Korean Divisions, annihilated many battalions and regiments, and forced others into retreat. The first Chinese encounter with U.S. troops was accidental, since Chinese troops were under strict orders to avoid Americans. In a night attack at Unsan on November 1, the 39th Chinese Army expected to encounter Korean defenders. Only after facing the taller, heavier Americans did the Chinese realize that they had engaged the 8th Regiment, 1st U.S. Cavalry Division relieving the ROK 15th Regiment. As surprised as the Americans, the Chinese annihilated one battalion and routed the other two.50 Their NKPA uniforms and similar faces led the Americans to mistake the few captured Chinese soldiers as North Koreans. In the campaign of 13 Days, the Chinese annihilated 13,000 South Korean troops. The unprepared and surprised U.N. forces, especially South Korean units, suffered heavy losses. Fearing Chinese traps, they retreated

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south of the Chong Chon River and destroyed the U.S. hope of ending the war before Thanksgiving. With clear Chinese success, the first campaign ended as surprisingly as it had opened. After several bloody victories, Peng ordered his forces to stop the offensive, retreat 30 km, and hide in the mountains.51 On the appointed day, “the fighting slackened at nightfall, and suddenly the Marines realized the Chinese had vanished from the battlefield . . . but why and for how long?”52

Annihilation Mao’s telegrams to Peng stressed his campaign aim of annihilating two to four ROK divisions through surprise attacks to win the first battles as an example to U.S. troops. While cautioning against engaging U.S. forces in the first campaign, Mao urged Peng to annihilate some U.S. divisions before Washington could reinforce with five to ten divisions expected from the United States.53 The spectacle of their allies’ destruction would isolate and depress the U.S. divisions and leave them vulnerable to annihilation. Mao envisioned that this initial catastrophe would lead the U.S. government to withdraw from Korea. After annihilating both the Koreans and the Americans, Beijing would be unchallenged as the legitimate government in China—Shih—and an autonomous great power in global affairs—Tao.

Indirect Approach Clausewitz had stressed that the key to victory was to destroy the enemy’s center of gravity—the direct approach.54 In Korea, the center of gravity was the U.S. mechanized divisions. Disregarding Clausewitzian orthodoxy, and constrained within China’s inferior military and logistical capabilities, Mao rejected the direct approach—attacking U.S. divisions—as militarily impracticable. Instead, he stressed annihilating the Korean forces as an indirect means to change U.S. political intent—an intent-based, indirect Shihstrategy.

Winning the First Battle Since the best indoctrination was experience, Mao emphasized winning the first battle as both a military strategy and a political necessity. He realized that the first Chinese battle would determine the war’s subsequent course. The first battle was so important that Mao cautioned Peng to fight only when he could win. By inspiring his own soldiers and discouraging the Koreans and Americans, the first battle could determine troop morale that would be the difference between victory and defeat.

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Morale Shih and Tao Peng devoted continuing effort to indoctrinating the soldiers with Mao’s confidence and inculcating them with their own inevitable victory. Equally important for Mao was inspiring the Chinese people with pride in their ability to defeat the most powerful enemy in the world. Preoccupied with the Chinese people’s spirit, which formed China’s Tao, Mao did not limit his Shih-strategy to the enemy’s intent, but extended it to the people’s solidarity—national Shih.

Preparing the Next Campaign In assessing the first campaign, Peng recognized his failure to annihilate three South Korean divisions north of the Chong Chon river—Mao’s strategic aim—where the Chinese had operational advantages. He also recognized the success of his deception in increasing “the conviction of the soldiers of victory against the enemy through combat experience.”55 With this experience, when Chinese logistic limitations forced him to pause to resupply and reinforce, Peng denied field commanders’ requests to pursue the retreating U.N. forces. He disengaged, feigned strategic withdrawal, and transformed inferiority to superiority by taking a formless Hsing to confuse and deceive the enemy again. Deep in the north beyond the Chong Chon River, the Chinese prepared to annihilate the U.N. forces north of Pyongyang and Wonsan in well-planned ambushes in a second offensive campaign. To deepen the deception, Chinese units retreated in disorder and withdrew their rear guards prematurely. Peng released about a hundred prisoners-of-war (including 27 Americans) whose Chinese captors told them that their release reflected food shortages that were forcing the Chinese to go home.56

Second Campaign: To Entice into Death Valley The UNC leaders, who could not understand why or how the Chinese had disappeared, renewed the debate over China’s intervention. Was it really serious? Some suggested that perhaps the Chinese had suffered so heavily that they were withdrawing. Others surmised that they had withdrawn to give the U.N. time to reconsider the drive to the Yalu.57 For a second time, Peng had deceived the enemy, and the UNC believed that the Chinese threat was not serious.58 Despite the vague enemy situation and internal confusion, on November 24, 1950, the UNC launched the Home-by-Christmas offensive across the Chong Chon River where Peng was preparing a second campaign

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of annihilation. “Although MacArthur described this movement toward the Yalu as an attack it was really no more than an advance to contact. It is not possible to attack an enemy whose positions are not known, whose very existence has not been confirmed, and whose forces are completely out of contact with your own.”59 As in the first campaign, Mao and Peng understood MacArthur’s objective—advancing to the Yalu within one month and ending the war in victory—as his arrogance. To exploit MacArthur’s arrogance, Peng exploited UNC confusion by deceiving the enemy about Chinese weakness and his own intentions— formless Hsing. To manipulate MacArthur, Peng’s deception presented the possibility of final military victory—the best Li for the Americans. On November 16, he ordered Chinese units not to oppose advancing U.N. forces but to retreat from contact.60 The Chinese Shih-strategy and formless Hsing again surprised the U.N. forces with a massive counterattack on the offensive’s second day. As the orthodox counteroffensive in the mountains, Peng launched an 18-division frontal assault between the U.S. 8th Army in the west and the U.S. X Corps in the east. In contrast to the focus on South Korean units in the first campaign, the Chinese isolated U.S. mechanized divisions advancing into the mountainous western corridor. Simultaneously, Peng exposed the veteran Chinese 38th Army in an unorthodox flanking movement through U.N. defenses between the 7th and 8th ROK divisions (reconstituted after the first campaign) near Tokchon. His initial intent was to encircle the 7th division, but not to destroy it, wait four to five days for a rescue attempt, and then annihilate the rescuers. By November 28, his 113th Division, 38th Army had moved covertly from east to west to Samsori behind the U.S. 2nd Division. Peng’s unorthodox ploy had positioned his 38th Army to encircle the entire U.S. 8th Army from the south. Surprised by unexpected Chinese positions directly before them, and facing strategic encirclement from the south, the U.S. mechanized divisions fell into the Chinese trap for annihilation. In the east, Peng’s main effort—the orthodox— had overwhelmed the U.S. X Corps and forced it into retreat along the coast to Hungnam.61 Although General Walton Walker, the 8th Army Commander, ordered immediate retreat, the Chinese troops were already attacking along the roads to the south. Walker reported 11,000 casualties, dead, wounded, and missing in the first days of the second Chinese offensive.62 When the UNC abandoned Pyongyang on December 5, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff and the U.N. Security Council seriously considered withdrawing from Korea.63 The nine-day second campaign marked the zenith of China’s success as Peng pushed the battle south to the 38th parallel. Although Peng’s deception and focus on MacArthur’s intent had exploited his misjudgments to

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manipulate the U.N. commanders, as the battle moved south, inferior firepower and inadequate air cover crippled Peng’s operations. Increasing difficulties in providing ammunition, food, and primitive medical facilities hindered Chinese forces as U.N. forces adapted to Chinese tactics and learned to exploit them. While their enemy moved quickly and easily on vehicles, the exhausted Chinese troops still had to run on their feet and carry everything on their backs. On December 8, 1950, Peng ordered a pause at the 38th parallel to recuperate in place until the next offensive in spring 1951. He preferred not to pursue the retreating U.N. forces with exhausted, frostbitten troops with little food, summer clothing, and insufficient ammunition. From his operational perspective, the Chinese were neither able nor ready to deal with the dense fortifications along the 38th parallel or to besiege Seoul.64

Third Campaign: Mao’s Arrogance and Peng’s Prudence Even as U.N. airpower interdicted lengthening Chinese supply lines and Peng’s prudence deepened, the successful first and second campaigns expanded Mao’s confidence into arrogance. Anxious to establish China’s geopolitical leadership in the socialist bloc, Mao suspected the ceasefire suggested by the U.N. as a ploy to halt the Chinese advance while U.N. forces reorganized and reinforced. To raise the socialist bloc’s confidence and respect, Mao immediately rejected the proposal through Radio Peking. Instead of negotiating to defeat the enemy military force without fighting, Mao exploited the conflicting and fragmented political interests within the U.N. to seek a geopolitical victory. While Mao expanded his Shih-strategy from tactics to geopolitics, Peng recognized that the best operational conditions for annihilating U.N. forces lay in the north where the Chinese had superior terrain Shih. Ideal for Chinese light infantry, the rugged mountains restricted U.S. mechanized forces to the few, narrow roads. Although Chinese infantry could still surround U.N. mechanized forces in the south, southern Korea’s flat terrain shifted terrain Shih from Peng’s foot infantry to the U.S. mechanized forces. U.S. air and artillery superiority forced the Chinese to complete each battle of annihilation before dawn. Despite their success in pushing U.N. forces south, since the Chinese were often unable to prevail under these conditions, as they moved south, their morale Shih faded. After considering Peng’s request to postpone further campaigning until Spring 1951, Mao rejected his generals’ advice. On December 13, he instructed Peng to cross the 38th parallel aggressively in early January and continue the offensive in a third campaign to seek a decisive victory.65 Since

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his advisors repeatedly urged caution, Mao recognized the high risk on December 21, and granted Peng the operational flexibility to disengage and pause whenever necessary. He insisted, however, that Chinese forces would not withdraw from Korea until they had destroyed all enemy forces.66 Despite Peng’s reports of deteriorating operational capabilities and increasing risks, Mao’s focus was at the strategic and geopolitical levels. By prioritizing strategic, geopolitical visions above operational considerations, however, Mao violated Shih-theory: “if fighting will not result in victory, you must not fight.”67 Within Mao’s priorities, Peng had to confront superior U.N. forces with troops that were losing morale Shih and terrain Shih as they advanced. Although his campaign plans embodied Shih-strategic principles, superior U.S. firepower, airpower, and logistics eventually overwhelmed his troops. Peng launched the third offensive on December 31, 1950 with a main effort toward Seoul. Although he expected strong resistance, Mao anticipated any U.N. massing to hold Seoul as an opportunity for annihilation. Achieving tactical surprise, Peng’s attack advanced rapidly as the U.N. forces unexpectedly retreated from Seoul on January 4, 1951 to positions south of the Han River.68 Despite his success, Peng distrusted the U.N. commander’s intent in retreating without fighting. Sun Tzu had also warned: “Do not pursue an enemy who simulates flight.”69 As his troops moved across the 38th parallel, Peng’s logistical elements were increasingly vulnerable not only to U.N. air attacks but to U.N.-supported South Korean guerrilla operations. His open flanks on each coast were vulnerable to U.N. naval attacks and amphibious assaults against which he had no coastal defense or naval support. Under increased U.N. air cover, mechanized forces now had the tactical advantage and terrain Shih in the flat, southern peninsula. Recognizing his opponents’ growing skill and advantages and his own weakness and vulnerabilities, Peng deepened his instinctive prudence to deliberate caution. He suspected that the U.N. commander was trying to lure the Chinese into the deep south as he had enticed the U.N. forces into the northern mountains. Repeating the mistake that the NKPA had made in September 1950 would lose all that he had achieved. Concerned about a second Inchon landing in his rear, Peng halted the advance at the 37th parallel, although his vanguard reached the Kum River’s north bank on January 8, 1951. With the flexibility that Mao had granted him, Peng took the prudent path within his own intent-based Shih-strategy. By not arrogantly pursuing the retreating U.N. forces, he sacrificed the local victory that forces-based strategy invited—an apparent Li. Instead, Peng blocked his enemy’s intent to lure the Chinese into a disastrous trap by inaction—the unorthodox.

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Obsessed with his own tactical weakness and operational vulnerability, Peng could not know that Washington was also torn between two strategic paths—withdrawal and nuclear war. While Peng was learning to understand his enemy’s intent, MacArthur had received a critical directive from the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff: “You are directed to defend in successive positions, . . . if you are forced back to positions in the vicinity of the Kum River, . . . it then would be necessary, under these conditions, to direct you to commence a withdrawal to Japan.”70 Early in 1951, Washington had also deployed at least nine atomic bombs and long-range B–29 bombers to Guam within striking range of China, Korea, and the Soviet Union. For the first time since 1945, Washington had deployed nuclear weapons outside the United States and transferred custody from the civilian Atomic Energy Commission to military commanders. Observers in Beijing, Moscow, and Pyongyang perceived the bombers in Guam as the final step in preparing to use nuclear weapons in Korea.71 Beyond the orthodox forces-based battlefield struggle, Peng’s operational Shih-strategy supported Mao’s intent-based, geopolitical Shih-strategy to challenge Washington’s and the U.N. allies’ political intent. A Chinese advance beyond the Kum River might have defeated MacArthur’s conventional forces-based strategy by changing Washington’s political intent from victory to withdrawal. It might, however, have changed that intent from conventional combat to nuclear warfare. Ironically, Peng’s intent-based decision to stop at the Kum River may have preserved Washington’s political intent to fight with a non-nuclear, forces-based Li-strategy. Peng’s prudence possibly lost an opportunity for both a decisive forcesbased U.S. victory and an intent-based Chinese victory without fighting. Peng’s halt also, however, relaxed the U.S. dilemma about using nuclear weapons.

Fourth Campaign: Formless Hsing Again Peng’s pause on the Kum River began the fourth campaign on January 8, 1951 amid diplomatic controversy around the new legitimacy and respect that the first three campaigns had earned for Beijing. Peng’s spectacular military successes in defeating the U.S. and U.N. forces had created strong Chinese Shih, claimed Moscow’s respect, and shown Beijing’s proper Tao as a great power. While operational concern about a counterattack to recapture Seoul obsessed Peng, Mao was anxious to force the U.N. troops to withdraw entirely from Korea. Peng’s initial intent was an operational pause to rest his exhausted troops who had pursued the mechanized U.N. forces 700 km on foot without pause.72 In mid-January, Mao reminded Peng of

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the urgent fourth campaign and its “purpose of wiping out twenty to thirty thousand enemy forces and advancing to the Taejon–Andong line.”73 Although he continued to support Peng, Mao’s overconfidence led him beyond his commander’s strategic caution and his troops’ operational capabilities into inconsistencies as his strategy shifted from Shih toward Li. Polite suggestions from Stalin, deferential urgings from Pyongyang, and low Politburo murmurings to hasten the decisive victory deepened the gaps between Mao’s political visions, Shih-strategic principles, and Peng’s operational-tactical realities. While leaving Peng to manage the war’s details, Mao decided campaigns’ timing, scope, and aims. Rather than flowing smoothly from battlefield realities and deliberate assessment into Shih-strategy, Mao’s decisions in Beijing reflected geopolitical urgency and growing overconfidence. Peng’s operational successes and Mao’s power politics had slowly transformed their Shih-strategy into a forces-based war of attrition that Peng could never win! On January 25, 1951, U.N. forces launched the expected counterattack to recapture Seoul. With overwhelming firepower, efficient reorganization, and plentiful supplies, the U.N. commanders took the initiative and forced the Chinese to change tactics.74 Despite China’s permanent disabilities— inferior firepower, difficult logistics, and inadequate airpower—Mao urged Peng to “win quickly if possible; if not, win with delay.”75 Although the rapid U.N. shift from withdrawal to offensive prevented him from reshaping his troops as he intended, Peng expected reinforcements from China soon and slowly yielded territory. After holding their positions south of the Han River for 20 days, the Chinese troops withdrew slowly in good order, although they suffered heavy losses. Deploying light infantry at the front while positioning main units in deliberate ambush positions forced the U.N. forces to disperse, reduced Chinese casualties, and preserved Peng’s operational flexibility.76 Constantly short of food and ammunition, the Chinese abandoned Seoul on March 14, 1951 and withdrew to the 38th parallel under heavy pressure from superior U.N. forces and U.S. airpower.77 Again taking formless Hsing, Peng withdrew into the mountains and applied Sun Tzu’s principle—“Show weakness when you are strong”—in reverse, as if he were strong despite weakness.78 Despite Sun Tzu’s teaching that “the same tactics should not be used repeatedly in a campaign,” Peng could no longer confuse the wily, experienced U.N. commanders.79 As Peng’s forces delayed and absorbed casualties, Mao overcame his arrogance, tempered his vision with operational reality, and realized that China could not win a forces-based, third-stage people’s war in Korea. China lacked the military might to defeat the U.S. enemy in battles of annihilation.

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Fifth Campaign: Riot in the West and Attack in the East Increasing U.N. reconnaissance and naval movements in coastal waters recalled Peng’s concern about his vulnerability to amphibious landings in his rear. Especially sensitive were the landing sites near Wonsan, Tongchon-ni, or the Chong Chon estuary. These concerns and Mao’s urgency prompted Peng to open the fifth campaign before his troops had recovered. Peng needed to preempt amphibious operations in both east and west and regain operational initiative before U.N. forces consolidated their Seoul offensive. His staff and field commanders favored the same tactics that had succeeded in the first and second campaigns—luring the enemy into annihilation in prepared positions. Still sensitive to his fourth-campaign failure, Peng refined his third-campaign strategy—strategic encirclement—to seize the initiative by striking south. Mao approved Peng’s campaign plan on April 14, 1951.80 Peng’s fifth campaign combined separate offensives against the U.S. divisions in the west and the ROK Army in the east in a broad strategic encirclement—concentrating his forces in the eastern corridor while diverting U.N. attention to the west. By relocating the Chinese 3rd Corps covertly from west to east, he could achieve local combat superiority. After encircling and annihilating the ROK 3rd Corps on the eastern front, Chinese forces could extend the strategic encirclement to the U.S. rear in the west. On April 28, 1951, Peng opened the campaign with a few small attacks against U.S. divisions in the western corridor—the first of his Shih-strategy’s three elements. The Chinese drew the two mechanized divisions into the mountains north of the Imjin River where they could not maneuver effectively. Although only partially successful in encircling them in prepared pockets for annihilation, Peng’s strategy in the west exploited the enemy’s intent. Facing lightly armed Chinese foot infantry, the large U.S. divisions defeated the Chinese annihilation efforts with superior firepower and maneuverability. Despite, however, their small scale and disappointing results, generals and politicians in Seoul perceived the Chinese attacks as the opening forays of a Chinese offensive in the west. By focusing U.N. attention and intent on the western corridor, they created the diversion and formless Hsing that Peng sought to project as his orthodox.81 While the U.S. divisions were engaged along the Imjin River, Peng took a week—May 9, through May 15,—in moving his 3rd Corps covertly from west to east. Despite air superiority and continuing aerial observation, the U.N. commanders did not detect the massive movement. The

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fifth campaign’s eastern operation began on May 16, 1951 with the Chinese operation to annihilate one ROK Army corps. Peng’s deception and diversion in the west led to the surprise appearance of Chinese local superiority in the east. In a deliberate strategic encirclement, the Chinese successfully annihilated the 3rd ROK Corps, which retreated with heavy casualties and losses. Although operational success in the west was only partial, Chinese success in the east brought strategic success for the fifth campaign’s second element. Sun Tzu had taught: “Riot west; Strike east.”82 While deceiving the enemy with a familiar tactic in the west, Peng had deepened the deception with another operational-strategic deception in the east. Anticipating that the U.S. divisions would not fall into ambushes, Peng used U.N. expectations of his operational intent as a diversion away from his strategic intent. At the political-strategic level, he created riot by threatening the capital in the west with a new crisis, while he attacked in the east to annihilate the enemy forces in a circuitous and indirect approach. To annihilate the U.S. divisions in the west, the Chinese began by annihilating the South Korean corps in the east. Under constant, heavy U.N. air attack, the strained Chinese logistic system could not, however, support the third element of Peng’s Shihstrategy—strategic encirclement to annihilate the U.S. forces in the west. Superior U.N. firepower forced the front lines farther north. Beyond failing to destroy five U.N. divisions, the fifth campaign increased China’s already enormous losses.83 After the fifth campaign, both sides avoided large-scale maneuvering to avoid risking the enemy’s counterattack. Instead, both forces concentrated on positional defense along the 38th parallel, as the war deteriorated into the static trench warfare of World War I.

Ending Phase After the United States proposed an armistice, talks began on July 10, 1951 at Kaesong. Without agreeing on withdrawing troops, on November 27, 1951, both sides accepted an armistice along the line of contact.84 As the static low-intensity war of attrition continued, negotiators spent 20 months on minor issues, primarily repatriating prisoners. While the Americans suspected Chinese negotiations as a clever deception to continue low-intensity fighting, the Chinese blamed American arrogance, stubbornness, and egotism for starting and prolonging the war.85 Since the U.N. forces had “encountered grave difficulties on the battlefield, . . . [and] they have to ask for an immediate cease-fire,”86 Mao

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perceived the U.S. proposal for talks as Washington’s reaction to divided American public opinion as U.S. Shih deteriorated. His Shih-strategy to annihilate U.N. forces had changed the enemy’s political intent, despite U.S. military superiority. The armistice talks were an opportunity to continue the struggle by another means—negotiation to defeat the Tao of the U.N. allies, rather than the U.S. military forces—without fighting. For the U.N. commander, however, talking was a means to stop fighting and restrictions in fighting were the foundations for any success in the talks. Ridgway accordingly restricted U.N. forces to only battalion-strength operations without his personal authorization. Peng exploited Ridgway’s selfrestraint to harass the enemy, strengthen China’s negotiating position, and construct deep battle positions along the line of contact along the coasts to counter amphibious landings.87 After the fifth campaign, Mao’s war-termination strategy shifted away from confronting the enemy’s military strength on the Korean battlefield to the geopolitical level. Sun Tzu taught that “supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting. . . . The highest form of generalship is to balk the enemy’s plans.”88 Following Sun Tzu, Mao understood talking as a better instrument than swords. Beneath the fragmented UNC coalition, Mao also assaulted his enemies’ weak intent—the impatient demands of their political systems and populations for immediate cease-fire in Korea. Since the enemy became weaker each day that the war continued, China’s negotiating objectives were rigid: “withdrawal of all foreign troops from Korea . . . [and] to restore the status quo prior to June 25, 1950, with a demarcation at the 38th parallel. . . . Issues other than these two, [the POW issue and others], are only a minor significance.”89 Instead of decisive annihilation, the Chinese would impose steady U.S. casualties over the years until American politics and public pressure forced the United States to withdraw. Reverting to second-stage people’s war—protracted warfare—Mao used the talks as another means to continue the war. “China must stand firm to the end, . . . the talks must go on, and the fighting must continue.”90 Whenever the talks came to an impasse, he used Peng’s army to force the Americans to compromise. “If we initiate the resumption of the negotiation, . . . it would leave the opponents with an impression that we are anxious to achieve peace [and] suggesting a sign of [our] weakness. . . . Action is not as good as inaction; [we] shall let the war drag on until the United States is willing to make compromises.”91 To exploit the enemy’s weaknesses, Peng adopted an attrition strategy and selected military targets to widen the cleavages among the U.N. members and protract the talks.92 During the two-year armistice talks, Chinese forces inflicted more than three times the casualties that they had inflicted during the five campaigns.93

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Mao’s Shih-Strategy Through China’s civil war Mao had refined Sun Tzu’s teachings into his Shih-strategic people’s war and his 1949 victory. Primed for the final annihilation phase against Chiang, in 1950, Mao diverted his Shih-strategy into a third-stage war of annihilation in Korea. In 1951, he revised his Shihstrategy to accommodate modern military realities and China’s real military capabilities. At the geopolitical level, Mao’s Shih-strategy reaffirmed the potency of the indirect approach and the people as the source of even superpower. At the strategic level, Mao expanded desperation Shih from the battlefield to the nation and deepened national Shih into solidarity, nationalism, and patriotism. At operational and tactical levels, the Korean War confirmed deception as a powerful technique and exposed the significance of firepower, airpower, mobility, and logistics.

Indirect Approach to Great-Power Status When China stood up in the world in 1949, Mao had unified the Chinese continent and concentrated China’s domestic power in Beijing. Mao’s decision to enter the Korean War as the first step along an ambitious, indirect, circuitous course to great-power status meant competing with the Soviet and U.S. superpowers and demonstrating Chinese power beyond China itself. Since the realities of U.S. military superiority precluded a forcesbased Chinese victory, beyond Peng’s operational successes, Mao’s geostrategic successes emerged without fighting. With the 1953 armistice, the People’s Republic of China recovered its position as the most powerful country on the East Asian mainland. “It had established its strategic authority on the Korean peninsula in the early 1950s, when it held the U.S. military [forces] to a standstill and inflicted unacceptable casualties on American soldiers.”94 The global great powers gradually accommodated China’s presence, power, and even authority, in northeast Asia. The Korean War provided China a place to stand on the stage of global great-power politics and geostrategy.

Expanding Desperation Shih to the National Level Mao transformed U.S. intervention in Korea into an opportunity to rebuild ruler’s Tao and national Shih. By depicting the Korean War as a threat to China’s survival, he inculcated in the Chinese people the desperation that ancient commanders had used to create unlimited, instantaneous Shih on

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the battlefield. To mobilize the Chinese people’s power, Mao sent his son, Mao Anying, to the CPV as a focus for concentrating the people’s mind in China’s Tao and ruler’s national Shih.95 His circuitous, indirect approach mobilized the people’s power to fight the United States with borrowed Soviet equipment by exploiting NKPA tactical positions to create formless Hsing. By creating the extraordinary, brief, power of desperation Shih, Mao generated broader national Shih in the people and focused it into the revolution.

National Shih Mao’s Shih-strategy to confront the United States had several critical domestic aims. Beijing needed to consolidate nationalism and patriotism into national solidarity and Shih By punishing reactionaries and imposing strict rules, Mao led the people through the revolution to China’s Tao By mobilizing the people against the United States, his strategy built Tao and Shih for the revolution. By 1953, China’s new society was fundamentally different from the old one, although the deep-rooted Confucian, Shihstrategic culture remained its foundation.

Firepower and Airpower From the second campaign, superior U.S. firepower and airpower had disabled Chinese logistics, forced Peng’s troops to maneuver at night, and—with the third campaign’s stable front—negated Mao’s traditional mobile tactics. The Chinese could conduct deep flanking operations and penetrations, set ambushes, and isolate small units for annihilation. Subject to U.S. airpower, however, they were often unable to destroy the enemy, even during night operations. By 1951, after the fifth campaign, Chinese leaders realized that superior firepower and airpower had made battles of annihilation nearly impossible. Mao finally refined his operational intent from annihilation to a modest peace settlement to preserve China’s security.

Logistics In the north, Peng’s short supply lines were an advantage, whereas MacArthur relied on extended logistical routes. As Chinese forces advanced south and supply lines lengthened, U.N. firepower—aircraft and naval gunfire—interdicted nearly all logistical movement. Chinese supply convoys

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could move only at night without lights. Over bad roads and through improvised fords, daily convoy distances were often less than 50 km before dawn. While combat troops suffered heavily from disease, logistical personnel suffered casualty and loss rates in rear areas higher than those in front-line units. The result was an army—like Rommel’s Deutsche Afrika Korps at El Alamein—that could neither sustain itself in the field nor conduct effective combat operations. The logistical problem became critical in the fourth campaign when logistics mandated Peng’s decision to stop at the Kum River. Since front-line troops received only 30–40 percent of their needs and foraged for the rest, most were malnourished, underequipped, and ill through the entire war. In the fifth campaign, inadequate logistics prevented strategic success, despite operational and tactical success.96

Learning through Fighting Although Shih-strategists did not favor positional defense, after the third campaign, Peng translated his deepening knowledge of the enemy into operational advantage. He developed his cave tactic and operational deception into formless Hsing to protect his troops under U.S. air superiority. From the fourth campaign, Mao gradually adopted pragmatic strategies oriented around stable front lines, increased reliance on artillery and armor, and logistical flows. As the war progressed, the Chinese force slowly transformed into an image of its U.S. counterpart with professionally skilled and experienced officers and sergeants. Firepower replaced manpower, and logistics became as important as terrain in planning operations, as U.S. logistics and operations became a de facto model for the nascent PLA.97 To ameliorate the logistical problems that had crippled all five campaigns, with stalemate and cease-fire talks, Mao expanded protracted war with continuing troop rotations between China and Korea. Rotation not only maintained Chinese troop vitality but provided battle experience for all Chinese soldiers. Solidifying the civilian population, rotation sustained nationalistic fervor as veterans returned home as heroes and spread through Chinese society. “The War to Resist America and Aid Korea has been a great school,” Mao observed in August 1952, “in which we conducted large-scale maneuvers; these exercises are better than running a military academy. If we continue the fight for another year, next year we can send all our army troops in turn to experience the war.”98 Mao’s Shih-strategy used Soviet equipment to modernize the PLA under the U.S. Army’s instruction in Korea.

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Shih and Li Stalin’s Li-strategy to avoid confronting the stronger United States kept Soviet forces at home during the Korean War. Kim Il-Sung’s overconfidence in his own Li-strategy rejected Chinese support in early 1950 but left China strategically alone in resisting the U.S. Li-strategic aim of decisive forcesbased victory in 1951. In contrast to their stress on strong military forces, Mao’s Shih-strategic decision to intervene against the United States rested on the conviction that the weak could defeat the strong. While Peng’s prudent, formless Hsing emerged easily from his intent-based strategy, MacArthur’s forces-based Home-by-Christmas offensive reflected his Clausewitzian Li-strategy to achieve final victory without knowing his enemy. Mao’s instruction to Peng to pursue the enemy after the second campaign despite battlefield conditions was an operational Li-strategy within his grand Shih-strategy. When both Chinese and Americans learned to adapt to the other’s strategies, the war collapsed into stalemate.

Epilogue Despite Beijing’s continuing alignment with Pyongyang, China withdrew the last Chinese troops from Korea in 1958 and no longer endorsed northern use of force against the South. As Beijing-Pyongyang relations deteriorated during China’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and Chinese and Soviet troops fought on the Sino-Soviet border, North Koreans clashed periodically with Chinese along the Yalu River. As China’s priorities shifted from building Shih and recovering China’s Tao to economic growth, trade and modernization replaced solidarity and status as policy priorities. Beijing balanced its policies toward Pyongyang and Seoul, and assumed greatpower responsibility for managing Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions. With high national Shih within its great-power Tao, Beijing is “playing both sides of the Korean equation . . . in favor of resolving the North’s nuclear issue but without hurting interests in the North.”99


Chapter 6 The Sino-Indian War

In October 1962, after several years of tension and border clashes, China attacked with a corps-size army across the Sino-Indian border. “A brief war fought on three fronts resulted in a comprehensive Chinese victory. China invaded in the east, mostly for effect, before withdrawing a month later to the line of actual control.”1 Through two major offensives, the Chinese defeated India’s border troops in the North East Frontier Agency (NEFA) and the Aksai Chin (India’s Kashmir and Jammu province in the Ladakh Range). After the Chinese seized several Indian border-defense bases and threatened the interior, Beijing declared a unilateral ceasefire and withdrew with no political conditions. Bizarre or eccentric within Clausewitzian realpolitik, China’s anomalous use of force in India replicated the early Korean campaigns a decade earlier. China’s Shih-strategy integrated careful reconnaissance, extensive preparation, night attacks, deep penetration, envelopment, and overwhelming force at engagement. Like the U.N. commanders, Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Krishna Menon, his defense minister, did not expect the Chinese invasion, although they had repeatedly expressed determination to fight.2 Just as General MacArthur had built his forces-based Li-strategy around firepower and attrition, Nehru adopted a local, forces-based Li-strategy.

The Context China and India had maintained friendly relations since India recognized Mao Tse-tung’s People’s Republic of China (PRC) when it stood up in

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1949. For both countries, a primary goal was international legitimacy in a complex, changing global context. Only within clearly defined, legally recognized boundaries could the new countries express their new identities as sovereign states. While Mao adopted the Shih-strategic principles that had brought him through the Chinese Civil War, Nehru adopted a EuroAmerican strategic approach within his novel nonaligned neutralism.

The Border The frontier between India and China comprises about 1,700 km in three sectors. Lying east from Bhutan, the eastern sector—about 650 km—separates southeastern Tibet, China, from Arunachal Pradesh province (formerly the NEFA), India. The middle sector extends about 450 km northwest from Nepal between western Tibet and the Indian provinces, Himachal Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. The 600-km western sector faces western Tibet and Xinjiang in China and India’s Jammu and Kashmir province.3

China’s Challenges For the new Chinese government in 1949, the primary challenges were to establish Tao with the Chinese people and to confirm the legitimacy of Mao’s government—Great Shih. Slightly less urgent—lesser Shih—was the need to create Beijing’s international Shih as the legitimate Chinese state within China’s Tao as a great power.

The Border Issue Sharing borders with Vietnam, Burma, Nepal, India, Pakistan, the Soviet Union, and Korea, China’s border issue involved disputes with each country. Taiwan’s unique challenge was not only a border dispute but a threat to Beijing’s legitimacy—Tao—and national solidarity—Shih. Chiang Kaishek’s government had promised to “eliminate Western influences, and . . . demand the return of [China’s] ancient territories.”4 Nationalist maps showed these territories and waters in Siberia, Central and Southeast Asia, Korea, Japan, and India. Since 1949, the Kuomintang (KMT) had challenged Beijing with irredentist commitments to recovering these lost lands. Tibet was another critical region. Around 1720, in quelling unrest in western China, the emperor had sent troops into Tibet, which had by the 1750s incorporated northern and eastern Tibet into the Qing administrative structure. Although Lhasa had consistently paid imperial tribute to Peking, Tibet claimed full sovereignty.

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In 1949, the new communist government in Beijing repudiated Chiang’s assertions of sovereignty by choosing deliberately to sacrifice local Li in China’s lost lands and waters and accepting China’s boundaries along historical alignments. Pursuing international legitimacy—lesser Shih within China’s Tao—while building solidarity within the Chinese people—great Shih—Mao preferred friendly neighbors to the risk of intractable disputes with their U.S. or Soviet patrons. Within Mao’s priorities—Tao and Shih— “the Sino-Indian frontiers represented a small but important element in an immense task: negotiating to achieve or confirm boundaries with some ten states”—local Lis within a lesser Shih.5 Beijing could watch and wait, while building national Tao and Shih.

Sovereignty and Strategy Since accepting historical border alignments required the world to accept China’s sovereignty, by the 1960s, China’s lesser Shih—international legitimacy—was claiming increasing strategic priority. As Sino-Soviet relations decayed, Beijing faced strategic containment within a crescent of U.S. military alliances from South Korea, Japan, and Okinawa through the Ryukyus, Taiwan, and the Philippines to Thailand and Pakistan. China could not afford an enemy in India. Neither could Mao ignore challenges to China’s sovereignty—domestic and international—in Tibet or Xinjiang.

India’s Identity Whereas Mao had deepened China’s Shih-strategic cultural identity through a resistant Maoism, Nehru—like Chiang—had adapted AngloEuropean and Soviet strategic and political cultures to create a new Indian national identity. Despite any philosophical-cultural similarity, the dissimilar Indian and Chinese arrivals as modern nation-states in the late 1940s promised either alliance or conflict. While Mao chose to watch and wait, Nehru’s high strategic priority to India’s borders with Pakistan and China promised conflict rather than cooperation.

Symmetry, Asymmetry, and Contrasts Beneath its British democratic façade, Indians, like Chinese, found comfort in unity with their leaders in universal Tao—the upanishadic ideas of Brahman, the soul of all things, and dharma, the universal way. Despite the split between Islam and Hinduism, Indians’ sense of sacred territory and community harmonized more closely with China’s Confucianism and Shihstrategic culture than with Euro-American patriotism or Soviet communist

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solidarity. Nehru’s hostility toward China and obsession with neutralism seemed less reactions to threats to Indian territory than imitations of Mao’s struggles to build Tao and national solidarity. Symmetrical, cultural memories of some ancient Vedic-Confucian Tao may have permeated both Beijing and New Delhi as Mao and Nehru slid toward war in the 1950s. While Mao was repositioning China within a cosmological Tao, Nehru needed to construct a place for India in the postimperial world. Whereas Mao could follow his Shih-strategic priorities by delaying or ignoring the many Lis that international politics afforded, Nehru’s India was immersed in international power politics. While Mao struggled to balance Tao, national Shih, and the daily pressures of living, Nehru needed to balance regional peace and domestic politics with India’s poverty. Within the authoritarian structure of Stalinist communism, Mao could construct national Shih as his immediate political priority, while India’s democracy forced Nehru always to respond to India’s people and parliament.6 In contrast to Mao’s insistence that China’s power resided among the people, India’s identity lay along three political dimensions: neutralism, democracy, and nationalism. Nehru’s tenuous balance between neutral India’s regional aspirations, democratic India’s need for economic aid, and nationalistic India’s territoriality meant that India could neither join the superpowers’ Cold War nor pursue a glorious future. Nehru’s third way sought the best of both worlds in neutralist, geostrategic nonalignment. Although Nehru’s China policy included friendly relations, unlike China, India could not afford to wait and watch.

Indian Nationalism Even though the Union Jack no longer flew over them, Indians resented their cultural heritage from Britain, economic dependence on Britain’s ally, the United States, and military reliance on the Soviet Union. Although self-sustaining prosperity was essential for any nationalistic Indian identity, the real India was dependent on foreign—primarily U.S.—aid for developing self-government.7 In contrast to Mao’s project to build inclusive, national Shih around Confucian baojia within authoritarian communism, India aspired to an exclusive nationalism mixing Hindu mysticism with selected Euro-American values. Nehru’s nonideological nationalism baffled Euro-Americans who could not conceive neutrality in the eschatological Cold-War struggle for the fate of humanity. While Chinese nationalism appeared in the comfortable, ancient ideas of Shih and solidarity, the Euro-American patriotism that served as nationalism in Nehru’s multicultural India seemed superfluous and alien without homogeneous, EuroAmerican democracy.

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Adamant Neutralism Counterbalancing India’s heterogeneity were Nehru’s adamant neutralism and his Shih-like indirection—even deception—in blending it with India’s immediate needs. As the Cold War stabilized, Nehru translated his insistence that India “cannot play a secondary part in the world” and India’s need for a distinct national identity into neutralist nonalignment. Aspiring to local hegemony aloof from Cold-War alliances and neo-imperialist connections, Nehru envisioned India as the leader in a South–Southeast Asian bloc outside U.S.–Soviet Cold-War bipolarity. At its nucleus, Nehru was determined to influence world events rather than simply react to other states’ initiatives. Joining either superpower would sacrifice direct Indian influence and “lose that tremendous vantage ground that we have of using such influence as we possess (and that influence is going to grow from year to year) in the cause of world peace.” Nehru’s Indian-led nonalignment and a “third area” or an “area of peace” between the Cold-War blocs suggest a diffracted Tao or an Indian Shih disguised as national interest or ambition.8

India’s Unique Shih In his own Shih-like Indian strategy, Nehru exploited both neutrality and nationalism to gain economic aid and military assistance from both superpowers, each seeking to frustrate the other. Without directly rejecting political-military demands from Washington or Moscow, Nehru subtly refined Shih-strategic deception by suggesting that he could not ignore his domestic supporters—communist or capitalist—who did reject them. With a finesse reflecting Sun Tzu’s deception, he shamelessly used U.S. and Soviet power and wealth to pursue Indian purposes. Although Nehru’s instincts may have remembered China’s Shih-strategic culture, the heavy hand of British doctrine overlay his policy. While Mao patiently built solidarity as Tao, Nehru built legitimacy around domestic political support. His neutral unilateralism was eminently reasonable to the Indian bureaucracy, supported by India’s audacious political class, and fit smoothly into his visions of India in global politics.

The Border Issue Just as China had inherited 4,300 miles of contested borders, the British had bequeathed undefined northern frontiers to their successors on the subcontinent. By 1960, Burma and Nepal had resolved their boundary disputes with China by accepting colonial British alignment in the north in return for conceding territorial claims. While Pakistan negotiated with China and eventually emerged with mutually satisfactory boundaries,

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Nehru attached the border question firmly to India’s new national identity. In contrast to Mao’s greater Shih-strategic focus, Nehru understood the border issue not as a local Li, but as a final end—a Great Li integral to India’s Grand Shih. He concluded that the Sino-Indian boundaries were fixed—by the British, by ancient custom, or by the gods and nature—and final. For Nehru, negotiation was not only otiose but impugned India’s territorial integrity and national identity. Instead, India would unilaterally define and establish its borders. When China objected, Nehru insisted to Zhou Enlai, “There can be no question of these large parts of India [shown as Chinese on China’s maps] being anything but India and there is no dispute about them.”9 An affront to Indian identity, in the 1950s, the Aksai Chin was India’s Taiwan.

The Geopolitics of Cold War Whereas Mao’s China stood up alone in a hostile world splitting into the Cold War, India emerged from British suzerainty comfortably wrapped in residual, dwindling, British influence. The triple 1949–1950 Asian shocks—Chinese Nationalist collapse, the Korean War, and Beijing’s intervention in Korea—positioned China as the Asian branch of communism. The same shocks thrust India into geopolitics as the democratic bastion against communism in Asia, the great land-bridge between Southeast Asia and the Middle East.

From Noninvolvement to Opportunism As Britain’s postwar government withdrew after Indian independence, Moscow found India attractive for “material and human resources, and as a stepping stone to China and the rest of Asia.”10 While Americans observed British disengagement in Asia with detached approval and agonized over losing China, Washington cautiously shifted its attention from chaos in China to democracy in India. By 1952, London and Washington were providing military aid to a Pakistan preoccupied with preparing for war with India, while Moscow was courting New Delhi and Beijing equivocated in Korea. With Sukarno and Nasser, Nehru exerted growing influence with uncommitted third-world countries. Cooperation with New Delhi presented opportunities that Washington, Moscow, and Beijing could neither resist nor ignore. Disposed to mediate the Indo-Pakistani conflict and support India against Soviet and Chinese communism, Washington tolerated Nehru’s assertive neutralism. When President Dwight D. Eisenhower enlisted Pakistan as a U.S. client by providing military assistance in 1954,

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Moscow offered massive Soviet military and economic aid to New Delhi. Beijing cautiously reoriented priorities toward resuming its proper place in the world as a great power—China’s Tao. Behind their Himalayan barrier, Indians—like Americans—used Soviet commitments in Europe and China’s difficulties in the east to discredit threats of Soviet or Chinese invasion. In the global climate of opportunism, the new governments in New Delhi and Beijing prudently built friendly relations with each other, despite Euro-American and Soviet disapproval.

Peaceful Coexistence Although the 1954 Geneva Conference on Indochina never seriously considered Nehru’s peace plan, in parallel diplomacy with Zhou, Nehru introduced the five principles of India’s neutralist foreign policy. Mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, nonaggression, noninterference, equality and common benefit, and peaceful coexistence formed the nucleus of Sino-Indian relations in the late 1950s.11 With flourishes to accommodate twentieth-century geopolitics, Nehru’s panchasheel principles might have been an interpretation of ancient Chinese Shih-strategy. At the 1955 Bandung Conference, Nehru began to put substance into the visionary neutralism that he had adopted as India’s Shih with its Great Lis—the Sino-Indian border and his Indian-led nonaligned bloc. Bandung also refocused Beijing’s domestic legitimacy—national Shih—within China’s great-power Tao, with lesser issues as local Li. Realizing that China was still too weak to challenge the Asian balance of power, Mao stressed building China’s national Shih within a status quo along China’s borders. Policies toward Northeast Asia, the Soviet Union, Central and South Asia, and Southeast Asia emphasized cooperation in resolving border disputes as local Lis. Toward Taiwan, Hainan, and Tibet, as historic parts of China, however, Beijing used and threatened to use force to reconstitute national solidarity—great Shih. At Bandung, Zhou formally asserted China’s greatpower Tao in contacts with the developing world around Mao’s synthesis of Khrushchevian peaceful coexistence with Nehru’s neutralism. China reformulated the five panchasheel principles as Sino-Indian peaceful coexistence as the basis for a nonmilitary Asian alliance. Beijing and New Delhi envisioned a collective area of peace that would exclude U.S., European, and Soviet power and influence.12 Acting with studied, well-advertised legitimacy in a Shih-strategy to build Tao, China would settle its boundaries peacefully, not expand its territory, and avoid clashes in disputed areas. Zhou assured Pakistan, Cambodia, and Laos, that China “would not support antigovernment forces in their territories, and they, in turn, had assured China that they

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would not support any aggression against China.”13 For Nehru—and Chiang, Eisenhower, and Khrushchev—however, he clearly warned that China would not yield to the use or threat of force.

The Border Dispute Unlike other border disputes, the Sino-Indian disagreement was not a minor cartographic tiff. India claimed some 12,000 square miles in Chinese-controlled Aksai Chin along the Ladakh range west of Nepal. China’s claim to the NEFA in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh comprised some 35,000 square miles. In the eastern sector, Beijing had not quibbled about Nehru’s obduracy and accepted the 1913–1914 McMahon Line as a de facto, historical alignment, despite KMT rejection.14 Until 1950, Indian maps had marked the Tibetan sector as not stipulated, and Nehru had confirmed in 1959 that no treaty had established the border in either sector.15 For their first independent decade, both governments minimized the border disputes to avoid confrontation and contention.16 When New Delhi issued its own maps in 1954 as definitive, instead of rejecting or accepting them, Mao and Zhou implemented their subtle Shih-strategy at the Bandung Conference. Perceiving Chinese capitulation, Nehru embodied his neutralist dream of Hindi-Chini Bhai Bhai (Indo-Chinese Brotherhood in a Collective Area of Peace) in a perfunctory Sino-Indian agreement on Tibet in 1954.

The Aksai Chin In the western sector, China claimed and occupied 38,000 sq km on the Aksai Chin plateau from Karakorum Pass—linking Xinjiang to Jammu and Kashmir—to Kongka Pass in Tibet. Beijing administered the Aksai Chin under Hetian County in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region as a Chinese crossroads between Xinjiang and Tibet along the northeastern slopes of the Ladakh Range. During the 1950s, Mao’s Great-Shih-strategy had set the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to constructing a strategic road network across the region to defend the Aksai Chin and Tibet. With profound civil and commercial effects, the expensive highway connecting Rudong, Tibet to Karghalik, Xinjiang was a deliberate effort to unify Tibet within western China, build national Shih, and deepen China’s Tao. While China conspicuously built, operated, and used the roads, Indian forces installed a system of frontier checkposts. Well beyond the Ladakh

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crests and approaching the Karakorum Range—to the north and east— some Indian positions lay only a few kilometers from the Chinese road. Of the more-than 800 km constructed by the PLA, some 120 km lay in the Aksai Chin region claimed by India in its province of Jammu and Kashmir.17 By 1960, Chinese access and connecting roads approached within three kilometers of the Line of Actual Control (LAC).18

The McMahon Line From 1950–1951, the Indian government had accepted the McMahon Line established by British surveyors in 1913–1914 as the definitive border in the eastern sector. While New Delhi studiously ignored protests from Chinese authorities in Tibet, Indian paramilitary border forces had gradually advanced northward across the southern bend in the Brahmaputra River into the Tawang Tract. In 1953, Indian paramilitary units advanced the LAC to the McMahon Line and occupied 90,000 sq km that the Treaty of Simla had ceded from Tibet to India in 1914. Embroiled in Korea, Beijing had tacitly acquiesced as India, established the LAC as the de facto boundary.19 Beijing, however, objected forcefully when the Indian army began modifying McMahon’s alignment by pushing across it to the north.

Friendship and Coexistence Despite Soviet-Indian friendship around the 1953 trade agreement, which had provoked U.S. economic aid in 1954, Moscow remained neutral in the border issue. In 1960, however, Soviet military assistance began to flow into India as helicopters and transport aircraft.20 In summer 1962, in a strategic defense against U.S. containment, Moscow licensed India to produce the new MiG–21 fighter aircraft to counteract the U.S. agreement to provide two F–104 fighter squadrons to Pakistan. President Eisenhower’s timely countermove in assuring U.S. protection for India from Pakistani perfidy and Soviet-Chinese communism restored the U.S.–Soviet geopolitical balance in the region. Unversed in Cold-War politics, Nehru transformed Moscow’s strategic defense into support for India’s border confrontation and found U.S. support for both neutralism and the border dispute in his anticommunist nationalism. While Khrushchev adapted peaceful coexistence to his anticontainment struggle, by 1960, Nehru had convinced himself, his government, and his people of U.S. and Soviet support for his new Forward Policy.

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Revolt in Tibet From 1950, Beijing deployed the 18th Corps—three PLA divisions—to establish China’s control and sovereignty in Tibet. The 46th Corps deployed into the region later in the 1950s in reaction to sporadic U.S. and Indian support for anticommunist insurgency coordinated around the Khampa in eastern Tibet. By 1959, the Khampa and Buddhist rebellion against Chinese rule in Lhasa presented a greater threat to Beijing’s Shih-strategy to build domestic Tao and legitimacy than anything that India might do by expressing sympathy.21 Mao reinforced the Tibetan Military Region with the PLA 54th Corps to suppress the Khampa and Buddhist rebels.22 In parallel, Beijing announced that the revolt was aided and supported by Indians, Americans, and Chinese Nationalist agents operating from bases in India.23 While India’s decision to give sanctuary to the Dalai Lama and 100,000 followers as they fled China’s suppression heightened Sino-Indian tensions, it deepened China’s growing national Shih.24 By early 1962, Beijing had deployed about 10,000 PLA regulars—five infantry regiments with supporting artillery—in forward positions along the eastern border sector.

From Neutralism to Forward Policy As Nehru embedded the great Lis in Aksai Chin and Tibet deeper within India’s neutralist identity, they absorbed any instinctive Shih overlays into a broad, national purpose. Positive action on the border to recover Indian territory promised not only to eliminate a threat but to rebuild Nehru’s neutralist stature by eroding China’s Shih gained at Bandung. No longer one of many paths to Indian nationalism and international neutralism, Forward Policy in the north had become the only way, a direct opportunity that he could not afford to ignore. As Nehru’s hubris transformed the continuing Chinese presence in the Aksai Chin into aggression, Indian politics and popular pressure called for the Indian army to expel the invaders. While the neutralist Bandung spirit reflected ancient ideas of Tao and Shih, Nehru’s Forward Policy dimmed those reflections and placed India on the direct path to one Li that would inevitably lead to another: a Li strategy.

Open Conflict With the authority of the 1954 maps and the Sino-Indian agreement, on Tibet Nehru projected control into Aksai Chin and the NEFA and gradually established permanent military posts.25 In October 1958, Sino-Indian

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patrol clashes developed the map controversy into an active diplomatic dispute over the entire border.26 Zhou patiently reiterated his Bandung principles in urging negotiation to resolve the border dispute. While “Aksai Chin had long been Chinese territory, . . . in negotiations China would accept the McMahon alignment [in the east]. . . . In reply, Nehru denied that any dispute existed, declined to negotiate until the Chinese had withdrawn from Indian territory, and refused to enter into a standstill agreement.”27 In early 1959, Beijing sealed the Indian frontiers to deny external aid to Tibetan rebels. Hypersensitive to China’s counterinsurgency operations, India advanced its patrols into the Tibetan frontier to exploit what seemed a transient opportunity. When the Indian army was slow to implement the Forward Policy, Nehru dismissed unenthusiastic commanders who understood the operational difficulties in forcing well-armed, well-supplied Chinese forces from strong defensive positions. As Nehru’s military courtiers directed regular troops into Indian-claimed territory, fall 1959 brought a brief series of patrol skirmishes in eastern and western Tibet.28 On August 25, 1959, an Indian squad crossed the McMahon Line near Longju and fired on Chinese frontier guards in Migyitun village, who returned fire. The war’s first armed engagement left one Indian soldier killed and one wounded. After briefly suspending patrolling along the LAC, India determined to “assert its rights by dispatching properly equipped patrols” continuously along the border in all “areas currently occupied by the Chinese.” Amid escalating recriminations, Beijing urged the Soviet Union and other socialist governments to “conduct propaganda measures against India [and] expose the subversive role of imperialist and reactionary Tibetan forces” supported by India and armed by the United States.29 Although each side blamed the other for the incident, China clearly hoped to demonstrate its firm stand against India before Khrushchev’s visit to Beijing in September-October 1959. Instead, however, of joining Beijing, Moscow—perhaps recalling Beijing’s deception surrounding the 1958 Taiwan Straits Crisis—politely hoped that China and India would resolve the matter as coexisting friends. On September 12, Moscow confirmed its estrangement from Beijing by committing U.S. $385 million in subsidized credits to India. Confident of Soviet support—or at least friendship—on October 21, 1959, a team of Indian police and soldiers crossed the Kongka Pass into Chinese territory. In another firefight, the Chinese killed or wounded nine Indian policemen and captured—and shortly released—ten prisoners, while a Chinese soldier was wounded.30 Through 1959 and 1960, Zhou continued to propose to abandon China’s claims to disputed territory—125,000 sq km—in the eastern sector if India would recognize Chinese sovereignty in the Aksai Chin.31

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With an arrogance resting on his deepening relationship with Moscow and Washington’s competitive reactions, Nehru deepened his Li by insisting that neither the McMahon line nor Aksai Chin was subject to negotiation. New Delhi demanded China’s unconditional withdrawal in both sectors as a prerequisite for any talks.

Forward Policy and Anti-Nibbling In November 1959, Beijing called for mutual Chinese and Indian withdrawals to 20 km from the eastern McMahon Line and the western LAC. When New Delhi did not respond and Indian troops remained in position, Beijing withdrew unilaterally in both sectors and suspended patrolling. With blustery rhetoric, India transferred the 4th Division from the Punjab to concentrate across the McMahon Line to implement Nehru’s order, and formed a new reserve division, the 17th. In April 1960, Zhou visited India and repeated China’s offer to negotiate China’s proposal while both armies refrained from patrolling in all sectors. Although diplomats continued to meet through 1960, by autumn, Nehru’s neutralism had transformed peaceful coexistence into an assertive Forward Policy focused on the Sino-Indian border. When the Indian parliament demanded positive action, from April 1961, Indian patrols regularly penetrated into what Beijing considered Chinese territory and fortified Indian positions on the LAC. Advancing slowly, by late summer 1961, the Indian army had established more than 50 small posts in the NEFA.32 Public pressure, especially from the Indian press, led Nehru to invade and seize Goa, the last colony in India, in December 1961.33 Flushed with success, in 1962, Nehru, parliament, the Indian press, and the people turned their attention to the Aksai Chin and the McMahon Line. As winter retreated in February 1962, Indian patrolling intensified into frequent, well-armed sallies across the border. In the west, Indian troops occupied the border passes as bases for deeper operations into Chinese territory. In the east, the Indians occupied the McMahon Line and fortified positions along the unsurveyed Thag La Ridge near the Bhutan border. New Delhi politely ignored China’s formal protests. By summer 1962, the Forward Policy had deployed the 114th Brigade—six infantry battalions of some 6,000 troops—to the western sector. The brigade’s mission was to establish more than 40 Indian outposts—about 1,300 soldiers—in the Aksai Chin to threaten China’s road and envelop Chinese border outposts.34 In response, China deployed two infantry regiments, several autonomous infantry battalions, and supporting artillery—about 6,300 soldiers—under the Xinjiang Military

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Region’s Kangxiwa (Kangxiwar) Headquarters. Each Indian post confronted superior Chinese forces armed with sophisticated weapons, occupying advantageous terrain, and enjoying secure, robust logistics.

China’s Shih-Strategic Reaction As Nehru’s Forward Policy nibbled at China’s sovereignty, Beijing officially repeated the Bandung warning and emphasized it in Chinese editorials: “It seems that the Indian government takes China’s restraint as an indication of weakness.”35 Despite Beijing’s warnings, on July 12, 1962, the next skirmish occurred in the Chip Chap Valley of western Tibet. To China’s protest and proposal for unconditional talks Nehru replied that “any discussion . . . cannot start unless present tensions are removed and the status quo of the boundary restored.”36 In parallel, Mao issued tactical guidance to counter India’s canshi zhengce (nibbling policy). “Never make a concession, but try your best to avert bleeding; form a jagged, interlocking pattern to secure the border; and prepare for long-time armed coexistence.”37 (Sun Pin taught: “Use pointed formations when setting out battle lines facing higher ground.”38) The Chinese General Staff issued Mao’s instruction immediately as five rules of engagement for reacting to Indian provocations: ●

●

●

●

●

If Indian troops do not fire, Chinese should not fire. (Liu Ju said: “When opponents outnumber you or you are at a tactical disadvantage, it will not do to fight them.” Wu Tzu taught: “The bold will readily clash without knowing what is to their advantage.”39) If Indian troops threaten a Chinese sentry from one direction, Chinese should threaten the Indians from another direction. (Sun Tzu said: “Attack where there is no defense.” Du Mu taught: “If they are alert on their eastern flank, strike on their western flank. Lure them from the front, strike them from behind.”40) If Indian troops encircle Chinese frontier guards, another Chinese force should encircle the Indian force. If Indian troops cut a Chinese withdrawal route, Chinese forces should cut the Indians’ withdrawal route. (Sun Tzu said: “Even if the opponent is deeply entrenched in a defensive position, he will be unable to avoid fighting if you attack where he will surely go to the rescue.” Cao Cao and Li Quan taught: “Cut off their supply routes, guard their return routes.”41 Chinese forces should always keep away from Indian troops, leave them freedom to maneuver, and withdraw if Indian forces permit disengagement.42

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Euro-American strategists recognize modern peacekeeping doctrines, which seem redundant to operational restraint and self-defense in a realpolitik environment. In Mao’s Shih-strategic context, however, these rules formed one essential dimension of China’s “anti-nibbling measures and special tactics.” While Chinese frontier guards formed Mao’s jagged, interlocking pattern, the PLA reinforced field bases, advanced border posts, and controlled strategic forward positions. With Nehru’s refusal to negotiate, the PLA resumed patrols, suspended in November 1959 within 20 km of the LAC.43 Recognizing Mao’s developing intent-based Shih-strategy, PLA commanders expanded his instructions by warning Indian forces who seemed intentionally provocative. When the Indians persisted, Chinese commanders returned fire or attacked in self-defense to break contact. This ostentatious anti-nibbling campaign in Aksai Chin responded obviously to Nehru’s Forward Policy priorities. Mao’s Shih-strategy, however, also countered Indian nibbling with a subtle “territorial claim of its own, far to the east, to what is now the state of Arunachal Pradesh.”44

War on the Border On September 8–9, 1962, the crisis shifted to the eastern sector as a 60 man Chinese patrol engaged an Indian outpost near Che Dong (Dhola) inside Chinese territory. When New Delhi reported a major attack by about 600 Chinese, Nehru concluded that, “It is no longer a border war between India and China; it is an invasion of India.”45 When Parliament demanded expelling the Chinese, Indian Army headquarters directed the 4th Division’s 7th Brigade—about 3,000 troops with artillery—to cross the Thag La Ridge beyond the McMahon Line. The brigade was to relieve Che Dong, evict the Chinese, and repel any counterattack.46 New Delhi reinforced the 4th Division with three more brigades and garrison forces— some 16,000 troops. Although the Indian press loudly urged a major offensive, inadequate logistics, poor planning, and no preparation limited operations to battalion-size engagements, which were well-publicized, brief but well-executed, and operationally ineffective. While the Indians struggled with logistics, on September 13, Beijing again proposed beginning unconditional negotiations on October 15, first in Beijing and then in New Delhi. By September 14, despite realizing that the Chinese operation had been a small foot patrol instead of a major combined-arms attack, New Delhi repeated the order to evict the Chinese. With the change in threat, the Indian army confidently deployed a strong

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reaction force and predicted quick mission accomplishment.47 To China’s protest on September 16, India replied on September 19, that it would conduct discussions only within India’s preconditions.48 As the two capitals exchanged protests and diplomatic threats, both armies reinforced and improved their positions.

Nehru’s Decision “On 9 October, the Indians moved forward of their most advanced positions, knowing [that] their situation was hopeless: they were outnumbered five to one; the Chinese were much better equipped and held the high ground, while the Indians were pinned in the valleys.”49 On October 10, the 7th Brigade’s well-coordinated attack east of Che Dong, which killed five Chinese soldiers and wounded five others, convinced New Delhi of local Indian superiority.50 Another serious skirmish northwest of Che Dong on the same day killed or wounded 22 Chinese.51 By sunset, the Chinese had forced the Indians to retreat with losses of seven killed and several wounded. Although both actions were north of the McMahon Line, Nehru accused China of deliberate aggression and instructed Indian troops “to clear Chinese forces from the Northeast Frontier Agency.”52 As he had in autumn 1950, Mao exploited the opportunity to deepen Chinese national solidarity. On October 10, the People’s Daily replaced proposals for talks with reports of India’s war against China. On October 12, Nehru ordered a general attack against Chinese border positions. On October 14, another Chinese editorial reported Nehru’s directions to attack Chinese frontier guards on “an even bigger scale.” The Indian army had “completed preparations for war and was impatiently waiting to be unleashed.”53

Mao’s Decision In early October, Beijing decided that China could no longer accept India’s arrogance and deliberate provocations. Resigned to New Delhi’s insistent rejections of Zhou’s proposals to negotiate and formal diplomatic protests, Mao decided to act. On October 16, the Central Military Commission (CMC) directed a defensive counterattack against Indian troops that had violated the McMahon Line.54 (See table 6.1).

Invasion: First Phase On October 20, intense artillery preparation destroyed Indian fortifications and suppressed Indian artillery. A Chinese corps attacked on three fronts

146 Table 6.1

Philosophy of Chinese Military Culture Chronology—Sino-Indian War

Dates

Events

July 21, 1962

Patrol skirmishes in western Tibet; China proposed negotiations; India refused to negotiate Major clashes near Che Dong in the eastern sector; India accused; China of aggression; China mustered national solidarity China launched an attack on India across the Sino-Indian border China stopped advancing and proposed negotiations with India India refused China’s proposal to negotiate China launched its second attack after three weeks, advanced 100 miles, and stopped within sight of the Assam plains China announced a unilateral cease-fire and withdrew

October 10, 1962

October 20, 1962 October 25, 1962 October 27, 1962 November 18, 1962

November 21, 1962

along the disputed borders early in the morning. Focused on the Indian 7th Brigade’s headquarters at Kejielang, within one day, the main Chinese attack in the east annihilated the brigade and captured its commander, Brigadier John S. Dalvi. On October 21, the Chinese crossed the McMahon Line, occupied Zimithuang (Zimithang), and threatened Tawang as the Indian 4th Division consolidated defensive positions south of the Tawang River.55 In the western sector, after an intense artillery barrage on October 20, Chinese infantry assaulted Indian positions between Karakorum Pass and Kongka Pass. Coordinated with the main eastern attack, attacks in the west quickly annihilated India’s advanced Forward-Policy posts. The Chinese continued the attack along Pangong Lake—the western boundary of China’s territorial claim—south of Kongka Pass. Whereas Clausewitzian strategy called for aggressive exploitation and pursuit, the Chinese quietly settled into bivouacs along all fronts, and ended artillery barrages. While Chinese troops reduced isolated Indian positions in the west and consolidated positions in the east, on October 24, Zhou again appealed to Nehru. Chinese forces would observe a ceasefire and withdraw north of the McMahon Line if India would negotiate. Again, obsessed by his own objective and his vision of Soviet support, rather than Chinese intent, Nehru refused Zhou’s proposal with the demand that China evacuate all troops as a precondition for any talks.56

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By October 29, Chinese forces had sequentially surrounded and annihilated each western Indian position and garrison, destroyed the 114th Brigade’s four battalions and occupied the Karakorum-Kongka valley and western crests—1,900 sq km. While the smaller Chinese force remained free to maneuver beyond Chinese-claimed territory, the remaining Indian units were isolated in dispersed, fixed outposts unable to support each other.57 In the east, China had fortified positions north of the Tawang River. The 4th Division deployed its remaining five brigades—about 15,000 troops— south of the river along the approaches to Tezpur, 80–100 km south of the McMahon Line. When Nehru declared a national emergency, New Delhi moved some 50,000 Indian troops to the border—a corps headquarters and three divisions with 14 maneuver brigades. Nearly half—some 22,000 combat troops—went to the eastern sector to reinforce the 4th Division.58

Invasion: Second Phase With Nehru’s persistent refusal to negotiate, the Chinese General Staff sent two more divisions of the 46th Corps to increase Chinese strength in the east to 25,000 in five under-strength divisions. On November 12, the CMC ratified the second phase of Mao’s Shih-strategy. Chinese troops would annihilate three to four Indian brigades in the Tawang Tract at the west end of the eastern sector, and the single brigade at Walong on the eastern border with Burma. In the western sector, Chinese troops would annihilate Indian troops around Pangong and Spangur Lakes and occupy all territory claimed by China.59 After an Indian counterattack failed on November 15, on November 16, Chinese troops attacked the Indian brigade at Walong, which fell by evening with more than 1,200 Indian losses. Having turned India’s strategic right flank, on November 18, the Chinese attacked the Tawang Road between the Se La Pass and the Bomdi La Pass near the Bhutan border, India’s operational left flank in the eastern sector. At Se La, simultaneously with a massive, combined-arms frontal attack under intense artillery barrages, Chinese light infantry destroyed two hundred Indian soldiers in ambushes.60 After annihilating three Indian brigades in the Tawang Tract, Chinese infantry facing only a single Indian battalion advanced rapidly to about 30 km from Tezpur, the region’s major town. With both operational flanks in the eastern sector turned, the primary defensive forces annihilated, and “nothing between the Chinese army and the plains, Nehru prepared for the loss of Assam.”61 Also on November 18, Chinese forces launched a general artillerysupported attack in the west. Moving along interior lines and the Xinjiang-Tibet road, Chinese forces maneuvered around the Kongka Pass

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to envelope the remaining Indian Forward-Policy positions. By early November 20, Chinese forces had annihilated all Indian positions west of Spangur Lake.62

Ending the War In a month, China’s offensive had crushed Indian resistance in both disputed border sectors. The PLA had turned both Indian strategic flanks, seized the NEFA rear areas, and occupied the Aksai Chin against little resistance. China was well positioned and fully able to establish and enforce the boundaries that Beijing claimed. Instead, contrary to Euro-American strategic doctrines, China declared a unilateral cease-fire. Zhou had announced on November 19, that on November 21, Chinese forces would disengage; on December 1, all Chinese forces would withdraw 20 km from the McMahon Line in the east and the 1959 LAC in the west.63 China promptly returned more than 3,000 Indian prisoners of war with all captured equipment—carefully cleaned and polished—but without either negotiations or political conditions. As Chinese forces conducted an orderly withdrawal, Zhou again offered to resolve the border conflict through negotiations.64 Although Nehru abandoned his Forward Policy, he did not waver from his position that India’s boundaries were firm and not open to discussion. India re-occupied its pre–1959 positions and continued territorial claims to the Aksai Chin and all other disputed territories, as if the war had never happened.

Strategic Perspectives Within their Clausewitzian-realpolitik Cold-War perspectives, Moscow, London, and Washington found only one approach to the events of summer 1962: to resolve this minor border dispute—as a local Li—peacefully and avoid escalation. Incompatible with the Yalta model—dividing the world into communist and democratic zones—any larger purposes— Shih—were outside Euro-American strategic perspectives. China and India had to resolve their dispute through negotiation. While Washington struggled to mediate, however, India was desperately building its national identity on autonomy and assertive neutralism and needed a clear victory—a great Li. China had to deliver a decisive, military counterblow to end India’s arrogant attempt to impose its claims by force. Beijing knew that any counterblow had to intimidate New Delhi, but not

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antagonize Washington or Moscow, and had to be contained within the border regions.

The Indian Perspective—Li-Strategy Having replaced his Bandung visions of global neutralist nonalignment with a forces-based Li-strategy, Nehru’s aim was to recover territory, despite Chinese opposition, which he expected to be weak and superficial. Although general war was unacceptable, Nehru’s estimate of terrain, urgency, and India’s military weaknesses made limited war also impossible and inaction, ruinous. Like most of the world, Nehru smothered his fears by convincing himself that China was in no position to use force. “There is no doubt that, because, not only of bad harvests but for other internal reasons—economic and otherwise—there has been a great setback in China.”65 Beijing also faced growing tensions with Moscow, while Chiang threatened U.S.-supported landings to recover the mainland. The deepening Soviet-Indian donor-recipient relationship convinced Nehru that China would not risk escalation in the shadow of Moscow’s patronage, which he handily transformed from self-interested strategic defense into sympathetic alliance. Soviet airpower and transport would shift the decisive operational advantage to Indian forces, despite numerical and positional inferiority. Although eminently reasonable within the forces-based Li-strategic perspective, Nehru’s estimate of China’s weakness ignored Beijing’s intent. Since the Tibetan revolt had made the disputed border areas a critical Chinese national interest, his Forward Policy threatened China’s Tao and national Shih. A victim of his own hopes and self-deception, Nehru built his Li-strategy around India’s military weakness and misperceptions of both friends and enemies.

The Chinese Perspective—Shih-Strategy While Nehru petulantly neglected grand strategy and geopolitics and focused India’s attention narrowly on the border dispute—a local Li— Beijing was increasingly involved at tactical, operational, and strategic levels. Although China’s Great Shih included Tibet, the Indian border dispute was simply a Li within Mao’s and Zhou’s greater Shih-strategy. With growing credibility, Zhou’s suggestions that China’s Shih had solidified enough to support an assertive foreign policy were influencing devout Maoist determinations to cope first with China’s domestic difficulties.

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Beijing’s major international concern was the tacit superpower support for Nehru’s Forward Policy. With armies lying in readiness across the Ussuri River in the north, the Soviet Union, China’s strategic ally, was slowly transforming ideological revisionism into strategic hostility. While New Delhi and Washington were actively supporting rebellion in Tibet, U.S. support had transformed the Kuomintang on Taiwan from a fugitive rump into an aggressive enemy. Beijing felt besieged with potential threats on three frontiers and active internal discontent.66 While India’s evident military weakness invited China to crush its challenges, any superpower involvement would change the relative geostrategic balance—as U.S. intervention and Soviet neutrality had done in 1958— and threaten escalation. Nehru’s provocative Forward Policy with apparent superpower support abruptly expanded the Aksai Chin from a minor Li, wisely deferred, into a critical Great Li that threatened China’s national Tao and Shih. While Mao could not accept Nehru’s arrogant challenge and risk escalation, he could “no longer vacillate or hesitate to perform our duty to reunify our country.”67 While struggling against the United States in the east, China could not be “so foolish as to antagonize India in the west. . . . We cannot have two centers of attention, nor can we take friend for foe.”68 Without antagonizing Washington or Moscow, Mao needed to shock the Indians into changing their intent, teach them their proper place in China’s world, and announce that position to the world—an intent-based Shih-strategy. Just as he had decided in 1950 to use the PLA—euphemistically as the Chinese People’s Volunteers—to resist U.S. intervention in Korea, Mao decided on action not to recover territory but to change his enemies’ intents and to strengthen China’s Tao and Shih.

The Policy Level China’s leaders understood the 1962 Sino-Indian War—like the Korean War—as an integrated political, economic, and diplomatic effort, within which military operations were one essential element. China’s policy leaders planned military strategy in pursuit of China’s national interest—Shih and Tao—through establishing China’s sovereignty and legitimacy as a great power. Policy decisions emerged from “the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee. The CMC made all major decisions on rules of engagement, guidelines to counter the Forward Policy of India in the antinibbling campaign, the conduct of the war, the main direction of attack, operations plans, and the cease-fire and withdrawal. . . . Major issues were decided by Chairman Mao Tse-tung himself.”69 Since China’s strategic culture permeated the entire chain of command, Mao and Zhou could depend

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on commanders and diplomats with broad initiative to preserve Shih at operational and tactical levels.

The Strategic Level Recalling Sun Tzu’s teaching that the purpose and conduct of an operation were more important for strategic success than its immediate operational consequence, Mao focused his 1962 Shih-strategy also on Moscow and Washington. The decision to use force and the war’s operational restraint targeted any intent at Soviet or U.S. collusion with India against China.70 Since an indirect strategic aim was to avoid escalating to confrontation with the superpowers, any action had to show restraint. Since the immediate political aim was to change India’s intent, any military action had to be both decisive and inconsistent with Nehru’s expectations. Since Mao’s broad political aim included strengthening China’s legitimacy as a respectable international citizen, any action had to rest on international law. To consolidate Chinese domestic solidarity, any action had to be dramatic and clearly successful. To punish India by achieving a limited objective with a limited force—rather than annihilating or defeating Indian forces, Chinese troops had to act in a patronal or parental way. To assert China’s proper position— great-power Tao—China had to assume a superior posture toward India, in both diplomatic and military gestures, as elder to junior brother.71 With the infrastructure patiently prepared over a decade, Mao mobilized an army corps, not much stronger than the Indian border troops, but including tanks and artillery, to punish India quickly and sternly. To confound Indian expectations, while anti-nibbling skirmishes in summer had concentrated in Aksai Chin, China oriented the offensive toward the NEFA in the east along the McMahon Line. Mao’s Shih-strategy began with robust logistics, strategic surprise, a dramatic shift from defense to offense, terrain advantage—Ti Shih—in the east, and troop morale—Chi Shih—within a fleeting opportunity—Yin Shih. Zhou’s continuing proposals for peaceful negotiations and patience in facing India’s provocations and arrogance deceived Nehru into expecting further restraint. Ignoring Sun Tzu’s teaching— “humble words and increased preparations were signs that the enemy was about to advance”—Nehru perceived Zhou’s humble words and the PLA’s increased preparations as weakness.72

The Operational Level Chinese commanders refined Mao’s Shih-strategy into an operational concept and battle plan based on the unorthodox, surprise and deception, mobility and maneuver, flexibility in winning the first battle, and robust

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logistics. In contrast to Chiang’s personal command of the 1944 campaigns from Chungking, the Front Commander of the Tibet Military Region set operational priorities, and division commanders issued battle orders. The Unorthodox. Clausewitzian strategic estimates clearly placed China’s interests in the west. The Xinjiang–Tibet road and China’s forward military posts had established China’s superior mobility and secure logistics in Aksai Chin. Since the still active 1959 Tibetan revolt, pro-Soviet Tibetan-Muslim insurgents, with Soviet arms and sanctuaries in Soviet territory, threatened Chinese supply lines along the highway. Zhou’s proposals to accept Indian control in the east in exchange for China’s sovereignty in Aksai Chin implied China’s primary interest and focused Indian, Soviet, and EuroAmerican attention in the west. Since Beijing had also focused its antinibbling campaign in the west, orthodoxy demanded that India expect and prepare for a Chinese attack in Aksai Chin. China’s unorthodox attack at Kejielang and refusal to exploit its dramatic victory violated Euro-American principles of war and left the Indians both confused and defeated. When the Chinese again concentrated five divisions to surround and destroy Indian troops at Walong and Se La–Bomdi La—again the unorthodox—the Indians were again confused and again defeated. Deception. In September and early October 1962, while the Indians were struggling to supply themselves and mount Forward-Policy offensives, Chinese commanders pretended not to hide their preparations for war. To intimidate the Indians, Chinese support troops moved equipment, weapons, and construction materials to forward positions overtly, where Indian agents could observe them easily. When Chinese combat troops rehearsed tactics, however, they used rear areas beyond Indian observation. To conceal tactical deployments, maneuvers, and force concentrations in assault positions, units regularly made long, forced, fast marches on dark nights through valleys, forests, fog, and storms. Chinese commanders enforced radio silence, while other units demonstrated for Indian observers and broadcast misleading transmissions from and to phantom units deploying in the wrong direction. Sometimes they moved at night while holding brilliantly burning torches high. Sometimes they sneaked silently and invisibly along covered and concealed trails.73 The conflicting reports only confused Indian commanders and deepened the formless Chinese Hsing and opportunity Shih. Mobility and Concentration to Shift from Defense to Offense. China’s Shihstrategy refined Mao’s Civil War experiences in its insistence on concentrating superior forces at decisive times and places to shift from defense to

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offense. Chinese commanders relied on mobility and maneuver in massing acclimatized troops to overwhelm dispersed, fortified positions occupied by larger Indian forces newly arrived from the south but unable to mass. Mobile Chinese troops repeatedly deceived and surprised Indian commanders with bold, unorthodox penetrations to isolate, encircle, and destroy Indian forces with a brief local superiority. After each engagement, as Indian forces withdrew amid struggles to re-organize, Chinese troops routinely dispersed to pursue and exploit the next Indian objective. The First Battle. In planning and directing the war, the CMC integrated deliberate shifts from defense to offense with Sun Tzu’s insistence on striking decisively to win the first battle by striking only after the enemy has committed his forces. Although India pursued its nibbling Forward Policy in all sectors, the proximate Indian commitment had been near Che Dong. China’s quick, unorthodox, and unexpected shift to the offense opened the first battle at Kejielang. Having decided that the first battle was to be fought at Kejielang, the CMC stressed that decisive victory was vitally important to China and to the PLA.74 Logistics. The Sino-Indian war occurred across the Kunlun, Karakoram, and Ladakh ranges of Tibet and northern India at 4,000–5,000–meter altitudes in steep terrain and inhospitable climate. Although Chinese field commanders had intentionally acclimatized their troops over months and years, few Indian troops had ever been in the mountains.75 Although always a lower priority than China’s national Shih, from the early 1950s, the Tibet and Xinjiang Military Regions had studiously developed logistics bases and stockpiles— some 35,000 tons in reserves—and permanent garrisons for a border war with India. By 1962, some 2,000 km of PLA supply lines stretched through the world’s most difficult terrain to a few kilometers from most tactical objectives along the Xinjiang-Tibet road and north of the McMahon Line. Although in some areas, especially in the east, the only transport was by mule, ox, or manpower for the last few kilometers, during the brief war, eastern China shipped an additional 30,000 tons to the front. The result was a Chinese army whose acclimated soldiers were well equipped and carried nine days’ provisions and thirty kg of supplies and ammunition, despite bad roads and difficult terrain. In contrast, Indian forces relied on the old British railways in the valleys and a modern road system for transport to well-stocked, lowland, logistics bases 20–40 km from the frontier. Without even a rudimentary trail system, however, Indian light infantry struggled to carry weapons and supplies “over slippery trails across steep ridges at altitudes lethal to its unacclimated and underclad troops.”76

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The Tactical Level Mao’s Shih-strategy focused tactical operations on China’s political aims through the General Staff’s rules of engagement.77 Within Beijing’s rigid strategic control, troop leaders had flexibility in operational and tactical command in confidence that they were in accord with people and ruler. As in Rommel’s blitzkrieg campaigns in France and Libya, regimental commanders determined how and when to engage, while battalion commanders seized opportunities to outflank, encircle, and destroy enemy forces.78 Rather than occupying territory, along all three fronts, locally superior Chinese forces first encircled Indian positions and then annihilated them in simultaneous rear and frontal attacks. At every echelon from platoon through division, some part of the Chinese force always penetrated to the Indian rear to cut lines of retreat in coordination with main attacking forces. Accomplishing this compound tactical objective—encirclement and annihilation—punished Nehru’s arrogant Forward Policy and also taught respect throughout the world for China’s national sovereignty, still challenged in Taiwan, Macao, and Hong Kong.

What Happened—Shih-Strategy Mao and Zhou faced China’s difficulties in the early 1960s as they had faced the Civil War, World War II, and Korea through a multilevel Shih-strategy. Priorities at the geostrategic level stressed China’s Tao and position in the world of superpowers. At the national, domestic level, most critical was Mao’s project to build national Shih and solidarity between people and ruler. At the regional, operational level, China’s Shih-strategy focused on India’s arrogance in challenging China’s patronal dominance. At the tactical, local level, Beijing needed to restore proper balance without escalating a minor Li into an unwanted general war. Although Euro-Americans interpreted the cease-fire as Chinese simplicity—or duplicity—and withdrawal as fear of retaliation, Beijing—most concerned about its own Tao and national Shih—felt that the PLA had accomplished its missions.

Geostrategic Shih Although China directed force against India, at the geostrategic level its indirect targets included the superpowers. While China’s direct approach dissuaded India from consorting with the United States, Zhou’s warning that “U.S. aid to India would enlarge the area of conflict” targeted not only the United States but also the Soviet Union.79 Beyond the direct threat to Washington, it presented an indirect, implicit protest to Soviet support for India against China. In the 1960s climate of freedom fighters and the

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Bandung spirit, Zhou had re-affirmed that China would resist any superpower involvement—direct or indirect—in any conflict with China. The Cuban Missile Crisis. Although unplanned and uncoordinated, the Cuban missile crisis in October 1962 reinforced China’s Shih-strategic use of force by isolating the Himalayan battlefield. Faced with the U.S. Navy blockading its Cuban client and the PLA assaulting its Indian client, Moscow initially endorsed China’s cease-fire proposals. Weakly supporting Beijing, whose support he needed over the Cuban missile crisis, Khrushchev considered canceling commitments to Nehru and adopted neutrality in the Sino-Indian dispute.80 While Moscow wrestled with indecision, Washington and London answered India’s appeal for help with perfunctory, emergency airlifts of infantry weapons, mountain artillery, and field radios.81 For Beijing—facing a U.S.-supported Taiwan in the east and a Soviet army in the north—the Cuban missile crisis transformed fears of superpower collusion into great opportunity Shih. While Moscow and Washington were obsessed with Cuba, China asserted regional dominance and established its sovereignty clearly in South Asia without confronting either superpower. A properly chastised India was no longer credible as the leader of any neutralist, nonaligned movement or as the strategic key to Asia. Geopolitics beyond Aksai Chin. Threatened by the eager Anglo-American support for India, and fearful that Nehru would transfer his allegiance, Moscow reversed its neutral position when China withdrew from Aksai Chin. In December 1962, after the crises in Cuba and Aksai Chin had dissipated, Soviet military deliveries to India increased and accelerated. For Beijing, the Indian war was a local Li in China’s larger, global Shih-strategy that involved China’s struggles with the United States and the Soviet Union. Moscow discovered a new need for several Asian counterweights to isolate Beijing in a cordon sanitaire, while Washington recognized China’s critical— but still ambiguous—role in containment. Using force had stabilized the border—local Li—gained time to build Chinese solidarity—national Shih—stifled India’s assertiveness and increased China’s stature as a legitimate sovereign state—Tao—and muffled the U.S. threat—international Shih. The Soviet threat remained.

Operational Shih For Indians and Clausewitzians alike, the Sino-Indian War seemed a surrealist dream that the Chinese suddenly appeared in Indian territory to annihilate all soldiers in the theater, and then, just as suddenly, disappeared. The pattern of Chinese operations—clearly an echo of China’s intervention in

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Korea in 1950—applied Sun Tzu’s teaching: “exhibit a maiden’s coyness; . . . afterwards emulate the running hare, . . . it will be too late for the enemy.”82 By presenting a deceptively weak image—Hsing—and then exploding into overwhelming force, Beijing combined the orthodox with the unorthodox to confuse both New Delhi and Indian field commanders. Instead of exploiting tactical success, Chinese commanders placidly chose not to pursue whether the enemy fled in panic or retreated in order. These operational anomalies—to Clausewitzian observers—were the Shih-principles that the ancient strategists had embedded so deeply in China’s strategic culture that Chinese leaders—the party chairman or PLA sergeants—relied on them instinctively. Sun Tzu’s five factors indicated PLA superiority in every aspect except national Tao. Cold weather and altitude affected both sides, but China enjoyed all-weather roads for large vehicles, while Indian troops had great difficulty in reaching the battlefield. The terrain on the Chinese side of the border was flatter and more accessible than the steep approaches on the Indian side. Although China had been patiently preparing logistical routes and positions for a decade in all three sectors, terrain and geography gave terrain Shih to the Chinese preferentially in the east. Chinese officers’ and sergeants’ abilities reflected combat experience and battle training in more than a decade of suppression operations against rebels. Indian officers suffered low pay, poor logistics, and low confidence in their commanders—many of whom remained reluctant to pursue Nehru’s Forward Policy. Chinese officers believed in what they were doing and trusted Mao and Zhou. Although the Great Leap Forward had enervated China’s national Tao by late 1962, the PLA Tao and morale Shih remained high with the legacy of Mao’s 1949 victory. Chinese troops were well motivated and better equipped, acclimated, and supported than were the Indians. For the brief Sino-Indian War in a remote area, the army’s Tao and Shih were more influential than China’s national Tao.83 The war’s political implications, logistical impossibilities, and military difficulties had stripped the Indian army of Chi Shih—morale Shih—which Mao had patiently developed in the PLA since the 1930s. Convergence of the logistical impossibilities facing the Indians in the trackless Thag La Range, low Indian morale, and the Cuban Missile Crisis created a fleeting Yin Shih— Opportunity Shih—for the Chinese. Unlike the Korean War—although the Indian army bore no comparison to the U.S. Army in Korea—the Chinese did not become arrogant with success in the first offensive, but prudent. Instead of pursuing the retreating Indian troops, they constructed roads for moving artillery forward before the second offensive. In contrast to Mao’s overconfidence in the Korean War under the same conditions, this prudence after brilliant success

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deepened China’s operational Shih-strategy. When it resumed the second offensive after three silent, inactive weeks, the PLA exploited its increased battlefield Shih with another shock by speedy movement and deep infiltration. The operational pause that Euro-Americans saw as restraint or simplicity, China’s commanders understood as responsible actions not to relax tensions but to strengthen Shih—national, strategic, and operational—for exploiting Indian weaknesses.

Epilogue When China used force in 1962, Beijing’s aims had little to do with India’s strategic significance and much to do with China’s broader aims at home and throughout the world. The 1962 war began to shift Mao’s Shihstrategic precedence from its post-1949 focus on national Tao and harmony between people and ruler to international legitimacy.

Cold-War Geopolitics Moscow, Washington, and New Delhi all emerged from the Sino-Indian War off balance. Moscow struggled between balancing both Washington and Beijing and keeping India outside the U.S. containment belt and inside an ecumenical solidarity of Soviet communism and Indian nationalism. New Delhi was strategically obsessed with Pakistan and growing unrest in its eastern provinces and Nagaland. Moscow needed both India and Pakistan to balance China, while India needed the Soviet Union as its only advantage in unstable—even hostile—relations with Pakistan, China, and the United States. Washington needed Pakistan to preserve the Baghdad Pact, India to preserve democracy in Asia, and Moscow to control China. By chastising and punishing, but not invading or dominating, India, Mao’s Shih-strategy had transformed China’s 1959–1960 difficulties into opportunities in 1963–1964 to resume building national Shih and expand Zhou’s Bandung initiative.

Recovering India’s Honor The 1962 war had tinged any Indian perspective on China with injustice, humiliation, and suspicion. After experiences with Vietnamese who faced the Chinese in 1979, the younger generation of adventuresome, postcolonial Indian commanders transformed shame into hubris. Absorbing both the 1962 war and the 1979 Vietnam war, and learning new lessons from the old battlefields, they were ready and anxious to redeem India’s neutralist honor in battle. In 1987, young NEFA commanders launched local Indian

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patrols supported by Soviet aircraft flown by Indian pilots across the Thag La Ridge and the McMahon Line—the 1962 battlefield. “If the Chinese hit back, the Indian forces, by now strongly equipped and well trained, could encircle and annihilate their enemies—and thus erase the stain left by the rout of the army in 1962.” In 1987, however, India was no longer relevant to China’s greater Shih-strategy. “China declined to be provoked, although it heavily reinforced along the threatened border.” Already in its last throes, Moscow showed no interest, while Washington condemned India and demanded that the Indians withdraw.84 The 1987 Indian military adventure, however, left two combat-ready armies facing each other. National pride and domestic political pressure prevented India’s unilateral disengagement or withdrawal from field positions in difficult terrain, while greatly straining Indian society with heavy expense to the economy. The Chinese in their well-fortified 1962 positions enjoyed the advantages of terrain Shih, numerical and logistical superiority, solid national Tao, a growing economy, national solidarity, and robust national Shih.

Border Negotiations To Nehru’s persistent refusal to negotiate in the 1950s and 1960s, Zhou had responded with Sun Tzu’s patience for traversing the long, circuitous route.85 “For decades after the 1962 Sino-Indian war, New Delhi refused to consider normalizing relations unless Beijing withdrew from the territories it had occupied. The Chinese said that any boundary settlement would obviously take time, and that meanwhile India should also be ready to improve relations in other fields.”86 Only after India’s abortive 1987 advances across the McMahon Line did the two prime ministers, Rajiv Gandhi and Li Peng, resume discussions in Beijing in 1988. Less to resolve than to neutralize the dispute, they formed a Sino-Indian working group to address the border’s technical issues.87 In September 1993, Prime Minister Narasimha Rao’s agreement “on the maintenance of peace and tranquility along the line of actual control in the India-China border areas” became a formal Sino-Indian treaty.”88 In 1996, the two sides established a new border crossing for trade between Tibet and Sikkim. While Beijing tacitly recognized Sikkim’s 1975 annexation into India, New Delhi tacitly recognized China’s sovereignty in Xinjiang by referring to the region as the Tibet Autonomous Region.89 With the treaty’s crucial disclaimer that references to the LAC did not prejudice either side’s position, the 1996 result was exactly what Zhou Enlai had sought in 1950 as the preliminary to negotiation. In June 2003, when Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee visited Beijing to confirm the Sikkim-Tibet agreement, Chinese troops detained an

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Indian border patrol from Arunachal Pradesh. When Beijing reported the Indian patrol’s retreat after brief detention, New Delhi complained that China’s action breached the 1993 agreement promising no aggressive acts when patrols met.90 India petulantly revived Nehru’s claim that the border alignments were historical fact “and there is no dispute about them.”91 In 2005, Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh agreed to seek a “package settlement. . . . China would drop its claim to the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, and India would accept China’s rule in part of Ladakh [with] some adjustments to the borders there.”92


Chapter 7 The Sino-Soviet War

In March 1969, Chinese and Soviet troops clashed twice at Zhenbao (Damansky or Damanskiy) Island. Through spring and summer, additional minor incidents threatened escalation to war.1 In September 1969, Alexei Kosygin and Zhou Enlai met in Beijing and agreed to cease military action. Sino-Soviet border discussions resumed in October 1969 and continued to May 1989. As the Soviet Union faced its own demise, Premier Mikhail Gorbachev accepted a final settlement along the existing boundary between the two countries.2 In 1999, Russia, China, and the other successor states of the former Soviet Union agreed their borders’ locations.3

The Context Although Mao’s revolution had disappointed Stalin’s hopes to export Sovietstyle communism into China, both leaders had determined to develop SinoSoviet friendship based on equality, mutuality, and trust.4 The Mao-Stalin unbreakable friendship sealed in the 1950 Sino-Soviet Friendship Treaty seemed to justify the Euro-American understanding of China as international communism’s Asian arm. From Moscow, however, Asia presented a different scene. By the 1960s, instead of a partner in communism, Russians were gradually rediscovering the China threat, which had collapsed in twentieth-century civil wars, emerging again as real and looming. With the comfortable premise that they were just like us, logical EuroAmerican, Clausewitzian strategists and Wilsonian diplomats concluded that Moscow and Beijing would avoid war and maintain the status quo. They would agree to disagree on international politics, continue to bear the

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burdens of historical, cultural prejudices, and even ideological differences, as they had for centuries. They—Chinese and Russians—were not, however, like us—Americans and Europeans. The disputed border and Chinese migration into the Soviet Far East provided territorial justification for war. Mao’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and Brezhnev’s new Soviet policy lines opened various paths toward Sino-Soviet clashes. Stalin, Mao, and Khrushchev had only neutralized or deferred unsettled Sino-Soviet differences. The inability of a decadent post-Stalinist Soviet Union and a youthful Maoist China to ignore those cultural differences foreshadowed an end to any positive atmosphere between the two countries.

The Russian Perspective As unbreakable friendship became the Sino-Soviet split in the 1960s, Russians recalled thirteenth-century penetrations by a Mongol Golden Horde into Muscovy. After taking Kiev and sacking Moscow, the barbarians ruled southern Russia for two centuries. With the simultaneous decline of the Qing dynasty and Russian industrialization, Russian appetites for trade and territory began to infringe on imperial China. For Cold-War Russians, the sinister image of a yellow peril sweeping across the steppes persisted.5 While the irresistible pull of the west summoned Peter I to integrate a modernizing Russia into eighteenth-century Europe, the push from the east was unrelenting. For several centuries, Tsarist Russia emulated and accommodated the Euro-American community, while ambivalently cooperating and competing with China and Asia. While neither Russians nor their rulers ever lost the urge to withdraw into the true Russian soul, even under Stalin and Khrushchev, many Russians preserved self-images of Russia as a civilizational barrier against the barbarian East. Across generations, this image of Russia as a guardian of western values kept Russo-Chinese relations cool. Tsarist Russians had joined the Europeans and Americans in exploiting China as a pseudosovereign economic opportunity in the Russian Far East. With due regard for Mao’s communist credentials, Soviet Moscow often treated China as a geostrategic or economic partner. Despite, materialistic profits or ideological affinities, neither Moscow’s politics nor Russia’s culture had ever accepted China as a political or cultural equal.6 Although Stalin and Mao had pledged their countries to the success of the revolution, by the 1960s, Chinese and Soviets alike were trying to forget the dewy-eyed unbreakable friendship. For the Soviet Union, China’s reappearance in geopolitics challenged traditional Russian attitudes of guardianship and manipulative relativism as not only anachronistic, but untenable. On the treacherous seas of the Cold

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War, Moscow found itself navigating between the Scylla of U.S. containment and the Charybdis of Chinese resurgence. China’s growing influence in the south and east raised the specter of an ambitious China reviving Beijing’s territorial claims along the Sino-Soviet border. While resisting containment in Europe, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Korea, and Japan, Moscow now faced the need to contain Beijing in Northeast Asia.

The View from Beijing While Moscow, even following Brezhnev’s assertive doctrine, could comfortably avoid confrontation, Beijing—with the foundations of national Shih built over two decades—could shift its strategic focus to geopolitics. China’s successes in Tibet and the impasse in Taiwan had solidified the Chinese people around Mao’s great Shih: a unified China with its proper Tao in an unfriendly world. A ceasefire in Korea and unequivocal victory in the Sino-Indian War had convinced Zhou that the correlation of forces had changed in China’s favor. Expanding Zhou’s successful 1955 Bandung initiative, in late 1957 Mao announced China’s support for wars of national liberation, since the East Wind was now stronger than the West Wind. Even after Zhou’s Bandung initiative, however, China’s strategic focus remained on building national Shih, solidarity, and unity between leader and people. With strong national Shih, Mao and Zhou adopted a militant, outwardlooking foreign policy and shifted the focus for using or threatening force away from territorial disputes. Beijing began to justify using force in China’s Maoist ideology and great-power authority to influence lesser governments’ policies and decisions. As the common identity shared by Stalin and Mao as leaders of revolutionary Marxist-Leninist states collapsed, geostrategic pressures deepened the Sino-Soviet dispute that began to emerge in the late 1950s.

Rising Tensions After Stalin’s death exposed deteriorating Sino-Soviet relations, his successor, Nikita S. Khrushchev, implicitly repudiated Mao’s personal leadership in China by renouncing Stalin’s personality cult. Although China’s ideologically presumptuous Great Leap Forward offended devout Soviet Communists, Khrushchev recognized Sino-Soviet friendship in joint declarations with Mao on a state visit to Beijing in October 1954.7 As Khrushchev’s policy shifted to peaceful coexistence with the United States, Mao was building national Shih and pursuing China’s Tao for the inevitable

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Leninist-Stalinist war with capitalism. By the late 1950s, it was clear that Khrushchev would not allow either Sino-American tensions—Korea and Taiwan—or China’s national interests—legitimacy and solidarity—to interfere with Moscow’s interests in stabilizing Soviet-U.S. relations. Any cooperation between Moscow and Washington—coexistence, commerce, or collusion—would leave China exposed and vulnerable to the many latent threats among its unfriendly neighbors. Chief among these threats was U.S. support for the rebel Kuomintang (KMT) regime on Formosa. The continuing conflict with India over Tibet threatened to escalate, while the Soviet Union, Vietnam, Burma, and Pakistan still disputed their borders with China. With crises in both the Middle East and the Taiwan Straits, SinoSoviet relations reached a climax in summer 1958 when Mao and Khrushchev met in Beijing.

The Taiwan Straits Crisis In summer 1958, although Sino-Soviet friendship was beginning to fray, Moscow still remained a valuable ally in confronting Washington both over Taiwan and over China’s great-power status. Despite Sino-Soviet disagreement over the U.S.-British troop landings in Lebanon and Jordan, Mao understood that the new Soviet long-range nuclear missiles would deter U.S. interventions throughout the world, including China. He seems to have decided on recapturing Quemoy as an intermediate Li, while he could still count on Soviet support—logistical, political, conventional, and nuclear—to deter U.S. intervention. During Khrushchev’s visit to Beijing in July–August 1958, Mao informed him about an imminent military operation to “bring Taiwan back under China’s jurisdiction,” but neglected to mention any operational details or strategic plans. For what Khrushchev understood as a “decisive move against the Chiang Kai-shek regime,” Soviet support began to arrive in early August—long-range artillery, amphibious equipment, air-to-air missiles, combat aircraft, and military advisors.8 On August 23, 1958, after a heavy artillery preparation, Chinese patrol boats blockaded Quemoy and Matsu to prevent resupply and reinforcement. Contrary to Mao’s expectations, Washington deployed a carrier battle group to the Taiwan Straits, while President Dwight D. Eisenhower publicized U.S. commitment to protect Taiwan.9 Faced with overwhelming U.S. military retaliation, Mao abandoned the campaign as a lost Li and began to end the confrontation on September 6, with a proposal for SinoU.S. ceasefire negotiations. While Chinese artillery continued to fire on U.S.-escorted Taiwanese supply convoys, Moscow remained convinced that Mao’s operation was progressing as planned and expected Beijing’s

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imminent success. Khrushchev warned on September 7, that Moscow would understand any attack on mainland China as an attack against the Soviet Union. On September 21, he announced that using any nuclear weapons against China would be justification for a Soviet nuclear attack against the United States.10 While Khrushchev’s announcements created enormous advantages for Mao, Khrushchev realized that the Soviet-U.S. strategic balance was still very fragile and imposed very heavy risks on Moscow.11 Only in late September did he finally realize that Mao had never intended to achieve decisive results and had abandoned the campaign early in the month without informing him. Realizing that China had never been threatened with either invasion or nuclear attack, Khrushchev’s feelings of betrayal, frustration, and deception deepened into discord between Moscow and Beijing at all levels.12 After Mao’s duplicitous perfidy, Khrushchev echoed the United States in insisting on peaceful resolution of the Taiwan problem. Mao ended the crisis with a unilateral ceasefire on October 6.

Peaceful Coexistence Becomes People’s War When Moscow introduced Khrushchev’s new peaceful coexistence, Beijing denounced it as irresponsible and proposed Zhou’s successful Bandung initiative and China’s Maoism as the proper alternatives for pernicious Soviet revisionism. Khrushchev’s enthusiasm for the nuclear-test-ban movement, expressed during his visit to Washington in September 1959 deeply disappointed Mao, who professed not to fear nuclear weapons. After a bitter clash in Beijing over Taiwan, upon his return to Moscow, Khrushchev began quietly to withdraw Soviet military technicians from their advisory posts in China.13 In April 1960, the 90th anniversary of Lenin’s birth, Chinese leaders confirmed the rift by publishing a long statement, Long Live Leninism.14 In June 1960, the Chinese delegate to the Third Congress of the Romanian Communist Party in Bucharest scolded the Kremlin for compromising socialism with the implacably evil, imperialist enemy.15 Khrushchev punished Mao by recalling Soviet aid workers, advisors, and their technologies from China—their projects uncompleted—and terminating Soviet support for Albania, which had defected with China.16 Despite complementary support for North Vietnam’s struggle with the United States, the Soviet–U.S. Cuban missile crisis and the Sino-Indian conflict exposed the deep differences between Beijing and Moscow. After the Sino-Indian War, Beijing was without geopolitical influence, vulnerable to Soviet threats, and subject to the Brezhnev doctrine of enforced socialist solidarity. As confrontation escalated, the unbreakable 1950s

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Mao-Stalin friendship dissolved into “fratricidal polemics, diplomatic encirclement and counterencirclement maneuvers, arms race, and border violence.”17 When Leonid Brezhnev replaced Khrushchev and repudiated Maoism, Mao’s challenge to Soviet revisionism for abandoning true Marxist principles of socialist revolution elicited Soviet countercharges of subverting international socialist solidarity. In autumn 1966, as Mao launched his Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, Beijing expelled Soviet exchange students and Moscow reciprocated. Revolutionary fervor transformed Mao’s antirevisionism into anti-Soviet resentment that revitalized Chinese solidarity and national Shih. By the late 1960s, the Sino-Soviet philosophical squabble had deepened into a period of “ideological fervor and militarization within China. These were also periods when China’s militarized disputes and border clashes with the Soviets were most intense.”18 Despite aggressive border demonstrations, Beijing saw as hallucinatory Russian fears that Chinese migrants into the Soviet Far East portended irredentism. By the late 1960s, Moscow had realized not only that China was not an indispensable partner, but that the Soviet Union could itself legitimately claim Asian dominance. By 1968, the quarrel had escalated from doctrinal differences and competing claims to leadership of international communism to fierce diplomatic invectives over territory, security, trade, and national interest. Brezhnev’s call for broader strategic diversity in Asia suggested a reduction in Moscow’s reliance on Beijing to protect and promote Soviet interests, more direct Soviet involvement in Asia, and less deference to China. As the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution reached a climax, Beijing recognized sinister implications in the Brezhnev doctrine’s assertion of Moscow’s prerogative to intervene in socialist states to defend socialism. Moscow’s arrogant presumptions to dominance in India and Indochina and the 1968 Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia under the Brezhnev doctrine threatened Mao’s expanding Shih-strategy. Already disappointed by their erstwhile partner and sensitive to Soviet arrogance, Chinese leaders, with real ideological differences with Soviet socialism, easily envisioned an application of the Brezhnev doctrine to China. From a friend in need in the 1940s and 1950s, Moscow had become an enemy seeking to impose a foreign ideology, which would vitiate China’s national Shih. Submitting to Moscow’s disciplinary Brezhnev doctrine would destroy any legitimacy in China’s embryonic great-power status. In his declining years, Mao could not allow Soviet arrogance to disrupt China’s recovery of its lost Shih or divert Beijing from regaining its proper Tao.

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The Nuclear Issue “With the test of an atomic device in 1964 and a thermonuclear device two years later, the Chinese had developed some form of deterrent, but the achievement was incomplete without demonstrating survivable systems for delivery.”19 Despite its nuclear incompetence, China’s national Shih swelled into confidence and dignity as Beijing rediscovered Tao in greatpower status and independence from both the Soviet Union and the United States.20 By fall 1966, China had flight tested the liquid-fuelled DF-2 missile with a range of 1,450 km carrying a live 20 kt warhead. Beijing’s DF-3 missile had reached a range of 2,800 km in December 1966.21 After testing an air-dropped hydrogen bomb in June 1967, The Chinese expanded their fleet of 24 nuclear-capable, obsolete medium bombers to some 150 Il-28 bombers. With 20 DF-2 missiles in northeast China to target U.S. bases in Korea and Japan, in 1969, the inexperienced Chinese missile forces could execute basic tactical and strategic missions.22 Even with the missiles, “the PRC [lacked a reliable] delivery system for nuclear warheads and [remained] highly vulnerable to preemptive attacks by either the United States or the Soviet Union.”23 Less concerned about the Soviet threat, Beijing located its nuclear weapons infrastructure—the Lanzhou gas diffusion plant and the Northwest Nuclear Weapons Design Academy—in Qinghai province in western China. With neither suitable aircraft nor reliable missiles to deliver nuclear weapons effectively, Beijing delayed efforts to protect nuclear weapon systems and infrastructure until the 1970s.24 Since China did not launch its first satellite until 1970, the Chinese early-warning and command-andcontrol capabilities were probably inadequate in 1969. “Our country, in a sense, is still a non-nuclear power. With this little nuclear weaponry, we cannot be counted as a nuclear country. If we are to fight a war, we must use conventional weapons.”25 Even in the 1960s, Euro-American-Soviet strategists were beginning to conclude that nuclear war was militarily dysfunctional, strategically irrational, and politically unacceptable. Instead of what Americans and Soviets developed into the mutual balance of terror, Mao formed his nuclear Shihstrategy around the people’s power, solidarity, and desperation Shih that had prevailed in Korea. Like their Euro-American counterparts, Chinese strategists had studied the post-nuclear phase of general war but concluded, in contrast, that China could tolerate massive casualties.26 Mao realized that threatening to extend people’s war in reaction to Soviet or U.S. nuclear attack was China’s strongest advantage and deterrent. “It is easy for us to

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fight an invading enemy since he will fall into the people’s encirclement. . . . To achieve victory, we must have more people.”27 After a scheduled nuclear test in December 1968, China conducted two thermonuclear tests during the 1969 crisis within six days. “Mao’s act carried an unmistakable political message for the Soviet divisions massed across the border.”28

The Border While the frontiers between Chinese and Russians had never been tranquil or properly agreed, they first clashed along the Amur–Ussuri Rivers in the seventeenth century. In 1689, Chinese troops forced Russian settlers to withdraw from the rivers’ valleys in the Treaty of Nerchinsk. As the Qing dynasty declined, Russia expanded eastward from the 1840s with a freerider strategy—a twisted Shih-strategy—that pressed Russian claims only when more urgent matters preoccupied Beijing. While the Taiping Rebellion convulsed China (1851–1864), 20,000 Russian troops occupied the left bank and delta of the Heilong (Amur) River and the maritime provinces against no resistance. After confirming the Russian occupation in the 1858 Treaty of Aihui (Aigun), during the second Opium War, the 1860 Treaty of Peking transferred 1.5 million sq km of the Ussuri region to Russia, including Primorye, Khabarovsk, Amur, and Birobidshan. These unequal treaties—never ratified by the Qing government—placed the frontiers of the Russian and Chinese empires along two great rivers, the Amur and the Ussuri. In the west, during the 1863–1877 Yakub Beg Rebellion in East Turkestan, Russian troops occupied Yili (Ili). Imperial Chinese forces quickly penetrated deep into the Altishahr regions of Central Asia, Kashgar, Urumqi, and Yili, to establish and occupy Xinjiang province. Although the 1877 Treaty of Livadia recognized Chinese sovereignty, Russian troops withdrew only after Peking paid a nine–million rouble subsidy (Treaty of St. Petersburg, 1878). With completion of the trans-Siberian railway, Russia unilaterally claimed Lüshun (Port Arthur) and Dalian (Dairen) as treaty ports in 1898. While the rest of the world suppressed the Boxer Rebellion, Russia occupied Manchuria and extended its influence into Inner Mongolia in 1905. After encouraging the Mongols to rebellion in 1910, Russia established a protectorate over Outer Mongolia as Peking struggled with the 1911 Xinhai revolution. Neither the Qing dynasty nor the Nationalist government ever accepted the terms and borders of the nineteenth-century unequal treaties and recalled ancestral claims to about a million square miles in Soviet central Asia and the Siberian maritime provinces. In 1949, in a sweeping policy for

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all border disputes, Mao’s government in Beijing agreed to frontier alignments as history had left them. While respecting the 1860 Treaty of Peking, Beijing differed with Moscow in interpreting the other unequal treaties and sought resolution in negotiations. After the Korean War, overpopulation and underdevelopment focused China’s attention on idealistic hopes for rapid industrialization. The sparsely inhabited spaces of China’s former domains in the Soviet Far East exerted a powerful attraction as sites for new Chinese cities and farms. Periodic discussions with the Soviets brought no useful results or progress. In 1964, Sino-Soviet border negotiations foundered as Soviet leaders felt unable to ignore the Chinese threat to examine other ways for resolving the border issue. The focus of the 1969 dispute, the small, uninhabited Zhenbao island in the Ussuri River (Wusuli Jiang), has no strategic or economic value in a barren, marshy region that is itself almost unpopulated. Moscow insisted that the nineteenth-century treaties separated the two countries “where the river waters lapped the Chinese banks [and gave] the Soviet Union exclusive ownership of the rivers and all their islands. Beijing argued that . . . the boundary lay along the thalweg (an imaginary line along the deepest part of the main channel), which thus distributed the islands and gave the neighbors equal rights of use of the rivers.”29

Opportunity and Preemption Moscow recovered from the failed negotiations by transforming the border dispute into an ideological threat to socialism and assert the Brezhnev doctrine. In the Soviet Far East, Moscow moved several regular Red Army divisions to positions along the Siberian-Mongolian border, raised the level of border alert, and increased patrolling along the Ussuri and Amur Rivers.30 The 1966 Soviet-Mongolian Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation, which allowed Moscow to deploy troops into Mongolia with Soviet logistical and storage facilities in Choibalsang, brought Beijing no comfort. Beijing quickly recognized Moscow’s moves as a clear strategic threat to China’s Tao and the ideological threat to Mao’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution—China’s Shih. Instead of reacting directly to the new Soviet threat through Mongolia, Beijing’s indirect approach recalled Sun Tzu’s advice to “make noise in the east and attack in the west,” one of ancient China’s 36 Military Strategies.31 Mao gradually increased Chinese troop strength—regulars and borderguards—along the border to about 400,000. In winter 1967–1968, tension erupted in several clashes between Soviet border forces and Chinese troops along the Ussuri River. Aggressive

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patrolling culminated in five Chinese nonmilitary deaths at Zhilixin Island, 10 km north of Zhenbao on January 5, 1968. In summer 1968, as if to complement rising border tensions, Moscow conducted its first major military exercise in Mongolia. With active Soviet military operations in Mongolia, Moscow’s August intervention in Czechoslovakia heightened Chinese concerns about a parallel scenario in China—the same concern that had led Mao to cross the Yalu into Korea in 1950. With the new confidence and Shih—resting precariously on China’s putative status as a nuclear great power—Mao called on the Chinese people to prepare again for war. Superior Soviet forces would not intimidate the new great-power China with rising Shih, which had already overcome superior U.S. forces in Korea. The abiding principles of Mao’s Shih-strategy pointed toward preemptive action before Moscow acted against China. Euro-American forces-based analysts balanced low-risk Soviet maneuvers with its Mongolian ally and arcane quibbles about the thalweg against the high-risk, direct threat to China in Soviet nuclear weapons. Their orthodox conclusions easily dismissed using force over Zhenbao as irrational and dangerous. Mao’s intent-based, indirect Shih-strategic response, however, shifted the risk to a Moscow unprepared to accept it. Despite Soviet numerical superiority, Mao’s military staff, like Khrushchev’s advisors in Moscow, realized that the Soviet Red Army was neither prepared nor deployed for war along the Sino-Soviet border. Continuing Soviet preoccupation in Europe, U.S. involvement in Vietnam, and now Moscow’s Czechoslovakian intervention, opened a window of Soviet vulnerability, which Mao could not ignore. In 1969, the Sino-Soviet border disputes—a local Li—which he had deferred indefinitely, became an opportunity as Chinese and Soviet troops clashed on Zhenbao Island.

Preparation and Planning With the Shih-strategic legacy of planning and preparation for battle, the Central Military Commission (CMC) provided the rules of engagement for reacting to Soviet provocations. As in 1962, Chinese troops could maneuver and resist Soviet actions, but could not open fire. Only when actually taking casualties could troops fire in self-defense but were not to move into Soviet territory. Beijing admonished commanders to consider times, places, and circumstances, and to plan well for attacking the Soviets. With more assurance than the cautious tone of 1962, the 1968 rules added Mao’s 1950 guidance to Peng Dehuai either not to fight at all or fight to win.32 Recalling its 1962 CMC guidance to Xinjiang and Tibet, Beijing directed the Shenyang Military Region to send troops to the Zhenbao-Zhilixin

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region for a counterattack. When the Soviets relaxed aggressive patrolling, as the Indians had, both sides fell into a tense status quo, while the Soviets continued air reconnaissance. As in 1950 in Korea, in 1958, and in India, the pressure of outside forces was shifting China’s priorities as Shih-strategy again called for China to use force. Under the critical threats of the Brezhnev doctrine and Soviet nuclear weapons, Mao’s Shih-strategy had to digress within the great Shih of national solidarity and China’s great-power Tao. By 1968, China was preparing to use force for a small war on the Ussuri River—another local Li along the border. “It is clear that Chinese leaders intentionally orchestrated this conflict. [Mao] did not want a war, but he did want a large-scale clash. . . . Soviet troops were completely unready.” At least twice before March 1969, Chinese troops tried to provoke the Soviets into battle “but the Soviets, feeling weak, did not accept the Chinese challenge and retreated.”33 On February 19, 1969, the Chinese Central Military Staff and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs approved the plan of the Heilongjiang Military District submitted through Shenyang Military Region. Reflecting the 1950 and 1962 Shih-strategic pattern, three elite Chinese companies, commanded through a temporary command center at Gongsi, would conduct a surprise defensive counterattack. An apparently routine patrol by a small element concealed the larger element awaiting in ambush on Zhenbao Island. When the Soviet troops intercepted the patrol, the hidden troops would intervene to achieve victory in a battle of annihilation. As in 1962, and counseled by ancient Shih-strategists, Chinese forces would retain the initiative by waiting until Soviet commitment. The Chinese would show restraint in self-defense but not weakness in attack. Beijing conceived the Sino-Soviet war—like the 1950 and 1962 wars—as strategic defense within a greater Shih-strategy. With no intent to occupy territory, the Chinese would contain the battle on the Chinese side of the river east of the island. The CMC instructions prescribed that, as in India, the battle was to be swift and brief, Chinese forces were not to pursue Soviet survivors but were to retreat immediately. As in 1962, political control of the operation remained in Beijing. The operational commander at Gongsi and the tactical commanders at Huling and Haohe front-line headquarters retained flexibility to control the engagement within the CMC intent. While tensions along the Sino-Soviet border increased, Beijing prepared for war. Mao transferred three reconnaissance companies—about 200–300 soldiers—and some headquarters staffs from regional armies to the local command. By February 1969, the operational commander at Gongsi had trained these special troops and equipped them for their special mission. Chinese and Soviet troops finally clashed in March 1969. Later that spring,

172 Table 7.1

Philosophy of Chinese Military Culture Chronology: Sino-Soviet War

Dates

Events

1964–1968

Sino-Soviet border negotiations failed. China tested a nuclear device and deployed nuclear-capable aircraft and missiles Patrol skirmishes on Zhenbao Patrol skirmishes on Zhenbao Chinese ambushed Soviet patrol on Zhenbao Motorized Soviet patrols on Zhenbao and Zhilixin Soviet armored attacks on Chinese patrol on Zhenbao; Chinese forces resisted with heavy weapons Warsaw Pact refused to support Moscow; Moscow sought negotiations with Beijing to resolve the dispute; Mao equivocated Sporadic Chinese-Soviet clashes from Xinjiang to Amur River; Moscow reinforced the Soviet Far East and Mongolia and positioned forward ammunition depots in Mongolia Intense battle near Zhalanashkol’ threatened to cut the Trans-Siberian railway. Moscow deployed nuclear-capable bombers to Siberia and Mongolia and suggested a preemptive nuclear strike through diplomatic channels Alexei Kosygin proposed negotiations to Zhou Enlai Kosygin and Zhou reached mutual understanding Formal Sino-Soviet agreements to end the crisis

December 27, 1968 January–February 1969 March 2, 1969 March 4–14, 1969 March 15–17, 1969 March 17, 21, 29, 1969

April–July 1969

August–September 1969

September 6–10, 1969 September 11, 1969 October 20, 1969

additional clashes erupted along the Xinjiang frontier and along the Amur River between China and the Soviet Union.34 (See table 7.1).

War on the Border In late 1968, the Soviet Far East Command directed patrols to repel Chinese troops crossing the border on Zhenbao, and, if required, to fire on them. On December 27, 1968, a Soviet patrol encountered a Chinese patrol on the island, fired warning shots, and beat several Chinese with rifles. On January 23, 1969, a Soviet patrol encountered and beat a 28-man Chinese patrol without firing. Soviet patrols intercepted five Chinese patrols in February 1969. On March 2 and March 15, 1969, Chinese and Soviet troops clashed in heavy fighting on and around the island.

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On March 2, Soviet casualties were 31 killed and 14 wounded, while China suffered 20 killed, 35 wounded, and one missing. Soviet casualties on March 15–17 were 50–60 killed and 94 wounded; Chinese casualties were as high as 800 killed.35

The First Ambush Late on March 1, the Chinese commander covertly deployed onto Zhenbao two rifle companies, four reconnaissance platoons, one recoilless-rifle platoon, and one heavy machine gun platoon. At 8:40 AM on March 2, a Chinese patrol advanced onto the island in two columns. While the left column remained undetected in a wooded area, Soviet observation posts at Nizhne–Mikhailovka and Kublibiyaknei detected the exposed right column and moved 70 soldiers with two armored cars to intercept it. Deploying in battle formation under standing orders, the Soviets stopped the Chinese right column and ordered it, in Chinese, to withdraw. In a surprise to the Soviets, who knew of the 1968 rules of engagement, the Chinese commander ordered the Soviets to leave the island. The Chinese expected to win this first battle! When, as planned and rehearsed, the patrol’s undetected left column suddenly appeared, the Soviets fired on the Chinese who lost six killed or wounded. Both Chinese columns returned fire that killed seven Soviets. When the concealed Chinese force joined the battle, the Soviet armored cars opened fire on the Chinese, who returned fire with recoilless rifles to destroy one armored car, one truck, and the Soviet command vehicle. Under heavy Chinese attack, after about two hours, the surviving Soviet troops retreated from the island. As in 1962, the victorious Chinese troops ostentatiously withdrew from the island.

From Surprise to Defense The small ambush on March 2 sacrificed any Chinese possibility for surprise in a major action on the Sino-Indian scale. Although the Chinese had been the victors, in contrast to the decisive defeat imposed on India in 1962, however, the Soviet forces remained both battle-ready and capable of assuming and exercising the operational initiative. Rather than annihilating the enemy, winning the first battle had restored the Soviet advantages in equipment and minimized Chinese opportunities to concentrate local superiority. To seize the advantage and allay Moscow’s worst concerns about war in the east, the Soviet Far East Command escalated to wartime status and

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deployed a motorized regiment with artillery and air support to the area. Powerful Soviet motorized patrols crossed to Zhenbao on February 4, 5, 7, and 20, and March 12 and 14, and kept Zhilixin under 24-hour surveillance. Once again within the CMC rules of engagement, however, Chinese patrols, while not betraying Chinese weakness, diligently avoided the Soviets. With no additional troops to reinforce the area, CMC directed the Shenyang Military Region to form its own reserve, strengthen local forces and positions around both islands, and prepare plans to counterattack any Soviet advances. Chinese troops were to respond on whichever island the Soviets invaded or resist on both if they invaded both.36 While Soviet and Chinese troop strengths in Zhenbao-Zhilixin were comparable, the force capabilities were not. Chinese forces had only a few light artillery pieces, no armor, and no aircraft. The Soviet force was motorized or armored and supported by artillery, helicopters, and attack aircraft. Faced with tactical, operational, and strategic superiority, Mao vowed firm resistance, ordered all units along the Sino-Soviet and Sino-Mongolian borders to full alert, and called on the Chinese people for political support.

Determined Defense Early on March 15, a motorized Soviet patrol—60 soldiers in armored vehicles—crossed to the island to intercept a Chinese mine-laying party. The Chinese commander deployed a rifle platoon and another squad separately to the island. When the Chinese consolidated a strong positional defense, the Soviets retreated off the island. The Soviet commander “had great difficulty securing help from regular army forces in the region and receiving orders, because the defense minister was abroad and Brezhnev was on a train to Hungary.”37 Later in the morning, without guidance from Moscow and apparently forbidden to violate the Chinese border, two Soviet armored columns engaged the Chinese in a frontal assault across the ice. Heavy Chinese artillery and antitank fire forced both columns to retreat and disrupted a third armored flanking attack, which also withdrew to the Soviet bank. Supported by direct and indirect fire from the Chinese bank, the Chinese infantry on the island forced the Soviets to retreat with losses of one tank and two armored troop carriers. In the afternoon, with reestablished communication to Brezhnev, Soviet commanders committed massive reinforcements to battle. The Soviets directed tank fire on Chinese defensive positions on the island and heavy rocket attacks on Chinese firing positions and troop concentrations along the river. Intense heavy artillery barrages attacked Chinese defensive positions, command posts, and bridges up to 10 km inland and 7 km up and

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down the river. At 3:15 PM the Soviets launched a third armor-infantry assault on the island under artillery. The Chinese on the island resisted with heavy weapons, as Chinese artillery engaged Soviet troops on the island and command posts and firing positions in the Soviet rear. At 5:00 PM as darkness fell, the Soviets again retreated. On March 16, the Soviets recovered their dead from the island under a truce. On March 17, the Soviets launched a fourth armor-infantry assault supported by artillery and laid large antipersonnel mine fields throughout the island. After Chinese counterbattery and ground-support fires, the Soviets finally withdrew from the island. Although the Soviets did not cross to the island again, the Chinese resumed patrolling and began to clear the Soviet mine fields. By late March, the border dispute along the Ussuri River had resumed the status quo ante.

Conciliation and Escalation The clashes on March 2 and 15 convinced Moscow that China was on the verge of war to exploit the open window of Soviet vulnerability. After a veiled threat to use nuclear weapons in the military newspaper Krasnay Zvezda, Moscow both sought help and made conciliatory gestures.38 On March 17, Soviet leaders appealed for help at the Warsaw Pact summit conference in proposals that Moscow’s allies dispatch troops to the Soviet Far East. After quibbling about their obligations under the Warsaw Pact, reminding Moscow of the U.S. and NATO troops in western Europe, and recalling the situation in Czechoslovakia, Moscow’s allies left the Soviet Union to face China alone. As Chairman of the Soviet Council of Ministers, Kosygin telephoned Beijing on March 21 to arrange a ceasefire. Unable to speak to Mao directly, and unwilling to resolve the problem with Chinese officials, Kosygin suggested mutual restraint to avoid escalation in a formal diplomatic note on March 29.39 Instead of responding diplomatically to Kosygin, in April, at the Ninth Chinese Communist Party Congress in Beijing, Mao rejected any return to the 1964 status quo and proclaimed China’s victory at Zhenbao.40 As Brezhnev struggled for time, position, and prestige, Mao equivocated from China’s new position as a patronal, nuclear great power that had confronted both the United States and the Soviet Union. Sporadic clashes continued along the Ussuri in April—16–17, and 25 near Chuguchak, Xinjiang— and May—2 near Yumin, Xinjiang, 12–15 near Huma, 25 near Aihui, and 28 near Fuyuan along the Amur River—while both sides restrained commanders and troops. In April and May Moscow detached combat units from Warsaw Pact command and transferred them to the Far East. By the

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end of the year, Soviet regular strength in the Far East had increased from 15 divisions in 1967 to 21. In late summer, Moscow positioned large ammunition stocks in and around Choibalsang, Mongolia. While Moscow was desperately reinforcing for the expected invasion, Chinese diplomatic missions circulated new maps with Chinese names for various places in the Soviet Far East, including Vladivostok and Port Arthur. At a June conference of the world’s communist parties in Moscow, Brezhnev denounced Mao’s adventurism as a threat to international security.41 After another severe clash on June 10, near Yumin, Moscow proposed to open negotiations on questions concerning border lines by September 13. Beijing counterproposed immediate discussions on navigation along the border rivers, to which Moscow agreed. After another Sino-Soviet clash on the Amur River on July 13 interrupted negotiations, “clashes began to erupt along the Sino-Soviet border in Central Asia.”42 Clearly adapting Chinese tactics on Zhenbao, Soviet forces deliberately ambushed and destroyed Chinese patrols and small units at carefully chosen points. On July 26, Moscow again proposed to reopen negotiations, but also delivered ominous threats to Beijing, amid low-intensity conflict and skirmishes in the northeast. Refining China’s strategy of integrating operational military actions into strategic political aims, and adopting the U.S. controlled-escalation strategy from Vietnam, Moscow increased the severity of China’s punishment at each encounter. As Washington had expected from Hanoi, and Beijing had gained from New Delhi, Moscow expected Beijing eventually to accede to Soviet demands.43 Over the summer of 1969, Moscow reinforced the Soviet Far East and created a Central Asian Military District along the frontier with China’s Xinjiang Autonomous Region. “The Soviets also began to speculate in public about the necessity for a preemptive strike against Chinese nuclear installations, and they even sounded out the Nixon administration for its reaction to such an attack.”44 The most intense armed clash since the Zhenbao battles occurred on August 13, near Zhalanashkol’ in the Soviet Semipalatinsk Region on the Xinjiang border about 2 km from the Trans-Siberian railway, Moscow’s only logistical route to support the Far East. Just as General MacArthur had done to the North Korean army at Inchon in 1950, Mao threatened to isolate the Soviet Red Army in the east from the European Soviet Union. Recalling the 1920s theorizing by Soviet strategist Mikhail Frunze, Soviet strategists repudiated Khrushchev’s peaceful coexistence and Brezhnev’s peace policy toward China. Political will was the self-evident direct link between a powerful military force and the direct, credible threat to an enemy that alone could achieve the entire range of Soviet geopolitical aims. It was not enough that the Chinese realized the existence of the ultimate Soviet threat—a preventive nuclear strike. The Kremlin concluded that the

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Chinese would only negotiate seriously when they felt the credible Soviet political will to deliver that strike on China. Moscow had rediscovered the corollary to Frunze’s—and Clausewitz’s—linkage between war and politics. Moscow needed to convince Beijing that the Soviet Union was prepared to wage a total, nuclear war and had not just the military capability but the political will to do so. Mao and Zhou perceived the August 13 incident as “extremely provocative, because the Chinese felt especially vulnerable in this region. In the September communications with Kosygin, Zhou is said to have noted, ‘You surrounded a Chinese formation with tanks and destroyed 20 soldiers. . . . The Soviet side has gone a long way down [the] path [to war].’ ”45 In late August and early September, Moscow deployed some strategic bombers from their bases in the western Soviet Union to Mongolia and Siberia. Clear demonstrations of mock attacks against targets constructed to resemble Chinese nuclear facilities projected obvious indications that Moscow may have been contemplating nuclear strikes against Chinese nuclear facilities. On August 18, a Soviet diplomat attempted to probe his U.S. counterpart about the U.S. reaction to a Soviet attack on Chinese nuclear facilities. Over the next week, Moscow delivered confidential letters to European and Asian communist party leaders to suggest a credible Soviet need for preemptive strikes against China’s threatening nuclear bases. After approaching India, Thailand, and Indonesia about forming an Asian defense pact against Beijing, Soviet diplomats leaked informal comments to Europeans about a hypothetical Soviet nuclear attack on Chinese nuclear targets. In late August, the Soviet air force in the Far East abruptly ceased its training flights and mock attacks. The clear implication for Euro-American strategists was that Moscow was escalating the border skirmishes from the tactical through the operational level and into the strategic level of nuclear war. Reinforced by suitable, dire warnings, Moscow’s message reached Beijing through many channels—formal, diplomatic, informal, covert, reliable and unreliable, classified plans and silly opinions. Mao, however, politely and perversely insisted on misunderstanding the message. Instead of escalating to nuclear war, Moscow had simply politicized the campaign into an intense war of nerves not about border issues—or even socialism— but about China’s great-power status. Most significant within China’s Shihstrategic perspective was the recognition that Brezhnev was seeking to influence Mao’s intent by deceiving Beijing about the Soviet intent—an intent-based Shih-strategy. For a forces-based Clausewitzian strategy, such warnings were irrational, since they gave Beijing the opportunity to defend against any strike by dispersing weapons and populations, moving critical items, and preparing

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troops for an immediate counterattack. After such a warning, a nuclear strike would make little tactical, operational, or strategic sense, while destroying any Soviet legitimacy in geopolitics as a great power. Although a Soviet nuclear strike would impose high costs and heavy damage on China, the post-strike situation would inevitably gain global compassion and support for China. A Soviet nuclear strike would swell the surviving Chinese with nationalism, patriotism, and solidarity. This was the same result that Mao had sought—and achieved—during the Korean and Sino-Indian Wars. Whether Brezhnev really intended a preemptive nuclear strike or not, Mao recognized the shift in Soviet strategy and reacted accordingly in dealing with what he perceived as a desperate enemy. Mao could not afford to allow Brezhnev to create a powerful Soviet desperation Shih.

War Termination In Hanoi, from September 6 through 10, at the funeral for Ho Chi Minh, Kosygin met Zhou and proposed negotiations. With a characteristic Shihstrategic approach, Zhou deferred China’s answer with the need to consult Beijing. Beijing’s answer had not arrived in Hanoi before Kosygin left on September 10. On September 11—two days before the target set by Moscow in June for opening negotiations—the Chinese government formally informed Soviet ambassador Alexey Elizavetin in Beijing that Zhou was ready to negotiate. Kosygin, in Tashkent on his return flight from Hanoi to Moscow, abruptly changed his itinerary and flew directly to Beijing. Zhou met Kosygin at Beijing’s airport on September 11, 1969. Zhou explained “that China had no aggressive intentions or potential—especially [with] the Cultural Revolution—and that its nuclear program did not threaten the USSR. Therefore the Soviets had no pretext for preventive war.” Although deeply concerned about Soviet military flights near northwest China and the possibility of a Soviet nuclear strike, he “conceded that China was incapable of fighting a nuclear war because of the weakness of its arsenal” but asserted that a Soviet strike would create colossal problems for decades.46 Although Zhou and Kosygin reached a mutual understanding to avoid escalation and provocation, Soviet leaders insisted on formal, official Chinese obligations not to cross currently recognized borders. Again Mao delayed. On September 16, an article in the Saturday Evening Post considered a possible Soviet nuclear strike against Chinese nuclear facilities. Although it is unlikely that Moscow orchestrated the article only four days after their understanding, Zhou responded on September 18 with a personal message to Kosygin. He proposed reciprocal, formal commitments

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not to attack with conventional military forces and not to launch nuclear strikes. Kosygin agreed and added the reciprocal agreement not to violate each other’s airspace. On October 20, formal Sino-Soviet negotiations began in Beijing to formalize the Zhou–Kosygin understanding in reciprocal agreements. The 1969 Sino-Soviet crisis was over. Although Soviet units received orders to hold fire against the Chinese in any confrontations and cease violations of the border, tensions continued for more than a decade.47

What Happened—Shih-Strategy Like the Chinese attacks across the Yalu, in Aksai Chin, and on Thag La, the Zhenbao ambush was a deliberate Shih-strategic operation, not an accident or natural consequence of rising tensions. Field commanders had begun careful preparation within Beijing’s guidance well before the engagement. A special chain of command retained control in Beijing while providing to operational commanders trained, equipped forces and adequate flexibility to use them effectively. Intent-based operations involved surprise, deception, local superiority, and restraint. Although not orthodox, Chinese tactics were conventional second-stage protracted-war—rather than first-stage guerrilla—operations of Mao’s people’s war. At strategic and operational levels, the war fit even more closely protracted-war patterns—strategic defense, operational stalemate, and tactical counteroffensive—and attempts at third-stage annihilation.

The Context Placing the 1969 Sino-Soviet border war in a temporal context with the Korean War, the 1962 Sino-Indian, and the later 1979 Sino-Vietnamese conflicts suggests that Chinese leaders were pursuing a larger purpose than resolving border uncertainties. The broader domestic context of the Chinese Cultural Revolution suggests a linkage between clashes on the Ussuri River and events elsewhere in China. The global context of great-power nuclear politics accented Moscow’s decision to withhold nuclear weapons from China, concurrent nuclear test-ban initiatives, and China’s own nuclear weapons programs. In using force, Mao had in mind something greater than the series of local Lis that began in the 1950s in Korea and the Taiwan Straits and expanded through the 1960s and 1970s into the 1980s.

The Unexpected The defensive battle on March 15–17, while not intended, was clearly not accidental. Chinese forces had lost the operational advantages—surprise,

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initiative, local superiority, and position of their formless Hsing—that had brought success on March 2. The engagement on March 2 was a clear operational success in the pattern established in the Jiangxi, Liao-Shen, and Ping-Jin operations, the first Korean campaigns, and the 1962 Sino-Indian War. The battle on March 15–17 seems to have been a strategic blunder. Unlike the Indian army, which was neither willing nor able to escalate or retaliate in 1962, the Soviet Red Army retained strategic superiority, operational initiative, and tactical advantages of weaponry and equipment. In contrast to China’s patronal withdrawals in 1962, the stubborn defense at Zhenbao in 1969 did not impress Moscow with deferential recognition of China’s proper place in the world. Rather, China’s defense and Mao’s defiance challenged Moscow’s own great-power status and deepened Moscow’s determination to reassert Soviet dominance as Beijing’s great-power mentor, protector, and patron.48 Instead of allowing Beijing to recover its focus on Mao’s priorities—national solidarity, Chinese Shih, and international legitimacy as China’s Tao—the Sino-Soviet War left Beijing under threat of nuclear war. Like the 1962 war, the Sino-Soviet conflict arose from China’s aspirations to exercise its formal, legal, great-power status directly in global politics. Unlike the Indian adversary that perforce accepted China’s dominance, the Soviet Union had and used the capability to reverse Beijing’s intent by imposing Soviet patronage on China’s deference. War termination in 1962 had left China in control of the border dispute but content to ignore Indian petulance while Beijing did other things. Termination of the war in September left Moscow in position to coerce Beijing to return to border negotiations under the credible threat of general war.

Explaining Zhenbao Mao’s consistent strategic thinking over some 40 years suggests that Beijing’s unorthodox military operations at Zhenbao were themselves a means, a local Li, to a greater and longer purpose. China’s ideological secession from the Soviet bloc and Beijing’s aspirations to great-power status envisioned expanding Cold-War bipolarity into a strategic triangle. Whereas Beijing could not confront Moscow directly, Mao could exploit immediate Soviet vulnerability to destabilize Yalta-model geopolitics. With another crisis for an already harried Moscow, U.S. power would overbalance a truculent Soviet Union and create China’s place in a geostrategic triangle to replace Cold-War bipolarity. Balanced and diverted by each other, Washington and Moscow would allow Beijing to refocus on China’s greater Shih and Tao. Aksai Chin and Thag La had been earlier Lis focused on the same result.

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As in 1962, after a few minor clashes at Zhenbao, Beijing would defeat the enemy without fighting. While the ambush on March 2 fit this pattern well, the battle of attrition on March 15–17 was at best anomalous, and possibly a Chinese strategic blunder. Although such a Shih-strategy was clearly consistent with China’s strategic culture and Mao’s strategic thinking, it underestimated not only Soviet strength but also Brezhnev’s intent— and possibly desperation. Unlike Nehru’s Forward Policy with aspirations to local identity and regional dominance, Brezhnev’s concerns were global and based on real, but clearly limited, capabilities. Instead of accepting defeat without fighting, Moscow threatened to escalate a few minor clashes to general war, which it credibly expected to win. Despite Moscow’s inconvenient surprise in its own intent-based Shih-strategy, Beijing eventually exploited the crisis to entice Washington into a Sino-American anti–Soviet entente—the geostrategic triangle.49 An alternative explanation, within Euro-American orthodoxy, invokes misinterpretations by diplomats and overzealous commanders and rising border tensions to generate the natural geopolitical result. During border negotiations in 1964, Mao is reported to have told the Soviets to “Prepare to fight the battle.” Although Mao used the phrase rhetorically, the Soviets could not ignore it. Caution and prudence demanded reinforcing Soviet strength along the border. For Chinese commanders, duty and the implications of Mao’s phrases justified planning for the battle. From that point, for Euro-American thinkers, the result was natural and predictable.50 Explaining the clashes as natural obviates Beijing’s irrational acceptance of the great risks that Moscow would escalate, rather than retire, and that the United States would not respond as intended. For a rational, realpolitik decisionmaker or Clausewitzian strategist, such risks would have been unacceptable.

Soviet Escalation and Chinese Blunder Whether the battle on March 15–17 was a strategic blunder or simply the natural result of instability, in summer 1969, Beijing slid into a vicious circle of Soviet threat, U.S. pressures, and a Cultural Revolution spinning out of control. As Moscow led Beijing back into the border talks, which Mao had spurned in 1964, with the threat of nuclear war, China recognized that its great-power status was not yet complete or credible. Instead of enticing the United States into supporting China’s resurgence as a great power, Beijing had no option other than applying to the imperialist enemy for aid in recovering Chinese autonomy. Beijing began the Sino-Soviet War as a local Li within Mao’s greater Shih-strategy focused on building China’s national Shih and pursuing

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China’s greater Tao as a legitimate great power. The second battle on Zhenbao seems to have been a strategic blunder whereby Moscow captured the operational initiative and wrested strategic control from Beijing. By the end of the summer, Moscow had confirmed its tactical advantage and operational initiative, but was threatening to escalate the struggle to general war with warnings of preemptive nuclear strikes into China. Instead of reacting with the expected Clausewitzian deference to superior power, Mao joined Brezhnev’s war of nerves and transformed tactical and operational disadvantage to achieve his greater Shih and Tao. As Beijing had intended, the Sino-Soviet War revised China’s relationships with its people—strengthened Shih—with the world—established China’s Tao as a legitimate great power— and changed the course of the Cold War. Since China could claim to have successfully resisted both the United States and the Soviet Union, Beijing could legitimately assume a position of equality with the two superpowers in world affairs. The immediate results of China’s global Tao, however, were not what Mao had had in mind.

Epilogue By the end of 1969, the Soviet Union had increased its ground forces in the Soviet Far East to 21 divisions. More new divisions increased Soviet strength to 30 divisions in 1970 and to 44 in 1971—with only 31 division in Europe—as Moscow deployed an additional 1,000 combat aircraft—a quarter of the Soviet Air Force—to the Far East.51 To support the additional forces, Moscow constructed roads, railroad spurs, logistic centers, barracks, and family housing that suggested a permanent garrison rather than a temporary deployment. During the same period, China increased its ground forces along the border by one division to 33 divisions.52 While Moscow dominated a China still crippled by the Cultural Revolution, President Richard M. Nixon initiated the Sino-U.S. entente that would rescue China from the effects of Zhenbao. Beijing, however, neither enticed Washington nor controlled Sino-U.S. or Sino-Soviet relations. Washington’s initiative to recover from its own Vietnam War—when China was the enemy—and to entice Beijing away from Moscow began with Nixon’s Guam declaration in 1969 of the U.S. intent to disengage militarily from the Asian mainland. Nixon deepened and broadened his initiative by revoking the U.S. trade embargo, refraining from the customary U.S. opposition to replacing Taipei with Beijing on the U.N. Security Council, and supporting Pakistan against India. While Moscow faced the threat that Beijing could now shift its military focus from the south, east, and west to

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the now heavily defended Sino-Soviet border, in responding to these U.S. initiatives, Washington and Beijing reversed their alliances. At the cost of losing a local Li along the Sino-Soviet border, Beijing achieved not only Chinese Shih, but China’s Tao as a recognized and legitimate great power. The 1972 Shanghai Communiqué, signed by Nixon and Zhou candidly recognized China’s intention to support the struggles of all oppressed peoples—critical in Mao’s Shih and Tao—while the United States agreed to reduce its military installations on Taiwan—instrumental in China’s national Shih. Both governments agreed to use only peaceful means to resolve the Beijing-Taipei Two-Chinas controversy and foreswear pursuing hegemony in East Asia. Rearranging global politics and geostrategies in the mid-1970s marked a U.S. policy success, a victory without fighting for China’s Shih-strategy, and a Soviet policy failure. On March 2, 1969, Mao’s Shih-strategy at Zhenbao had launched the events that ultimately brought China closer to Tao and strengthened national Shih. What had appeared to Euro-American strategists as a strategic blunder at Zhenbao on March 15–17, 1969 may have been a deliberate sacrifice of Li within Beijing’s greater Shih-strategy. If the Zhenbao incident was indeed a Chinese blunder, by 1972, Beijing’s greater Shih-strategy ultimately had transformed Beijing from the victim of events into a master of them.

The Border Dispute The Zhou-Kosygin agreement stabilized Sino-Soviet tensions, but left the border dispute unresolved. The two governments continued border talks from October 1969 through May 1989. “In 1987, Mikhail Gorbachev reversed his government’s position and accepted the thalweg principle.” No longer coerced by a Soviet nuclear threat, Beijing welcomed formal negotiations on the 6,400–km Sino-Soviet border. By 1997, Moscow and Beijing had resolved the border dispute around reciprocal concessions. “Led by Moscow, the central Asian successor states to the Soviet Union have negotiated the settlement of China’s western boundaries, and Beijing has sealed boundary treaties with almost all its other neighbors: Burma, Nepal, Pakistan, Mongolia, Korea, [and] Laos.”53

Sino-Soviet Reconciliation Just as Deng Xiaoping struggled to recover from the effects of Mao’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and defense of Zhenbao, Gorbachev found

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it necessary to correct his predecessors’ errors. On May 16, 1989, he visited Beijing with a message of reconciliation, which Mao had probably anticipated from Brezhnev in 1969. Although Gorbachev’s animus was predominantly economic and China’s interests were political, each desperately needed from the other the freedom that Mao had sought through Shihstrategic force in five wars. It was a deep irony that the two historic adversaries should simultaneously need each other just as their internal problems overwhelmed the ideological causes that had estranged them.

Chapter 8 The Sino-Vietnamese War

In 1979, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) invaded Vietnam with a military force of nearly the strength that China had sent to Korea in 1950. Despite minor clashes along a 1,200 km frontier, Sino-Vietnamese relations had been stable since Ho Chi Minh had established the Vietnamese Communist Party in 1930 in Hong Kong. Although the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) was a significant military force, it did not, unlike the Soviet Red Army in 1969, present a serious threat. Instead, however, of building national Shih on economic reform and reconstruction by preserving the status quo, China launched a massive self-defensive counterattack to punish Vietnam and teach the Vietnamese their proper place in China’s world. China’s abrupt, unconditional withdrawal left Euro-Americans and Vietnamese alike perplexed and confused.

The Context For nearly 2,000 years of close relations with the Celestial Empire, the sometime vassal Vietnam had always resented China’s patronizing persecution. The Chinese Communist Party had steadfastly supported the Vietnamese Communists as a Confucian elder brother or teacher through all their wars. When Mao Tse-tung’s armies occupied south China in 1949–1950, the PRC provided secure bases for Ho Chi Minh’s guerrilla forces to operate in French Tonkin. While Beijing’s attentions were in Korea, the unbreakable friendship between Stalin and Mao brought Soviet aid to Vietnam, along with new pressures on Hanoi and the nationalist Viet Minh revolution.

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As Khrushchev’s peaceful coexistence displaced Stalin’s ideological confrontation with the United States, Moscow valued progressive clients, like Hanoi, for opportunities they provided for replacing European, U.S., and Chinese influences, not their militant crusades. Soviet guidance to Asian and African revolutionary movements was to disband their military organizations and “join the national-front party with a view to exercising influence within its ranks.”1 Hanoi’s decision in the late 1950s to escalate its revolution in South Vietnam beyond peaceful, political opposition displaced North Vietnam from the circle of Moscow’s preferred clients. Only U.S. military intervention—deepening from the late 1950s—gave any practical urgency in Moscow to the Soviet-Vietnamese relationship. The 1960s Sino-Soviet dispute presented the further dilemma of balancing Moscow and Beijing without alienating either. Hanoi—with a deepening sense of political isolation—began to pursue self-reliance in its own national Shih. Through the early 1970s, as Ho uncertainly explored Shihstrategy, Beijing and Hanoi resumed a comfortable, if strained, comradeplus-brother relationship in Vietnam’s struggle against the United States. Like Mao in the 1930s, Ho needed to build Vietnam’s national Shih and self-reliance in a campaign for national reunification. North Vietnam’s “objective requirements . . . [for military assistance], which could only really come from the Soviet Union, . . . suggest the relative primacy of the principle of nationalist reunification at this stage [late 1960s].”2 Although Hanoi shared China’s revolutionary orthodoxy, Beijing was in no position to supply, fund, command, reinforce, or expand the Viet Minh revolution in southern Vietnam. Struggling to recover from civil war, Korea, and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, Beijing could act as a patron only to countries unwilling or unable to challenge Chinese interests, while severe constraints on China’s military resources precluded any Chinese-supported high-intensity warfare. Although China had always provided enormous economic aid and reliable political support, Moscow had always been the primary source for weaponry and military equipment. Through several intense U.S. bombing campaigns, Hanoi needed aid from both Moscow and Beijing.3 In contrast to Soviet guidance to its clients to disband their military operations, Mao and Zhou Enlai had expanded the Bandung spirit into an assertive Shih-strategy for wars of national liberation. Although China’s aid was more spiritual and political than economic and military, Beijing was actively “sponsoring armed struggle against neighboring governments, . . . not national liberation groups, . . . but [rather] the Watusi guerrillas, . . . rebels in the eastern part of Zaire, . . . [Kwame Nkrumah’s] freedom fighters,” and Ho Chi Minh’s Viet Minh.4 After defeating the Saigon regime in 1975, Hanoi reunified Vietnam and found no further need for its Chinese elder

The Sino-Vietnamese War

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brother. Sino-Vietnamese relations deteriorated rapidly from minor border clashes and jurisdictional disputes in the South China Sea until Vietnam invaded Cambodia—another Chinese client—in 1978.

China as a Great Power After the Sino-Soviet War, despite the disappointing results, Beijing began hesitantly to assert its status and prerogatives as a global great power. In 1972, Washington accepted China’s great-power status when President Richard M. Nixon visited Beijing in February.5 For Beijing and the Chinese people, the Nixon-Kissinger initiative represented U.S. acceptance of China’s great-power Tao and legitimate authority in Indochina—another great Li within China’s Tao. As a great power with robust Shih and Tao, Beijing could shift its strategic purposes from building national Shih to preserving international Shih. As China shifted geostrategic alignment to reflect Beijing’s great-power Shih-strategy and deteriorating Sino-Soviet relations, Beijing reduced Chinese support to Hanoi and let Vietnam rely on Moscow’s also declining aid. While reducing China’s patronal support might not punish a client still supported by Moscow, even an arrogant Hanoi could not withstand concerted opposition from all the great powers. Inadequate Soviet aid would eventually force Vietnam to resume its proper place as a Chinese client after the U.S. withdrawal. By exploiting the other great powers’ own self-serving actions, Beijing’s Shih-strategy would punish Hanoi indirectly without fighting! As Chinese aid diminished after the North Vietnamese offensive in March 1972 and the United States struggled to withdraw smoothly, SinoSoviet relations remained cool. Moscow’s rhetoric intensified with only token reductions in Soviet aid, which supported a modern, mobile North Vietnamese military force. In this new arena of great-power politics, Beijing’s opponent was not merely an arrogant Hanoi—it was also an imperious Moscow.

The Strategic Triangle Although the early Cold War established bipolarity between the Soviet and U.S. blocs—the Yalta model—Nehru’s neutralist nonalignment movement in the 1960s compromised those arrangements. China’s ideological secession from the Soviet bloc and Beijing’s aspirations to great-power status in the Sino-Indian and Sino-Soviet Wars expanded Cold-War bipolarity into a strategic triangle. Triangularity forced each great power to arrange its

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bilateral relationships around its respective relations with the third. U.S.-Soviet stability around bipolar arms control and deterrence invited Beijing to expand its Shih-strategy through both domestic reform—national Shih—and opening to the outside world—global Tao. As the self-interested fulcrum, Washington mediated Sino-Soviet hostility through cooperation with Beijing and détente with Moscow. Beijing could exploit Soviet-U.S. mutual deterrence to recover from the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and re-assert regional dominance. Moscow hoped to reorder the party’s disarray and revitalize the global revolution while Washington and Beijing were otherwise involved. Vietnam was one place in the world where the three great powers’ interests collided. Washington sought an escape without losing dignity or influence. Beijing sought to resume its patronal elder-brother role after a two-century hiatus. Moscow sought to capture the gains earned by its investment in exporting revolution into the region. Hanoi had aspirations to regional dominance and independent autonomy as a regional great power.

After the Vietnam War Although Moscow and Beijing both supported Hanoi on their sides of the Washington-Moscow-Beijing triangle, Hanoi followed its own path in separate negotiations with Washington to end the war. The huge Soviet investment in the region muted Moscow’s annoyance with its obdurate client, while Beijing was bemused and confused, but not amused. The 1973 Paris Peace Accords negotiated deliberate U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam and mutual Soviet and Chinese agreements to reduce aid to Hanoi. Despite token reductions, “massive Soviet aid, war doctrine, and weapons now flooding in had helped to give the Kremlin a preponderant influence over Hanoi, thus achieving a second [Soviet goal]. Thus, with the fall of the South in April 1975, the Soviet Union was well placed to capitalize on its investment.”6 Moscow and Beijing both immediately requested military bases and facilities in the reunified Vietnam. Hanoi rejected both requests, despite Beijing’s US$600–million grant and Moscow’s US$3 billion in economic aid. As U.S. military capability declined after U.S. withdrawal from the Vietnam war, the new Nixon doctrine called on Washington to rely on regional powers to contain the Soviet Union. “The United States welcomed China as a substitute for American power. . . . In Indochina and much of Southeast Asia, China was the regional power of choice. Washington was grateful for Beijing’s ability to reassure Thailand against the Soviet Union


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and Vietnam.”7 Having displaced the French and the Americans without fighting either, Beijing was recovering its strategic authority and its proper Tao in Indochina. With Washington engaging Moscow, Beijing could resume its patronal role as elder brother to a fractious Vietnam. Although force might be necessary to curb Hanoi’s truculence, Beijing’s aim was to recall the Vietnamese to their appropriate place—client, not rival—in China’s Tao. After the Vietnamese victory in 1975, as Sino-Soviet coolness deepened into hostility, the expanding Soviet role in Vietnam raised Chinese fears of encirclement. Vietnam did not, however, permit Soviet troops or installations in Vietnam and only permitted Soviet warships to anchor in Cam Ranh Bay after the Sino-Vietnamese War. Even as the Soviet-Vietnamese relationship deepened, Hanoi realized that it could not rely on Soviet intervention against China. From the 1973 Paris Conference, when Moscow had agreed to reduce military assistance and Beijing had sought reconciliation with Washington, Hanoi had lost faith in international communist solidarity. Like Nehru, Vietnam saw its Tao in self-reliance, autonomy, and expansion within its own sphere of influence. Like Mao, Ho needed to build Shih in national reunification.

Realigning the Great and Smaller Powers With U.S. withdrawal from Indochina in 1975, Washington’s domino theory lost credibility and relevance as the dominos began fighting among themselves. The Sino-Soviet split deepened into a fissure; China and Vietnam embarked on the war path; Vietnam and Cambodia resumed their ancient struggle interrupted by the French in 1838. In an elegant vignette of Cold-War great-power politics, Beijing’s alignment with Washington against Moscow subtly validated China’s emergent greatpower Tao in Asia. Beyond simply recognizing Beijing, the new alignment cast Washington as a silent partner in an anti-Vietnamese coalition— Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, South Korea, and the re-emerging Cambodian and Lao resistance movements. Since the 1960s, China’s evolving Shih-strategy focused Beijing’s attention on defining and assuming China’s great-power status as the Celestial Empire’s modern heir. To reverse the strategic blunder at Zhenbao, Shihstrategy suggested alignment with Washington against Moscow, which seemed intent on replacing U.S. dominance in Indochina with Soviet hegemony. After U.S. President Gerald Ford visited China in 1975, Washington lifted its embargo and accepted Beijing as the rightful occupant of China’s seat at the United Nations. Beijing knew that China had gained legitimacy

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and recovered its Tao in great-power Shih when, in October 1975, Washington asked for Chinese support in restraining Vietnam’s expansion. As domestic concerns demanded attention in the confusion following Mao’s death in 1976, Chinese fears of Moscow’s socialist hegemonism in the Brezhnev doctrine began to fade. Although probably not part of any Sino-U.S. collusion, President Ronald Reagan’s anti-Soviet crusade was not unwelcome in Beijing. Since China’s aspirations did not yet include superpower status, China gracefully excused itself from this exercise in superpower politics and turned its strategic focus to regional affairs. In Indochina, as China’s Confucianist patronage began to humiliate the Vietnamese, Hanoi saw its own interests in shifting its cliency from the wartime Sino-Soviet balance toward Moscow. Beijing saw Hanoi’s shift from client-ally to competitor-enemy as ingratitude, alienation, and perfidy.8 Even as Beijing was beginning to borrow confidence from Washington, Ho—like Nehru in an earlier era—drew assurance from his Soviet patron. Although Moscow made no commitments, Hanoi—recalling Nehru’s Forward Policy—no longer hesitated to assert its positions on SinoVietnamese border disputes, offshore-islands sovereignty, and seabed rights. The hazy, ill-defined frontier in the mountains led to border clashes, while the discovery of offshore oil in the 1970s further entangled and estranged the former allies. Beijing finally terminated economic aid to Hanoi when Vietnam joined the Soviet-sponsored Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA or Comecon) in June 1978. At the same meeting, Moscow endorsed a Vietnamese “military offensive to overthrow the Pol Pot regime in Kampuchea . . . [with] a ‘swift Czechoslovakia-type operation’ to complete the process of Vietnamese domination over the whole of Indochina and eliminate any remaining Chinese influence.”9 As Moscow delivered preinvasion supplies, the two countries negotiated a Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation, signed in November 1978. Although Moscow made no real commitment, from the treaty’s diplomatic ambiguity, Hanoi inferred Soviet support against any Chinese attack and understood the treaty as a particular deterrent to China.

The Cambodian Problem Vietnam invaded Cambodia-Kampuchea on December 25, 1978, installed a new government in January 1979, and liquidated the pro-Chinese regime in Phnom Penh. Whereas the Celestial Empire had always included Indochina in its domain of all under heaven, Vietnam, Laos, Siam, and Cambodia had a millennial history of mutual hostility and suspicion. As the


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primary Cambodian nationalist resistance to France’s colonial rule (1838–1954), the Khmers Rouges, like the Viet Minh, were Mao’s ideological pupils and heirs staunchly dedicated to his people’s war. Heavily dependent on Beijing since 1949, the Khmers Rouges not only opposed Moscow and Hanoi, but applauded Mao’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. After Vietnam defeated the French in 1954 and the Americans withdrew in 1975, Phnom Penh again faced the threat of absorption into Vietnam. A few days after occupying Phnom Penh, Pol Pot’s new Khmer Rouge regime provoked the first anti-Vietnamese incident on May 4, 1975. The fanatically nationalistic Khmers Rouges seized two islands in the Gulf of Siam, which France had allocated to Vietnam. After massacring the Vietnamese populations, they captured the U.S. cargo vessel, Mayaguez, which had blundered into the area. After the last U.S. military operation of the Vietnam War, Hanoi reoccupied the islands and evicted the Cambodians. Despite the Mayaguez incident, Beijing recognized the Maoist Kampuchean government with military assistance, economic aid, and political advisors. While Hanoi had gained a local Li with superior force, Beijing had gained Shih without fighting! When Beijing arrested the Gang of Four in October 1976, with an unsurprising Shih-strategic flexibility, the Maoist Khmers Rouges government in Phnom Penh instantly supported Deng Xiaoping’s new pragmatism. Although Deng condemned extremism in China, “he continued to defend Pol Pot and the Khmers Rouges, despite his profound detestation for their principles, because of his even more profound detestation for Vietnam and the Soviet Union.”10 In 1976–1977, the Pol Pot regime persecuted Vietnamese in Cambodia, purged ethnic Chinese, and finally attacked Vietnamese border positions. In November 1977, Phnom Penh severed relations with Hanoi and launched raids to destroy entire Vietnamese villages.11 As Beijing positioned PLA units along the SinoVietnamese border, Hanoi deduced from Cambodian provocations in the west a Chinese Shih-strategy for a two-front war to absorb Vietnam. In March 1978, China rejected Hanoi’s increasing hostility toward Phnom Penh by suspending all technical and economic aid to Vietnam. Hanoi retaliated by persecuting and expelling ethnic Chinese—the 1.5 million Hua people—from Vietnam.12 Despite adamant Chinese disapproval, on December 25, 1978, Vietnamese troops invaded Cambodia and decimated the Khmeres Rouges. They captured Phnom Penh on January 7, 1979 and installed the Heng Samrin movement as the new government. For Beijing, Vietnam’s occupation of Cambodia-Kampuchea was the worst diplomatic-strategic disaster since the United Nations Command had invaded North Korea in 1950. Although war between client-vassals was an

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egregious affront to China’s patronal dominance, Vietnam’s aggression did not threaten China’s territorial integrity or sovereignty. Unlike Taiwan, Cambodia-Kampuchea was not a factor in China’s national Shih. Unlike Korea in 1950, Quemoy in 1958, India in 1962, or Zhenbao in 1969, Cambodia-Kampuchea was not a territorial Li in the greater Shih of China’s borders. Although the Vietnamese invasion demanded a response from Beijing, unlike India’s Forward Policy in 1962, it could not justify using force or intervening in Cambodia. Even as China’s deliberate preparations for war were reaching their climax, Deng informed Pol Pot that he would have to mount his own resistance. The surviving Khmers Rouges, China’s clients, went into the mountains and reverted to first-stage people’s war— guerrilla operations—since they could not support a conventional, protracted war. Beijing, however, continued to support and supply the Khmers Rouges guerrillas in their struggle against Vietnam’s occupation forces.

Disputes at Sea Historically, the Paracel Islands (Xishas) and the Spratley Islands (Nanshas) in the South China Sea belonged to Vietnam as the Truong Xa. After Chiang Kai-shek claimed them in 1947, in 1949, the new Beijing government repudiated Chiang’s assertions of sovereignty by choosing to sacrifice local Li in China’s lost lands and waters. Instead, Mao pursued international great-power legitimacy—Tao—among friendly, but suitably deferential, client-states, while building Shih in the Chinese people. Absorbed in their own revolutions, Hanoi and Saigon ignored them until the 1970s, when they began to lease offshore oil concessions and occupy the islands. Although China claimed both the Paracels and the Spratleys, Beijing patiently relegated them—with Aksai Chin—as lower-priority Lis to future resolution.

Deeper than Li While Beijing had used force earlier in confronting threats to China’s national Shih and solidarity, Hanoi’s challenge was less to China’s domestic Shih than to Beijing’s global Tao. After standing up in 1949, China had grown up by 1979 and was ready to assume its proper role and place in the world as a great power—universal Tao. Deeper than a territorial Li and broader than China’s national Shih or solidarity, Hanoi’s truculence was a climax, realizing China’s great-power Tao after centuries of humiliation. Deeper than simplistic Euro-American metaphors—teaching a lesson,


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wounded pride, avenging insults, or retaliating against persecution— China’s Tao was at stake.

The Geneva-Bandung Initiative A critical juncture for China’s strategic thinking, Geneva and Bandung had marked Beijing’s decision to expand China’s Shih-strategy from Mao’s initial focus on national Shih to embrace China’s emergent great-power status. The panchasheel, introduced by Zhou and Nehru at Geneva and Bandung, formed the nucleus for expanding Beijing’s strategic priorities into a broader and deeper geopolitical Tao, China’s ultimate great Shih. Since Bandung, Beijing had implemented Zhou’s border policy consistently and scrupulously and resisted a neighbor’s force only in Tibet in 1962 and on the Ussuri River in 1969. After success on Aksai Chin, and despite strategic blunders at Zhenbao, China’s global Shih-strategy launched at Bandung remained intact beneath both China’s use of force and Beijing’s foreign policy.

The Elder Brother The Geneva-Bandung approach assumed China’s Confucianist Tao as elder brother or parent for protecting China’s clients and guiding tributary states, which had informed the Middle Kingdom’s diplomacy and wars. While retaining political sovereignty, tributaries balanced their independence within Tao by proper deference and tribute to their parent, the Celestial Empire. Without pretensions to expanding territory or sovereignty, China assumed parental responsibility for its less powerful neighbors—disciplining without destroying them, while preserving their respective places in China’s universal Tao. Despite their arrogance, toward the impudent children on its southern boundary—India and Vietnam—Beijing could not ignore its responsibility for guiding them within Tao by punishing. As with India from 1960, Beijing’s growing discomfort with Vietnam from 1975 was within this broader perspective of their respective proper places in Tao. In contrast to Vietnamese—and Indian—self-images as captive nations struggling for independence, China expected Vietnamese gratitude— not resentment—for years of Chinese support for the revolution. China had consistently and reliably supported the Viet Minh with a broad rear base and sanctuary during the French and American Wars. Beijing had provided critical weapons and ammunition at Dien Bien Phu and 50,000 troops during the American War. China had been Vietnam’s most dependable ally during the war against the United States and had generously provided 3 billion dollars in loans and grants after the war.13 Most significantly,

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Beijing had convinced Washington that a ground attack against North Vietnam would bring China into the war. As in 1962, Beijing’s dilemma in 1979 was not whether to use force, or when to attack, but how to manage and use force to restore Tao.

China’s National Shih As in 1958–1962 when the new government in Beijing was feeling fresh confidence, in 1979, the chaotic Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was fading into memory. China’s national Shih was again coalescing in solidarity as Beijing drew confidence from Washington. Instead of Mao’s earlier focus on national Shih, a new generation of leaders was stressing the ultimate great Shih—China’s proper place in a global Tao. Modernization, economic growth, and solidarity were now the means, rather than the end of Beijing’s strategy. To find universal Tao, China had to complete the tasks that Mao had deferred: recovering lost lands, resolving border disputes, exercising patronal elder-brother responsibilities, and assuming great-power status in the modern world.

Filling the Void The Nixon-Kissinger initiative, the Paris Conference, U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam, and Hanoi’s defection to Moscow positioned Beijing—as in 1962—with great Shih to restore the ancient and natural structure of Asian relationships—Tao. Within its regional Tao as elder brother, father, and teacher, and its global Tao as a great power, Beijing had the responsibility to protect and defend Asian peoples by filling the power vacuum. Neither Britain nor France had the will or capability to replace the Americans. Soviet hostility and ambitions threatened not only Beijing but all Asia. As Soviet influence deepened Sino-Vietnamese tensions in the 1970s, a united, confident Vietnam colluding with Moscow and India was a growing threat to China’s Tao as Southeast Asia’s protector. As a minimum, Beijing needed Hanoi’s deference on foreign and security policy. Deng had to warn Asia and Oceania against joining Soviet—and, by implication, U.S.—efforts to contain China within artificial political coalitions or military alliances. Beijing’s Shih-strategy exploited the prevalent and growing fears—especially in Thailand and the Philippines—of Soviet-Vietnamese collusion in Southeast Asia. In Ho Chi Minh’s Last Will and Testament, he bequeathed to Vietnam the French mantle of hegemonic power in Southeast Asia.14 In the context of Ho’s legacy, Hanoi’s plans for a Soviet-supported Indochina Federation to combine Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian foreign and


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defense policies were hostile to Beijing’s Shih and to the region’s Tao. Like Nehru’s Forward Policy and Neutralist Nonalignment, Hanoi’s ambitions challenged Beijing’s proper role as regional elder brother and global great power. While Euro-American analyses have dismissed China’s concerns as land-grabbing ambition or the drive for power, China’s strategic culture understood them as Li—the means—for achieving Tao and Shih—the ends. Beyond Euro-American doctrines, Beijing’s 1979 Shih-strategic aims included compelling Hanoi to abandon any designs on controlling Indochina, warning Moscow against interfering, and confirming Vietnam’s deferential place in China’s Tao.

The Hua People in Vietnam While liberal Euro-American realpolitik found a casus belli in Hanoi’s persecution and expulsion of the Hua, for Beijing, the situation had little effect on China’s decision to use force in 1979. Although not in explicit retaliation, Deng’s government “condemned Vietnamese actions and sent a few ships to the Gulf of Tonkin in a vain attempt to rescue Hua desiring repatriation to China. Vietnam did not allow the ships to enter its territorial waters, however, and Beijing withdrew them before its cross-border attack.”15 Although Beijing’s elder-brother role and emergent great-power status did not permit client states to humiliate Chinese people in such ways, neither did the Hua situation justify using force.

Chinese Strategy Like the 1962 Sino-Indian War, Beijing’s 1979 war aim was not to resist or preempt an imminent threat, to retaliate, or to gain territory, but to punish one country and change its leaders’ strategic intent. The Sino-Vietnamese War developed in the same strategic pattern that Mao had followed in the Sino-Indian War. 1. Mobilizing two large armies in overwhelming local military superiority to punish and teach Vietnam, a former ally. 2. Escalating the war from military clashes along the border and proposing negotiations during the war. 3. After seizing Lang Son, unilaterally terminating the war and withdrawing without any political conditions.

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China’s Decision to Use Force As in 1962 and 1969, reports to the Chinese people explained the war as a response to Vietnamese provocations. China had launched a self-defensive counterattack along the disputed border. Deng Xiaoping, however, presented other aims to the United States and Japan in January and February 1979. Likening Vietnam to an Asian Cuba under Soviet control, he revealed his intent to punish Vietnam for its Cambodian intrusion and to teach Hanoi its proper place. As he probably intended, Deng expressed China’s Shih-strategic design in Clausewitzian terms comfortable and acceptable within Euro-American strategic perspectives. Without referring to Shih, Li, or Tao, his diplomacy suggested at least five realpolitik reasons for using Chinese force against Vietnam: (i) to protect China’s territory along the Vietnamese border; (ii) to resolve the continuing dispute over the border’s location; (iii) to retaliate against Vietnam for invading Cambodia; (iv) to oppose Soviet expansion by attacking the focus for Moscow’s Southeast Asian ambitions; and (v) to deter further Soviet-supported Vietnamese aggression.16

The Border Issue Historically the Sino-Vietnamese frontier had always been peaceful, incidental, and amorphous. Vietnam had been an independent, tributary state to the Celestial Empire: a Chinese zone of protective security and political influence. The border, about 1,200 km, was the result of an 1887 FrancoChinese demarcation agreement. France had erected 333 border markers, but neglected to maintain them.17 Only with the Japanese occupation in the 1940s did people express much interest in the border or wonder where it was. Chiang Kai-shek had rediscovered the French markers in the 1940s. By the 1960s, Mao’s government had begun to resurrect the influence of the Great Han over tributary states—Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Tibet, and Mongolia. Until unification, both Vietnamese governments had respected the treaty and the border had remained peaceful. After 1975, differences in Chinese and Vietnamese interpretations of the treaty began to generate disputes and animosity. As their respective strategic and political interests changed, Beijing and Hanoi clashed increasingly on land and at sea over border issues. Sino-Vietnamese border negotiations, begun in 1977, had failed to reach agreement. Beijing sought to preserve a status quo, while Hanoi challenged for revision. Following Zhou’s Bandung border policy, Beijing insisted on stabilizing and demarcating the border to make both southern China and northern Vietnam safe for economic development. Confident with the


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hubris of victory in the south, Vietnam raised controversial issues on the border and discounted the 1887 treaty as artificial and imperialist. As India had done in the 1960s, Hanoi claimed areas beyond the agreement and introduced a historical border to support claims to territories in Yunnan and Guangxi provinces. As the war began, Deng announced that China would respect the border after its self-defensive counterattack. Beijing emphasized that China did not covet Vietnamese territory.18 The implication was that even in planning the campaign, China had planned to withdraw, as it had from India, after a certain advance into Vietnamese territory.

The Invasion into Cambodia Although Beijing had conceived a Vietnamese campaign much earlier, EuroAmerican analysts have found in Vietnam’s invasion of Cambodia the proximate stimulus for China’s use of force in 1979. By invading Cambodia, Vietnam seized an important strategic position in Southeast Asia that had been under China’s influence. China’s loss through Vietnamese use of force greatly diminished its influence and gravely weakened China’s Shih. Beijing had to do something to recover its influence over Cambodia diplomatically and militarily and to restore its regional Shih. Beijing’s already unfolding Shih-strategy offered a timely opportunity in its initial military shock to Vietnam that could serve as a dual punishment for invading Cambodia and for presuming an arrogance beyond its proper position in China’s world. For Clausewitzian strategists, this initial approach made good sense. A strong enough shock would induce the Vietnamese to withdraw from Cambodia to meet an irresistible threat on the Sino-Vietnamese border. Within the Euro-American perspective, the second phase of China’s Shih-strategy— unconditional withdrawal—was irrational and made no sense at all. Chinese withdrawal from the northern border provinces without a Vietnamese withdrawal from Cambodia defeated any rational purpose for the war. Failure to restore China’s position in Phnom Penh would render any Chinese operations in the north pointless. From the Shih-strategists’ perspective, the important result of Vietnam’s invasion was not Cambodia, but Hanoi’s challenge to China. Hanoi had forgotten its proper relationship with its elder brother and the generosity with which China had nurtured it. Vietnam’s challenge threatened China’s regional Shih and violated the Tao that China was recovering. The Chinese railed that “Vietnam had gone far enough in pursuing her anti-Chinese course” and “there is a limit to the Chinese people’s forbearance and restraint.”19 Beijing’s two-stage Shih-strategic response to Hanoi’s arrogance was a harsh punishment or a clear lesson that Clausewitzian theory could not

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explain. From a Clausewitzian perspective, lessons or punishment would not contribute to China’s interests at all, while a strong military shock would force Hanoi to withdraw from Cambodia. Shih-strategists, however, designed strategies focused on the enemy’s intent—not interests—and expected punishment to change the enemy’s intent. Instead of forcing Hanoi to withdraw from a minor territorial Li, Chinese leaders designed and executed a deliberate Shih-strategy to change Hanoi’s intent to challenge and to punish Vietnam’s truculence.

The Global Perspective Beijing put the Vietnamese war into a context of the Soviet-Vietnamese Treaty of Peace and Friendship signed on November 3, 1978.20 From Beijing’s perspective, the new alliance formed a link in the Soviet strategy to contain China. Especially conscious of the Soviet threat since 1969, Beijing also found in the alliance a major obstacle to restoring China’s proper place and Tao in Asia. China’s Shih-strategy had to use force to break this alliance and warn Hanoi—and other Chinese clients—against alliances or alignments with the other great powers. The Shih-strategist also perceived China’s use of force against Vietnam within a global perspective. By directly denouncing Vietnam’s invasion of Cambodia, China indirectly accused the Soviet Union, which had supported the invasion. In the continuing context of Sino-Soviet hostility, Deng anticipated that punishing Vietnam would frustrate Soviet aims in Indochina.21 Despite the risk of Soviet retaliation toward China, Beijing’s Shih-strategy gave higher priority to punishing Vietnam for its arrogance. Beijing had already asserted China’s great-power status against Moscow in 1969 and confirmed it in 1972 with the reconciliation with Washington. The U.S. withdrawal from Saigon in 1975 had invited China to resume its ancient patronal role in Southeast Asia. Vietnam’s challenge was unacceptable, and Moscow’s annoyance at any punishment seemed well balanced by U.S. preference for Chinese influence in the region. Ignoring the delicate Sino-Vietnamese relationships, Euro-American scholars have explained the Chinese military action in the realpolitik of a Southeast Asian balance of power.22 The U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam left a power vacuum, which the Soviet Union filled through its alliance with Vietnam to restore the balance. Fearing encirclement by the Soviet Union in the new geostrategic environment, invading Vietnam was a Chinese defense against Moscow to disrupt the strategy. Like, however, theories of countervailing pressure to elicit Vietnam’s withdrawal from Cambodia, realpolitik did not explain China’s preplanned withdrawal immediately after seizing Lang Son.


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Beyond the perennial border issues, many political-strategic differences between China and Vietnam had roots in the widening Sino-Soviet split. For Beijing, Moscow and Hanoi were related parts of a single strategic challenge. Within Deng’s Shih-strategic perspective, China used force both to punish and instruct the Vietnamese and to warn the Soviet Union. Beijing’s message was clear in both Hanoi and Moscow. Although Beijing would not compete directly with Moscow in Southeast Asia, China’s great-power status warranted regional respect and deference from Hanoi within the great-power strategic triangle. Deng’s strategy to punish Hanoi influenced not only the regional security equation but also global power relationships. His visits to Washington and Tokyo before the invasion alerted both Hanoi and Moscow to his intention. The dual aims of Deng’s Shih-strategy were to change the intents of both Hanoi and Moscow by punishing Vietnam. Rather than a direct, forces-based operation to resolve a territorial dispute, China used force against Vietnam within a global, intent-based Shih-strategy of the circuitous and the indirect.

Opening Phase Although the Sino-Vietnamese War lasted only 17 days in February and March 1979, its roots extended into the nineteenth century and earlier. The war’s opening phase began well before China’s assault into Vietnam. Beijing clearly announced its intentions and deliberately prepared its actions to achieve battlefield Shih within a predictable Shih-strategy.

Warnings After gradually reducing Chinese aid since 1971–1972, Beijing terminated all economic aid in 1978 and withdrew Chinese technicians, teachers, and managers. In June, Beijing closed the Vietnamese consulates in Guangzhou, Nanning, and Kunming, and in November closed rail lines between China and Vietnam. When Hanoi entered a Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation with Moscow in November, Beijing denounced it as a hostile act by both Hanoi and Moscow. When Beijing assembled a Chinese fleet off Hainan Island in 1978, Moscow shifted its naval patrols into the Gulf of Tonkin. In February 1979, four more Soviet warships appeared in the South China Sea. Eventually anchored at Cam Ranh Bay, the Soviet warships sent the clear message that China must not press its attack on Vietnam beyond acceptable limits.23 In the weeks before the attack, Chinese aircraft flew over the battle areas, while Chinese boats and ships penetrated Vietnamese territorial and coastal waters on more that 1,500 occasions.24

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Before Vietnam invaded Cambodia in December 1978, Hanoi could expect a Chinese military response. Border incidents had been increasing since Hanoi’s victory in the south: in 1974, 179 incidents, 294 in 1975, 812 in 1976, and 873 in 1977. From a January minimum—about 50 per month—in mid-1978, reported incidents began to rise. More than 700 clashes along the Sino-Vietnamese border occurred in late 1978. After 171 incidents in January 1979, Radio Hanoi reported 230 in the 16 days preceding the attack on February 17, 1979.25 Among the border incidents were several deep patrols in Hoang Lien Son and Lang Son provinces and some Chinese artillery registrations near targets inside Vietnam. While warning of the impending attack, Chinese penetrations seized critical terrain along the main axis of attack—the Lang Son corridor to Hanoi and the Red River Delta. On February 4, 1979, 200 Chinese troops with artillery support and heavy machine guns advanced some 200 m beyond the Vietnamese understanding of the border. Like the small Chinese force that crossed to Zhenbao Island on March 1, 1969, the advance patrol occupied critical terrain in the Cao Loc district of Lang Son province. After fortifying their positions, the Chinese cleared fields of fire, and located artillery registration points. On February 10, 1979, supported by mortar fire and heavy machine guns, with a large reserve, Chinese troops occupied Hill 400, about 14 km north-northeast of Lang Son. Like the 1962 incident at Che Dong that announced the Chinese attack at Kejielang, this small action at Thanh Loa seemed a deliberate preparation for a main attack.26 (See table 8.1).

Deception and Surprise While appearing to leak intelligence by expressing his intent to act against Vietnam, Deng was deliberate in selecting the time and place of attack to surprise the Vietnamese. As in 1962 and 1969, the public media and Chinese official press contributed to strategic deception by reporting that Table 8.1

Chronology: Sino-Vietnamese War

Dates

Events

February 17, 1979 February 18, 1979

China launched an attack on Vietnam The Soviet Union immediately requested China to withdraw and warned that it would honor its treaty with Vietnam The Chinese Army assaulted Lang Son, a northern gate city of Hanoi The Chinese Army seized Lang Son, declared victory, and announced withdrawal from Vietnam

February 27, 1979 March 5, 1979


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the invasion forces were replacements for border guards. While Deng used diplomacy to deceive and surprise the enemy, Beijing used the media to build national solidarity as China’s national Shih. Despite what China presented—and the Vietnamese people understood— as warnings, Hanoi—like Washington in 1950—failed to know its enemy. Just as General MacArthur denied that China would intervene, Ho Chi Minh refused “to believe that a fraternal socialist country would never attack.” As Nehru had expected China’s domestic problems to keep the PLA at home, Hanoi expected that popular Chinese opposition to the war would prevent Beijing from interfering in Vietnam. Although Hanoi suspected the truth, Vietnamese militias mobilized to face the invaders without knowing what to expect: well-equipped professional soldiers or people like themselves. Reinforcing deception and uncertainty with surprise, in both prewar advances—February 4 and 10—the Chinese forces seized their tactical objectives before the Vietnamese militias could react. While the Vietnamese were still mobilizing, the Chinese began to mass overwhelming forces in assault positions to continue the attacks.27 China had prepared a surprise attack well before the first battle. While announcing replacements for border forces near the border, Beijing had concentrated eight regular army corps from ten of China’s eleven military districts. With support units and artillery, more than 20 divisions gained absolute operational superiority. Some 700–1,000 aircraft, 1,000 tanks, and 1,500 artillery pieces supported 300,000 regular troops—equipped with assault rifles, 12.7 mm heavy machine guns, and rocket-propelled grenades.28 As China massed its divisions along the border, Vietnam did not recall any troops from Cambodia and rejected Moscow’s proposal to dispatch Soviet forces to Vietnam. Alarmed by the rising numbers and intensity of border incidents, Hanoi massed a reserve of five regular divisions to protect the Red River Delta and plain.29 In early February, Chinese light infantry and engineers infiltrated behind Vietnamese positions all along the border. These advanced patrols cut communications links, destroyed critical installations, and secured crossing sites before the main Chinese attack at dawn on February 17. Imposing a battlefield fait accompli before the main battle—on Thag La in 1962 but not in 1969 at Zhenbao—reflected Sun Tzu’s teaching that “whoever occupies the battleground first and awaits the enemy will be at ease.”30

Middle Phase After not using military force since the Sino-Soviet War in 1969, China fought the Sino-Vietnamese War in 17 days beginning on February 17,

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1979 with a predawn assault by six infantry divisions supported by heavy artillery preparations. China reported a self-defensive counterattack against Vietnamese border intrusions. The scale was far larger than such a mission could justify and involved several hundred thousand troops from both sides. Beyond a few senior generals, the PLA brought new, inexperienced soldiers to the war, while leaving most traditional operational patterns intact throughout the war.

Deception and Surprise To obscure the main axis of attack, Chinese commanders established assault positions to cross the border in 26 separated locations. This simple deception dispersed the Vietnamese border defense forces from the Gulf of Tonkin to Laos. After quickly penetrating the border in local surprise attacks, the Chinese concentrated along several avenues of approach. The initial operational objectives were the capitals of five of Vietnam’s six border provinces (the Chinese did not approach Hong Gai in Qhang Ninh province on the coast). One corps headquarters controlled the strongest Chinese force in the major effort on the eastern front along Highway One through Lang Son toward Hanoi. To prevent the Vietnamese from concentrating resistance on Highway One, China launched parallel corps-level operations through Lao Cai–Lai Chau provinces in the west and in Ha Giang–Cao Bang provinces in the center along secondary axes. Like Rommel’s 1941–1942 blitzkrieg operations in North Africa, the Chinese concept of operation limited screening between these three axes of advance to less than regimental formations. After the initial tactical surprise, the Vietnamese militias quickly gained terrain advantages and staged a determined resistance across the entire front. Chinese forces took three to seven days and thousands of casualties to penetrate the defensive positions and seize their objectives within 20 miles of the border.31 Although the initial engagements benefited significantly from operational deception and surprise, tactical commanders never regained those advantages as the campaign slid into attritional warfare.

Terrain Shih Despite Chinese preparations, the Vietnamese retained the advantages of terrain and position. The battlefields along the border included high mountains covered with jungle and dotted with steep limestone cliffs. Although mountains faded into hills in the east, the terrain in the Lang Son corridor included many steep hills with good defensive fields of fire covering road approaches. The few roads in the western border region were


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narrow, primitive, and wound through the valleys between mountains and hills. All along the border, terrain channeled Chinese mechanized and armored advances along roads and concentrated infantry column formations in narrow defiles. Rough terrain constrained tanks and trucks to unfamiliar roads well known to local populations from which Hanoi drew its Vietnamese militias. Especially along the Chinese main axis of attack in the east, the few roads through the mountainous Sino-Vietnamese border terrain created several choke-points. The border towns—Dong Dang, Cao Bang, and Dong Khe—were critical not only for logistics but for maneuvering and combat support in the Lang Son corridor. The artillery and heavy weapons with the necessary logistical train may have slowed the Chinese army advance by tying it so closely to main roads.32 Mobile Vietnamese militias, who knew the terrain well, conducted frequent ambushes with devastating effects from high-angle mortar attacks, mines, and direct fire from dominant terrain. Where Vietnamese forces had established defensive positions, only after heavy losses could Chinese forces establish any base of fire to maneuver. Under intense Chinese artillery barrages, the Vietnamese militias developed a powerful desperation Shih. In defending their positions, they inflicted heavy losses on the Chinese before eventually falling under overwhelming force. Only after reducing the border towns, reorganizing its logistic lines, and regrouping after heavy losses could the Chinese commander launch the decisive campaign against Lang Son.

Combining Orthodox and Unorthodox Sun Tzu observed that the variations in combinations of the orthodox and unorthodox were limitless.33 As in the Civil, Korean, Sino-Indian, and Sino-Soviet Wars, Chinese commanders combined the orthodox and the unorthodox in the Sino-Vietnamese War in various ways. In a minor variation of earlier patterns, China mobilized border inhabitants, especially minority nationalities, in Vietnam. Those civilians mostly participated in psychological warfare by arousing anti-Vietnamese sentiment among the minority nationalities, although some also took armed combat roles in unorthodox missions.34 Another effective Chinese combination of traditional orthodox and unorthodox coordinated the massive frontal attack with the light infantry units previously infiltrated deep into the enemy rear. China’s orthodox regular armies equipped with tanks, artillery, and rockets could destroy Vietnamese positions and troops, while the unorthodox infiltrators could disrupt Vietnamese defenses. The unorthodox guerrilla tactics of the Vietnamese militias forced the Chinese into self-defensive protection. Both sides used tactics of stealth and

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surprise by small, light infantry units. Although the Chinese penetrated the border defense by combining orthodox and unorthodox in the first battle, they could not repeat the combination. Since the Vietnamese were also eminently unorthodox tacticians, they countered the Chinese infiltrations effectively. When facing the enemy’s unorthodox in an opposing Shihstrategy, China’s unorthodox became the orthodox as the Vietnamese forced the Chinese commanders to adopt a forces-based strategy of attrition.

Operations Focusing on Enemy Intent In a punitive refinement of Sun Tzu’s intent-based battles of annihilation, Beijing’s directions were to cripple the PAVN and destroy its spirit enough to dissuade it from further provocation.35 Since Beijing did not intend to conquer or destroy Vietnam, “the important thing . . . was to impress upon the Vietnamese that they have been hurt.”36 PLA commanders instructed troops to destroy gun positions and installations in Vietnamese border provinces that threatened China. “Chinese military objectives included not only seizure of these provinces, but destruction of significant PAVN units considered essential to their defense.”37 Beijing was also well aware that Vietnamese reserve remained uncommitted and that Hanoi had not recalled its regular forces from Cambodia or Laos. Beijing realized that Ho Chi Minh intended to fight a battle of desperation in the Red River Valley. Beijing hoped to draw the Vietnamese regular PAVN divisions into the northern battlefields and annihilate them to discourage other Vietnamese troops.38 To induce Hanoi to commit its reserve, Beijing scrupulously avoided any indications that Chinese forces might advance beyond the border provinces and deliberately withheld Chinese air and naval power.39 For the Chinese, dissuading Vietnamese commanders and persuading Ho to commit his reserves were operational ends. Dissuading Hanoi from its intent to dominate Indochina with Soviet support was the strategic end. Although reaching these ends without fighting would be best, destroying gun emplacements and annihilating Vietnamese militias were the operational means. Destroying Lang Son and annihilating PAVN forces were the strategic means. Since the Vietnamese militias used unorthodox, guerrilla tactics to resist the Chinese with desperation Shih in a people’s war, China could not establish the conditions for battles of annihilation. Instead of quick battles annihilating the enemy, China lost 3,500 soldiers, about 12 battalions, and 40 tanks in the first two days of war. Chinese forces took a week to achieve their initial tactical objectives.40 Despite high Chinese casualties, however,


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since Ho refused to commit his reserve, the only means to China’s operational and strategic ends was inflicting massive casualties on the Vietnamese.

The Lang Son Campaign On February 27, 1979, the Chinese launched a tank-infantry assault, preceded by a massive artillery preparation. The initial tactical objective was the critical high ground of Khau Ma Son overlooking Lang Son town from the north. Over several days, Chinese battalions and regiments advanced around Lang Son against determined militia opposition that often involved suicide attacks at night, brutal hand-to-hand combat, and vicious fighting. On March 2, 1979, Chinese forces began the assault into Lang Son, as battles for the surrounding high ground continued. For three days and nights, the Chinese dislodged defenders house by house, bunker by bunker, and tunnel by tunnel. Xinhua announced the fall of Lang Son first on February 27, almost daily thereafter, and confirmed the Chinese victory with a photograph on March 3. The fighting continued at least through March 5.41 As Chinese forces achieved overwhelming superiority and battlefield advantage at Lang Son, Hanoi reinforced the doomed city, but did not commit its reserve. From Lang Son, Route 1 wound through a broad valley with numerous defensible hills and ambush sites. The terrain in the Red River Delta favored a strategic defense. With open fields of fire for defenders, field dikes and canals provided sufficient cover for protection and dense vegetation for concealment. Hanoi apparently determined to exploit Chinese logistical difficulties and lengthening supply lines through hostile territory in a mobile strategic defense south of Lang Son. While Chinese troops maneuvered for position at Lang Son, Hanoi began to airlift 30,000 troops from Cambodia to the northern Delta south of Lang Son. Several Vietnamese regiments moved covertly from Laos into Lao Cai province to threaten the exposed Chinese right flank.42 Having finally seized the high ground surrounding Lang Son, Beijing declared Vietnam’s punishment to be complete, that the war had ended, and that Chinese forces would withdraw from Vietnam. Over the next two weeks, the entire Chinese expeditionary force withdrew all along the border. Although the border towns and Lang Son were tangible, operational military objectives—local Lis—seizing them was merely the means to achieve the greater Li in pursuing China’s national Shih. The end—the greater Li—was dissuading the Vietnamese from resistance to Chinese military actions and from their aspirations to regional dominance. Punishment through brutal battles of destruction and annihilation was the means. These Lis—great and small—lay within China’s intangible aim—China’s national Shih and great-power Tao—as means. Achieving these Lis would punish

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Hanoi, instruct the Vietnamese in their proper places and deference in China’s larger Tao of contemporary geopolitics. To pursue China’s larger intangible end, the tangible objective, seizing Lang Son, was the means. Although both sides suffered heavily in the battle for Lang Son, for Beijing, the most important losses were those suffered by the Vietnamese. Neither was it important to hold the terrain. Within the Shih-strategic perspective, it was not surprising that China should withdraw from Lang Son four hours after its seizure and declare that the Vietnamese punishment was complete.

Ending Phase After the Chinese forces established control of Lang Son and opened the way into the Red River Delta, Beijing announced its withdrawal. “The Chinese frontier troops have attained the goals set for them . . . [and] starting from March 5, 1979, all Chinese frontier troops are withdrawing to Chinese territory.”43 Although Chinese troops had achieved the tangible military objectives—Li—by seizing Lang Son, it was controversial whether China had attained its intangible goals. Since Lang Son was Hanoi’s gate city, within the orthodox Euro-American military perspective, the Chinese had taken only an intermediate objective on the main axis of attack toward Hanoi. Within the Shih-strategists’ perspective, however, the operational focal point was changing the Vietnamese intent and plan for responding to Chinese military actions. The war’s purpose was not to seize terrain but to punish the Vietnamese and instruct Hanoi in its proper place in the larger Tao of contemporary geopolitics.

What Happened—Shih-Strategy The pattern of China’s use of force in 1979 conformed broadly with the experiences in Jiangxi, the Beijing Campaigns, Korea, India, and Zhenbao. The Sino-Vietnam War, however, introduced several unique features that shifted Beijing’s Shih-strategy.

Unique Observations The Sino-Vietnamese War revealed the foundations of Shih-strategy beneath China’s use of force, but also exposed another paradoxical failure of China’s Shih-strategy. The Korean and Sino-Soviet Wars had both confirmed the difficulties of Shih-strategic people’s war against an enemy with


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overwhelming military superiority. The Sino-Vietnamese War revealed the dangers in underestimating an enemy’s national Shih. It exposed the weaknesses of Shih-strategy in confronting an opposing Shih-strategic, Maoist, people’s war. The stubborn Vietnamese defense confirmed Sun Tzu’s warnings to avoid generating desperation Shih in a desperate people fighting for their homes, hearths, lives, and families.

An Opposing Shih-Strategy Traditionally, the Chinese operational pattern and Vietnamese tactics had both evolved from Shih-theory. With poignant irony, Hanoi adopted a classical Shih-strategy of indirection learned through centuries of cultural and strategic interchanges with the Chinese, but used another Vietnamese Shihstrategy to fight the war. The traditional Vietnamese strategy of dang nam ra bac—strike south and go north—echoes China’s “Make noise in the east and attack in the west.”44 More than 13 wars with China over two millennia had taught Vietnamese strategists to secure Vietnam’s southern flank before, or while, confronting China in the north. By the late 1970s, Vietnam had deployed about 25 divisions, nine or ten in Vietnam, 12 in Cambodia, and three or four in Laos in this classic Shih-strategy.45 As SinoVietnamese relations deteriorated, Hanoi felt impelled to attack in the south by invading Cambodia to eliminate the threat of a two-front war with China in the north. Expecting a Chinese reaction to the invasion into Cambodia, Vietnamese leaders also expected Soviet patronage and support to limit Chinese actions to border incidents or shallow penetrations. Like Mao in 1958 and Nehru in 1962, Ho was unprepared for both Soviet noninvolvement and China’s massive reaction, which shattered his fragile Shihstrategic context in Indochina.

Desperate Strategic Defense As Soviet military assistance declined after the 1973 Paris Conference and Washington developed an entente with Beijing, Ho slid into a pseudo-Shihstrategy of self-reliance in fighting a Maoist people’s war against China’s overwhelming military superiority. Like Mao in the civil war and the Korean War, Ho had built Vietnam’s national Shih on self-reliance in national crisis. When Moscow declined to intervene in 1979, Hanoi could only expect a two-front war of survival. The grand scale of China’s reaction forced Hanoi into a psychology of desperation and created a Vietnamese desperation Shih. Unlike Indian troops in 1962 and Soviet border guards in 1969, the Vietnamese were desperately defending homes and families with no hope of escape, mercy, retreat, or assistance. Broader than the tactical

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situation of desperation Shih recognized by Sun Tzu, Vietnam’s plight—like China facing U.S. invasion in 1950–1951—extended desperation Shih across the entire country. Instead of deploying regular troops in a war that they could not win—as Mao had done—Ho developed desperation Shih into the first stage of Mao’s protracted war—desperate Shihstrategic defense. Hanoi mobilized its people’s militias in Qhang Ninh, Lang Son, Cao Bang, Ha Tuyen, Hoang Lien Son, and Lai Chau border provinces. Regular PAVN cadres gave them minimal training, light infantry weapons, and tactical advice. Before the Chinese attack, Hanoi had committed itself to positional defense in a people’s war of desperation and announced its center of operational and strategic gravity: the Red River Delta.

Punishment and Patronage Chinese military operations imposed a heavy punishment on the Vietnamese. Beyond razing five provincial capitals and several lesser towns, Chinese artillery imposed most of about 20,000 Vietnamese casualties, primarily local militias. Although the Chinese forces seized their military objectives and imposed heavy local casualties and destruction, those tactical victories did not directly punish or dissuade the national Vietnamese people. Instead of discouraging them, losing terrain and lives strengthened Vietnamese determination to resist the invaders and increased Vietnamese national Shih. The Vietnamese people never accepted China’s punishment and never stopped resisting Chinese military actions. As the Chinese withdrew, the Vietnamese pursued only closely enough to avoid engagement but never ceased harassing the rear guard with enough artillery fire to maintain credibility as defenders.46 Despite China’s overwhelming military superiority, Hanoi neither accepted Beijing’s punishment nor deferred to its patronal dominance. As Chinese forces approached Lang Son, Ho refused China’s U.S.–endorsed proposal to withdraw from Vietnam if Hanoi acceded to Beijing by withdrawing from Cambodia. Vietnam’s rejection proposed mutual withdrawal from a demilitarized zone along the Sino-Vietnamese border, with no stipulations about Cambodia. Even after Lang Son’s fall, Hanoi resisted China’s dominance and insisted that Vietnamese people’s militias and PAVN forces within the country could both repel the Chinese attack and control Cambodia.

Changing Enemy Intent The war did not induce the withdrawal of Vietnamese troops from Cambodia and did not bring peace along the Sino-Vietnamese border.


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Although Hanoi had issued orders for the recall of some troops from Laos and Cambodia, China’s withdrawal from Lang Son justified canceling most movements. Those units that did return to Vietnam deployed as reinforcements rather than replacements. As the Chinese threat to the Red River Delta disappeared, both sides in Cambodia were building their forces. By April, the fighting in Cambodia was more intense than it had been in February. China’s use of force in 1979 was not as successful against Vietnam as it had been against India in 1962. Beijing had not changed either the Vietnamese intent to resist Chinese military actions or Hanoi’s intentions toward Cambodia. Whereas New Delhi had refined its policies to accommodate Beijing after the war, Hanoi persisted in its challenge to Chinese influence in Southeast Asia, despite the war.

Strategic Blunders Within the greater Shih-strategy at a political-strategic level, Chinese attacks suffered from strategic blunders at tactical and operational levels. While the war achieved the intended political results, the tactical and operational successes were at best costly and at worst dysfunctional.

Terrain Although the rough, mountainous North Korean terrain had created China’s powerful terrain Shih in the first two Korean campaigns, in Vietnam, terrain Shih gave the advantage to Hanoi. Whereas the mechanized U.S. enemy in Korea was unfamiliar with the ground, in Vietnam the Chinese forces accompanied by vehicles, artillery, and armor were operating in unfamiliar terrain. In contrast, the Vietnamese militias carried only small arms for local operations. Despite deliberate reconnaissance, deep patrolling, and preliminary occupation of critical positions, the situation on the ground deprived the Chinese commanders of terrain Shih, which they never regained.

Desperation Shih Perhaps contrary to Chinese expectations, Hanoi chose to confront China’s invasion with a primary force of people’s local militias, instead of the Vietnamese regular forces. In adopting a Shih-strategy of people’s war, Ho Chi Minh created a powerful desperation Shih among the people of the border provinces. Reluctant to abandon their homes and families in withdrawal, they fought desperately until overwhelmed by China’s superior firepower. In their earlier civil-war Shih-strategies, Mao and Lin Biao had

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explicitly prevented any Nationalist desperation Shih in the 1949 campaigns around Beijing. Ho’s deliberate desperation Shih-strategy in 1979 forced China to refine its original Shih-strategy—deception, surprise, and annihilation—into an orthodox Li-campaign of forces-based attrition. Although Beijing anticipated a need for firepower superiority with its huge reserve, Beijing’s final victory at Lang Son emerged not from intent-based Shih but from superior, conventional force.

Logistics The difficult terrain—especially in the west—slowed the Chinese attack and disrupted communications between units. Unanticipated logistical and signal difficulties may have prevented both the central command structure and the tactical flexibility that were battlefield advantages in 1962. In contrast to the extensive, sophisticated logistical infrastructure that China had constructed in Tibet, Chinese forces operating in hostile territory were at a clear disadvantage. Logistics clearly limited the Chinese advance. Without forward depots—and no local partisans to mobilize—Chinese infantrymen carried food, water, and ammunition along unfamiliar footpaths from bases in China to their advancing units. Artillery and tank units used horses and mules to carry ammunition and fuel across the border as they advanced. Throughout the war, Chinese soldiers—as in Korea—were permanently undersupplied.47

Common Patterns of Shih-Strategy Euro-American analyses have understood China’s strategic blunders as Beijing’s failures, rather than the success of Ho Chi Minh’s desperation Shih-strategy. Although China did not achieve its aims in Vietnam, Shihtheory explains what happened, without the anomalies that haunt orthodox Clausewitzian analyses. Across a half-century of China’s use of force, the Shih-strategic perspective resolves Chinese behaviors in Vietnam into predictable, regular patterns. Instead of repudiating Shih-strategy, the SinoVietnam War validated Sun Tzu’s teaching as the foundation of Chinese strategic culture, shared as a legacy by the Vietnamese. Although China was no longer weak, the weak defeated the strong! As in previous conflicts, Beijing preserved a tight connection between China’ military operations and the nonmilitary aims of policy and strategy. Chinese leaders carefully assessed the situation, chose a suitable time, tried to create Hsing advantages, and exploited opportunities in a clear


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Shih-strategy. Despite Euro-American understandings of them in Clausewitzian terms, Beijing’s strategic aims were deeper than territory, dominance, security, peaceful coexistence, or ideology. Within China’s strategic culture, these well-established Euro-American objectives or justifications for using force became local, transient, functional Li. Instead of objectives, they were means to the end of China’s Shih within a geopolitical Tao that envisioned China as a great power. Other than the unintended Korean intervention, China’s use of force has consistently exploited a geopolitical context that promised nonintervention by other powers. The deepening Soviet-U.S. confrontation, and coincidentally the Cuban missile crisis, insulated both the Sino-Indian War and the Sino-Soviet War. The U.S. withdrawal and reconciliation with China precluded U.S. intervention in 1979, while Vietnamese truculence served to deter active Soviet intervention. The Chinese pattern of insulating the battlefield extended to the operational level in Beijing’s schedule for operations. With an operational advantage in logistical infrastructure in Tibet, the best time for the Sino-Indian War was in late summer. Extended beyond their lines of supply and communication, Indian forces were most vulnerable, while Chinese troops enjoyed interior lines. The Chinese offensive into Vietnam followed Sino-U.S. normalization and preceded the heavy monsoon rains in northern Vietnam that would immobilize Chinese forces. A long opening phase—deliberate planning, deception, and diplomacy— preceded the operational phase of China’s wars and culminated in clandestine deployment of troops into assault positions. With a narrow focus on the enemy’s intent, Beijing was scrupulous in presenting a long series of political, diplomatic, and physical warnings to India and Vietnam. At the carefully chosen time and place, the surprise attacks were sudden, swift, deep, and established China’s locally dominant Hsing. While an unprepared Indian enemy retreated and a powerful Soviet enemy escalated, a determined Vietnamese adversary created desperation Shih to defend itself in the first stage—strategic defense—of Mao’s protracted people’s war. China’s Shih-strategic use of force in third-stage people’s war— annihilation—began with massing enough military force to achieve local superiority to avoid defeat in the first engagements. As in Jiangxi, the Beijing campaigns, Korea, India, and Zhenbao, Chinese forces did not engage the Vietnamese enemy until they were confident of winning the first battles of annihilation. In Jiangxi, the Beijing campaigns, and India, winning the first battles was often sufficient to achieve the aim of the engagement and Chinese forces could disengage smoothly. In Korea, Zhenbao, and Vietnam, the enemy resisted stubbornly to prevent smooth mission accomplishment. While Mao’s intervention in Korea was neither intended nor carefully

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prepared, Chinese uses of force in Zhenbao and Vietnam were deliberate. Just as the second battle of Zhenbao may have been a strategic blunder based on misunderstandings of Soviet intent, the battle for Lang Son seems to have underestimated Vietnamese determination. When forced by determined resistance into conventional forces-based conflict—Tianjin, Korea, the second battle on Zhenbao, and Vietnam— Chinese forces suffered high casualties. They could only achieve mission objectives through battlefield superiority. Mao’s strategic superiority eventually prevailed at Tianjin—a local Li—and led to later, larger strategic victory in the Chinese Civil War—a great Shih. Chinese operational superiority at Lang Son and the Thag La ridge served to achieve the local Li, simply one means of pursuing China’s greater Shih. Just as Tianjin lost its significance when it fell, Lang Son lost its value on March 5, and Chinese forces had no further mission there. Euro-American suggestions that the determined Vietnamese resistance and the heavy Chinese casualties surprised Beijing are probably correct. Inferences that China withdrew to avoid further losses, however, simplistically impute to Chinese Shih-strategy the same forces-based values that form Euro-American conventional doctrines. As in India, Beijing continued to use first-stage guerrilla warfare to support its second- or third-stage combat operations. Beijing armed ethnic minorities that had traditionally resisted the common enemy, even though those guerrillas did not participate directly in combat operations. Just as Mao had armed Chinese in occupied China in the 1940s and Nagas in the 1960s, Beijing supported the Khmers Rouges and Lao Hmong insurgents in the 1970s. Many local Hua, who had supported the Viet Minh earlier and recently fled Vietnamese persecution, supported the Chinese invasion directly. Most guerrillas involved in the fighting, however, were northern hill people seeking to preserve traditional ways against Vietnamese cultural intrusion.48 In the precombat, or opening, phase of the Sino-Vietnamese War, through many incidents and warnings across a wide front, on land, at sea, and in the air, Beijing deepened tactical and operational surprise into a formless Hsing arising from the enemy’s confusion. China’s deception about the time and place of attack forced New Delhi in 1962 and Hanoi in 1979 to disperse their defenses across wide fronts. Pre-assault penetrations established Chinese control of critical terrain along the main axis of advance, the Lang Son corridor in Vietnam or Che Dong in India. The following assault troops quickly concentrated to achieve local superiority. In pre-assault penetrations and initial dispersed invasions, small mobile forces with massive reserves and support moved swiftly to seize local objectives before defending Indian or Vietnamese forces could respond. These


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initial objectives became points of concentration for further assaults and battles of annihilation. The initial assault forces immediately established defensive positions with deliberate fields of fire, artillery concentrations, and lines of communication. These initial efforts achieved a fait accompli that forced the enemy either to retreat or to mass in a counterassault. Local Chinese commanders immediately captured the battlefield initiative, but did not exploit their successes as their enemies had expected, since their purposes were not to conquer or destroy the enemy.

Epilogue China’s abrupt withdrawal allowed Hanoi to stop defensive preparations in the capital and the Red River Delta and to begin reconstruction in the north. The occupation forces redeployed to Cambodia and continued the counterinsurgency campaign against Pol Pot’s Khmers Rouges. Although China’s relationships with Southeast Asia improved in the 1980s, Vietnam maintained a force of 800,000 troops in northern Vietnam. “Frequent skirmishes continued along the border, typically accompanied by artillery shelling, patrols, and minor attacks within a few kilometers of the border . . . in which PLA units as large as a division were engaged. . . . PLA border attacks were generally timed to coincide with Vietnamese military activity in Cambodia.”49 As Sino-Vietnamese and Sino-Soviet tensions stabilized into a suspicious status quo, Beijing continued Mao’s Shih-strategy by deferring contentious disputes over land borders and maritime sovereignty. When fading Soviet power in Southeast Asia could no longer contain them, China’s disputes at sea erupted in competition with territorial claims by Vietnam, Taiwan, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Brunei.50 Shifting from Mao’s deferral to Zhou’s Bandung initiative, in January 1988, Beijing landed a military force in the Spratleys to confront the Vietnamese garrison. On March 14, 1988, the Chinese navy destroyed a Vietnamese gunboat near the Spratleys. Hanoi reinforced the islands and, after exchanging protests with Beijing, withdrew. In 1989, when Vietnam began to withdraw from Cambodia, Beijing accepted negotiations to normalize relations with Hanoi. Only in 1991, after full withdrawal, did peace return to the Sino-Soviet border, as China reoriented its Asian foreign policy. In the 1990s, Beijing improved relations with Indonesia, Singapore, South Korea, and Vietnam, joined U.N. peacekeeping forces in Asia, and opened border negotiations with Hanoi. At sea, after naval confrontations in 1995, Beijing and Manila agreed “that

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the dispute should not be resolved through military means and both sides should observe the international ocean laws issued by the United Nations.”51 After establishing China’s proper regional Tao in 1979, Deng confirmed both Mao’s and Zhou’s Shih-strategies as Beijing relearned the role of a great power in influencing regional relationships.

Chapter 9 Chinese Strategy: Shih-Strategy

Two main themes dominated ancient Chinese military strategic thought. One was the idea that power dwelt among the people—Shih. The other was the strategic principle that the essence of military art lay in deceiving the enemy—intent-based operations. Beyond military strategy, they have influenced China’s political decisions to use force and Chinese strategic decisions not to use force.1 Although the strategic context has changed, China’s strategic culture has preserved these two themes at its heart and soul for nearly three millennia. From the Warring States period through the Qin dynasty, strategists developed the military arts primarily for war among the states within China, struggling in what modern strategists recognize as revolutionary or civil war. Resting on the Confucian understandings of power, Shih and Tao assumed central importance during the fifth and sixth centuries BC. Although Chinese states also fought against their non-Chinese neighbors, they applied the same strategic concepts with only minor modifications. After suppression by the Euro-American powers in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, China emerged again as a major power after World War II. In the superpowers, Beijing faced competitors that were more powerful than any former foreign enemies. Mao Tse-tung, China’s first modern Shih-strategist, refined the ancient strategic culture with his people’s war and adapted it to the modern context. Although China’s strategic culture continues to evolve from and beyond Mao’s legacies, the notions of people’s power and intent-based strategies have remained robust in post-Maoist Chinese policy, strategy, and use of force.

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The Context Euro-American analysts and strategists have artfully interpreted and understood China’s grand strategy within Clausewitzian realpolitik’s comfortable paradigms and familiar Euro-American realism. Few observers, however, have transposed the post–Cold-War context into China’s strategic-cultural perspective.2

China’s Grand Strategy Although they never experienced direct colonization, Chinese recall the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as a time when Euro-Americans humiliated them through more than 1,000 unequal treaties and agreements. “As many as 1.8 million square kilometers were also taken away from Chinese territory. This was a period of humiliation that the Chinese can never forget. This is why the people of China show such strong emotions in matters concerning our national independence, unity, integrity of territory and sovereignty.”3 For the Chinese—both individuals and a national people— sovereignty comprised solidarity and autonomy intertwined around legitimacy through territorial integrity. Establishing the state’s legal independence was meaningless unless its government was in stable harmony and broad unity with the people. China’s diplomacy and wars have consistently sought, created, reinforced, and preserved domestic stability, solidarity, and legitimacy—national Shih with the ruler in harmony with the people. Since China’s power resides among its people, any security must embrace the people and national Shih, not merely the terrain on which they live. It is not enough to meet the people’s material needs or to resist foreign invasion. “China must work to rear an international system that favors its internal political order.”4 As challenges to national security, China’s border disputes have never been more than narrow, local Lis, which Mao and Deng deferred to higher priorities. When circumstances transformed them into challenges to national Shih—embodied in territorial integrity—China has consistently used force. Embracing national Shih, China’s emperors and governments have persistently promoted “a peaceful and secure political environment free of threats to China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity” as China’s proper Tao. Zhou Enlai’s Bandung initiative began the discrete shift from Mao’s narrow focus on building national Shih to cultivating China’s “status and influence as a great power in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond.” From

Chinese Strategy: SHIH-Strategy

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Zhou’s sometime deceptive engaging of the rest of the world, Deng Xiaoping’s 1978 reforms redefined China’s national Shih within a global context. Deng’s converging Shih and Tao placed China solidly on the geopolitical path to great-power responsibilities and global influence.5 Despite international law’s juridical equality, diplomatic recognition of any state’s sovereignty is pointless without a real ability to project its people’s identity into the world. Locked by geopolitics in complex interdependence, Beijing has had to employ, or avoid using, force to influence whatever could affect China and its people. From its weakness, China’s strategic culture has ordained capturing the initiative and asserting China’s presence. “When I wish to give battle, my enemy, even though protected by high walls and deep moats, cannot help but engage me. When I wish to avoid battle, I may defend myself simply by drawing a line on the ground; the enemy will be unable to attack me because I divert him from going where he wishes.”6 Conventional Euro-American doctrines quickly dismiss this positive Shihstrategic attitude as quaintly ignoring or ingenuously recasting the security dilemma that permeates Clausewitzian realpolitik.

Mao’s Geostrategic Legacy In the 1930s, Mao’s people’s war insisted that assuming China’s proper place in the world—China’s Tao—was his ultimate revolutionary aim. Resisting the Japanese invader or the Nationalist oppressor were merely functional Lis. Winning “the War of Resistance is a duty [that] we cannot shirk. For only by fighting in defense of the motherland can we defeat the aggressors and achieve national liberation. Only by achieving national liberation will it be possible for the proletariat and the toiling masses to achieve their own liberation. . . . Patriotism is simply an application of internationalism in the war of national liberation.”7 Mao’s new world order was embedded in Tao, within which China’s national Shih—sovereignty, solidarity, and autonomy— fit smoothly into a geopolitical structure that included China as a great power. Despite his Confucian–Taoist ideals, however, Mao’s sincere communism influenced his global Shih-strategy by placing not only China’s national interests but China’s Shih above other people’s competing interests. Mao’s vision inspired his followers and those who still revere his memory to define China’s interests broadly, beyond legal sovereignty, above national prosperity, and deeper than national security. In urging Chinese to carry the revolution beyond China’s borders, Lin Biao envisaged a world order that smoothly adapted universal Tao to China’s own domestic regime and national interests.8 Deng’s reforms preserved Mao’s conviction that a strong China was essential to create a stable international order, ultimately to

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preserve Tao—built around China’s Shih—from revisionist states and reactionary peoples. Mao’s obsession with China’s national Shih—sovereignty, Chinese solidarity, and autonomy—has not led to doctrinaire policies or nationalistic strategies, but rather to doctrinal flexibility. Mao’s alliances with Chiang Kai-shek—the enemy—postwar cooperation with Moscow, and collaboration with Washington symbolize China’s strategic-cultural readiness to exploit the enemy—or the enemy’s enemy—through cooperation and then shift alliances when situations change. After the 1920s coalition failed and Chiang rejected his 1937 attempt at coalition strategy, Mao cooperated within the united front, even while building his forces’ Shih. When the Japanese withdrew in 1945, Mao again cautiously sought cooperation with Chiang and the KMT within his greater Shih-strategy to win the civil war without fighting.9 When coalition and cooperation failed, Mao’s Shihstrategy shifted to force to destroy Chiang’s little remaining Shih and Tao. While Euro-American forces-based strategies prefer using military force to destroy an enemy, Mao’s Shih-strategy was more comfortable with blending cooperation and law as complementary techniques for using force. As a strategic instrument, Shih-strategic cooperation has never implied or contained the legal equality between partners that Euro-American cultures and doctrines presumed. While Deng’s officials accepted the rule of law and diplomatic cooperation as essential in international relations, they insisted on reserving Beijing’s right to apply the law differently in different cases.10 These instrumental—rather than normative—understandings of law and cooperation were consistent within China’s Shih-strategic culture and Confucian value system. Deeper than skepticism and inconsistent with Justinian legal principles, China’s strategic culture is comfortable with instrumental cooperation that rejects both equality before the law and procedural consistency.11

Patterns in Modern Chinese Use of Force Military historians have analyzed the operations of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and identified explicit lessons within a particular strategic focus. Most studies have recognized patterns in the clear differences between Chinese approaches to using force and the conventional approaches within Euro-American logic. Within the Chinese Shih-strategic perspective, those patterns become normal, expected, or doctrinal: strategic connection between operations and policy, planning and preparation, command and control, and the influence of Maoist thought.


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The Decision to Use Force Decisions by Chinese leaders to engage in battle during the Chinese Civil War were at tactical and operational levels. Field commanders applied the principles of Shih-strategic theory to their own operations. Beijing’s post–1949 decisions to use force against other countries embodied Shihstrategic thought in several empirical forms.

Territorial Integrity Most Chinese uses of force in the twentieth century involved challenges to China’s territorial integrity as the nucleus of claims to sovereignty and legitimacy. Three of China’s four major modern wars—India, Soviet Union, and Vietnam—have arisen around border disputes. Chinese withdrawals in India and Vietnam, however, suggest that the Chinese territorial issue is not to occupy the disputed territory. China’s strategic culture positions territory, jurisdiction, and sovereignty as symbols or pillars—Lis—within national Shih. When territorial challenges have threatened China’s Shih or Beijing’s Shih-strategy, Beijing has responded consistently by using or threatening force.

Preoccupation with Popular Sentiments Building China’s national Shih consistently preoccupied Mao, Deng, and the CCP. They variously expressed their aims as national solidarity, revolutionary spirit, or counter-reactionary zeal. Easily mistaken for little more than Euro-American patriotism or party loyalty, China’s Shih broadened and deepened well beyond ideology. China’s leaders sought to bring the people and the ruler into harmony within Tao. In contrast to some orthodox war theories, Chinese preoccupation with national Shih did not create or escalate external conflicts to divert domestic public concerns. Neither did Beijing exploit foreign conflicts merely to suppress domestic dissent or reactionary unrest, as many conventional authoritarian leaders have done. Instead, China’s leaders transformed foreign challenges into local Lis and coopted them into larger Shih-strategies to strengthen national Shih and recover China’s Tao.

Geostrategic Power Balancing Orthodox Euro-American doctrines expect great powers and aspirants to engage each other in a dynamic balance of power as each pursues its interests in security and autonomy. In contrast to Cold-War geopolitical power balancing, Beijing engaged each superpower directly only once—Washington

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in 1950 in Korea and Moscow in 1969 in the Sino-Soviet War. China limited further engagements to indirect confrontation through proxies—India in 1962, periodically in the Taiwan Straits and Vietnam, and in Indochina in the 1970s.

Status and Realpolitik Orthodox status-inconsistency theories predict using force to reduce the gap between a state’s desired status and that accorded by the international community. This view implies some realpolitik correspondence between geopolitical status and military-political-economic national power. China’s consistent obsession with great-power status reflected the inconsistency between what China felt to be its Tao and the deference and respect offered by the rest of the world. After gaining U.S. respect in the Korean War, Mao and Zhou discovered the same inconsistency in South Asia and Tibet and resolved it with the Sino-Indian War. Despite any personal relationships between Mao and Stalin and the Sino-Soviet partnership, by the early 1960s, Moscow’s arrogance had disillusioned Beijing about Soviet acceptance of mutual equality. Just as China had used force through military power and realpolitik to win American and Indian respect, Beijing hoped that the Sino-Soviet and Sino-Vietnamese Wars would have similar results. As Chinese gradually perceived acceptance as a great power—China’s proper Tao—in the 1980s, Beijing became less dissatisfied with any status inconsistencies and began to exercise its geopolitical role as a great power.12

Planning and Preparation Chinese planning and preparations for a deliberate use of force often extended patient, meticulous staff work to years before even a minor engagement. Even when faced with an unexpected emergency, Chinese planners considered every contingency in some detail before acting. Mao’s staffs weighed not only Soviet or U.S. intervention but also the internal political, and economic effects of any intervention. Before the Sino-Indian War, China spent a decade in constructing, stocking, and financing a Tibetan logistical infrastructure in the difficult Himalayan terrain and climate. While staffs studied, in parallel, field commanders managed detailed engineering, troop positioning, reconnaissance, training, and logistics for supporting expeditionary forces. The intensity and detail of Chinese planning and preparation reflect the importance of each battle, as a critical means—Li—or a final end—Shih. Planning for local Lis at Aksai Chin, Zhenbao, and Lang Son was as


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sophisticated and comprehensive as Mao’s preparation for the Beijing campaigns in 1949. Beijing’s meticulous, even obsessive, planning and preparation extended through strategic and operational considerations to precise rehearsals by platoons and squads especially assembled—as at Zhenbao— for a single operation.

Command and Control With Mao as the central leader-commander, his people’s war demanded flexibility, initiative, and autonomy for field commanders to develop their own operational plans and campaigns—Li—within Mao’s centrally coordinated strategic aims—Shih. By the late 1940s, Mao’s PLA “had a large corps of able experienced, and self-reliant officers. However, with victory in 1948 and 1949, conditions changed such that Mao and the core leadership were now able to exercise operational control more tightly from the center.”13 Although Mao’s micromanagement may have been heavy and aggressive in Korea, the Sino-Indian War balanced central control and operational autonomy. In 1969 and 1979, the rigid, layered command-and-control hierarchy from Beijing may have contributed to strategic blunder in fighting the second Zhenbao battle or the battle at Lang Son.

Strategy, Operations, and Shih China’s use of force has consistently integrated combat within larger purposes and subordinated military operations to strategic-policy needs. As early as the Jiangxi campaigns, Mao stressed that military operations had meaning only within China’s economic, psychological, and political national Shih: the people’s solidarity in harmony with the ruler. By the PeipingTianjin campaign, Mao had integrated psychological warfare, propaganda, patriotism, prosperity, and policy into military strategy, and could occupy Beijing without a destructive, costly siege. During the Korean War, Peng Dehuai focused narrowly on the battles facing his troops—a series of Lis. Mao’s broader view encompassed the need to create national solidarity— Shih—China’s place in the world—Tao—and his own legitimacy. While Deng persistently urged tactical caution, Mao consistently urged him to gamble strategically for China’s Shih and Tao. Despite heavy casualties in Korea and Vietnam, China had achieved its aims, gained its local Lis, strengthened national Shih, and rediscovered its Tao. In contrast to Euro-American discomfort with casualties when balanced with purely political aims, China’s Shih-strategic culture venerates

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personal sacrifices by soldiers and civilians in achieving national Shih. Deeper than patriotism or loyalty, the Chinese people’s instinctive feelings of Shih and Tao have integrated policy, strategy, operations, and even tactics in successful Chinese uses of force.

Deception and Surprise China’s operational style in using force has evolved from Sun Tzu’s ancient prescriptions and Mao’s ideologies into a clear doctrine within China’s strategic culture. Chinese commanders have relied on deception and surprise— confusing, luring, enticing, entrapping, or ambushing an enemy— whenever and wherever possible to establish and exploit a formless Hsing. Chinese forces have routinely used electronic warfare to broadcast false units, positions, and movements within a context of diplomatic invitations to negotiate, while preparing a surprise attack. Chinese soldiers have developed skill in night operations—especially in Korea—deployment, and movement of forces to battle positions—India, Zhenbao, and Vietnam.

Maneuver and Offense China’s operations have consistently maneuvered to concentrate superior forces locally and briefly for engaging the enemy’s weakest point. Successes have emerged around swift, mobile offensives, maneuver, and deep penetrations—Sino-Indian War—while static defenses—Zhenbao and Korea—have imposed heavy casualties. Campaigns and battles have aimed at annihilating and destroying enemy forces rather than seizing, holding, and defending terrain.

Technology and Logistics While overstressing the human aspects of Shih-theory, Mao’s ten principles omitted the effects of impersonal technology and objective logistics. Despite Mao’s oversight, China’s most successful campaigns have deliberately and carefully included logistical infrastructures. With inferior forces in India, China’s robust logistics supported comparable firepower and rapid maneuver. With its large logistical and technical requirements, field artillery has been critical in all China’s wars in creating a formless Hsing and gaining tactical and operational initiative. Focused on numerically superior enemies, China’s operational style and intent-based strategy have not, however, adapted well to enemies with overwhelming technological, logistical, or nuclear superiority.


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Joint Operations From the early civil-war campaigns, Mao’s planners recognized the challenges of joint operations, but lacked both urgency and capabilities to address them. Although Chiang learned to depend heavily on U.S. airpower, the Soviet-supported navy and air force, intended to support Mao’s invasion of Taiwan in 1950–1951, never materialized. The huge disparities between the Chinese People’s Volunteers and U.S. air and naval support in Korea nearly always prevented Chinese success in battles of annihilation. As in summer 1969 and in Vietnam, the heavy Chinese casualties inflicted by enemy airpower and artillery were often grossly disproportionate to any Clausewitzian advantages of mission accomplishment. With neither a modern navy nor an effective air force, Mao’s planners and commanders never mastered the arts of joint warfare, air-ground support, naval-amphibious warfare, or air interdiction. With the salient exceptions of massed artillery and supporting armor, China did not use effective joint operations in its post–1949 wars. The modern PLA still faces the troublesome operational and tactical problems of joint operations.

The Chinese Soldier Once committed to battle and assigned tactical objectives, Chinese troops have consistently fought well, endured heavy losses unacceptable to EuroAmerican peoples, and persisted in combat to achieve Beijing’s strategic aims. Within both Mao’s Red Army and the PLA, Chinese troops’ tenacity and persistence in battle have rested on deeper foundations than correct politics or ideology inculcated by political commissars. “The toughness of the PLA soldier and the martial spirit of the PLA go beyond the ideological to the larger intangibles of leadership, the sociology of small-unit cohesion, and harnessed patriotic emotion.”14 Unity of effort, social solidarity, and self-sacrifice within China’s Shih and Tao are integral to the spirit of Shihstrategy that continues to pervade China’s strategic culture.

Shih in Modern War With roots deep in China’s history and culture, the strong influences of Shih-theory and strategic thought have formed China’s strategic culture through China’s twentieth-century wars. The basic notions of Shih and Tao, especially strategy based on intent, deception, and the unorthodox, with only slight refinements, still influence Chinese strategic thinking and use of

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force. From China’s ancient internal wars, China’s strategic culture has evolved around Shih and Tao through the Qing dynasty’s decline and modern conflicts with border countries by adapting to changes in China’s strategic environment. As China assumed its role in global power politics, Shih and Tao remained at the center of Beijing’s use of force.

China’s Civil War In a strategic context similar to those in which ancient Chinese strategists discovered and nurtured Shih-strategic principles, in his attempts to achieve victory without fighting, Mao refined Shih-strategy into his people’s-war doctrine. Although losing some early battles, instead of accumulating weapons and troops to win every battle, Mao built Tao around Shih and applied force indirectly in seeking victory without fighting. Exploiting Chiang’s 1946 offensive to shift Shih to his own forces—as in 1927 and in 1935—by 1948, Mao’s Tao and Shih seemed to satisfy the subjective preconditions for victory. Mao’s counteroffensive opened when Chiang’s isolation from the people, and from his allies, satisfied the objective condition for communist victory and his own Tao and Shih were stronger than Chiang’s. Mao’s Shih-strategic decision to delay shifted battlefield Shih irreversibly, led to the dramatic reversal in military advantages in 1949, and quickly ended the civil war. Although Chiang’s forces retained the technical capability and weaponry to wage war, Chiang had failed in the competition of Tao and Shih.

The Korean War For China, the Korean War was the first experience in fighting a large-scale war against a modern military force equipped with tanks, artillery, and airplanes. Aware that the ancient strategists had developed Shih-strategy for limited war among primitive states, Mao’s generals, who recalled his brilliant Shih-strategic victories, were skeptical about Shih-strategy in modern war. Following Stalin’s lead, Mao, however, expanded the ancient Chinese worldview (Tien Hsia) to include all countries and refined Shih-theory to embrace modern, high-intensity, industrialized war. Assessing the situation and the enemy around Sun Tzu’s five factors convinced him that a Shihstrategy could not only defeat the United States but would also strengthen China’s Shih. Since Mao’s ultimate aim, a strong Tao, lay latent in the Chinese culture itself, his Shih-strategy arose from the Chinese people in a powerful synergistic effect.


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Recognizing China’s inferiority in weaponry, Mao’s war strategy was to avoid the enemy’s strength in weapons and strike the political weaknesses in the enemy’s intent—division among U.N. members and within the U.S. political system.15 Convinced of superior Tao and Shih, he directed Marshal Peng consistently to annihilate enemy divisions to shock both dissenting Americans and hesitant Europeans, who would demand withdrawal of U.N. forces. At the geopolitical-strategic levels, Mao’s Shih-strategy fought the intent of U.S. political leaders, who had full U.N. authority to fight or withdraw. At the operational level, Peng consistently focused on the UNC commander’s intent with his reliance on deception and surprise. Only at the tactical level, where China’s weaker forces had to face stronger U.S. firepower, did the war become a forces-based struggle on the battlefield. Trying to annihilate well-armed U.S. divisions cost the Chinese enormous casualties. Chinese combat actions in battle shocked the world by exposing the incredible depth of Chinese will—national and morale Shih. Mao’s strategy rapidly and successfully exploited the cleavages among the U.N. members and eroded the unified U.N. front as he expected.16 Although the Chinese Army did not defeat the U.S. Army in Korea, the U.S. government decided to stop fighting and proposed a cease-fire. Within the Shih-strategic perspective, Mao realized his end—destroying the enemy’s Tao and Shih and changing his intent—through the military means of annihilating troops on the battlefield. China achieved its strategic aims— to resist the United States and aid North Korea. At the policy level, Beijing achieved its political aims—to preserve territorial integrity and build national Shih—and established credibility as a great power. Within the Shih-perspective, China had defeated the United States, the most powerful country in the world—without defeating the U.S. Army. Through the Korean experience, the Chinese confirmed that Shih-strategy applied to the modern world as well as to ancient warfare.

Sino-Indian War In 1962, Chinese leaders focused their expanded, grand Shih-strategy to punish India for Nehru’s arrogance and teach Indians, and Taiwanese, their proper places in the world of China’s Tao. The same punishment was Beijing’s circuitous and indirect warning to both the Soviet Union and the United States not to interfere in China’s affairs. As Washington was blocking the advance of the Soviet fleet toward Cuba in the Cuban missile crisis, Beijing exploited the unexpected opportunity Shih to punish New Delhi’s arrogance. Although China also—like the United States—faced a growing Soviet threat, instead of confronting

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Moscow with a superior force, Beijing avoided Soviet strength by attacking weak India, a Soviet ally and client. When Moscow adopted neutrality and Washington restrained its support in the Sino-Indian conflict, India was the hapless victim in China’s dual struggles with the United States and the Soviet Union. Although the PLA defeated the Indian troops decisively, China did not humiliate India, abandoned conquered territory, and treated prisoners well.17 India, also with great patience, responded with good will by sponsoring Beijing’s membership in the United Nations.18 China’s indirect use of force to achieve a local Li not only changed New Delhi’s attitude and intent but increased Beijing’s Shih in the deepening Sino-Soviet and Sino-U.S. struggles.

Sino-Soviet War Mao’s shifting priorities integrated the deliberate decision to ambush the Soviets on Zhenbao, but not to provoke war, into China’s grand Shihstrategy to assume its rightful position in world affairs. Careful operational preparation within Beijing’s strategic guidance provided trained, equipped forces, and adequate operational flexibility to use them effectively. Intentbased operations involved surprise, deception, local superiority, and restraint—the same patterns that Mao had used in the closing civil-war campaigns, the Korean War, and the Sino-Indian War. Apparently a strategic blunder, the battle on March 15–17 left the Soviet Red Army with strategic superiority, operational initiative, and tactical advantages of weaponry and equipment—superior battlefield Shih. Despite China’s superior national Shih and Tao, termination of the war in September left Moscow in position to coerce Beijing to return to border negotiations under the credible threat of general nuclear war. Despite underestimating the Soviet enemy, Beijing exploited the crisis to entice Washington into restoring diplomatic ties in a Sino-American, anti–Soviet entente. Although Euro-American analyses uniformly conclude that China lost, the war strengthened China’s national Shih and solidified China’s international Tao as a legitimate great power—as Beijing had intended. The operational-strategic results of the war, developing over 20–30 years, however, were probably not what Mao had had in mind.

Sino-Vietnamese War In 1979, China used force again to punish arrogance in Vietnam, like India a Chinese neighbor and a Soviet ally, and remind Vietnamese, Indians, and


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Taiwanese of their proper places in the Tao of China’s world. During the 1970s, as Moscow changed from an uncertain partner to an enemy while Sino-U.S. relations normalized, a unified Vietnam courted the Soviet Union, alienated China, and invaded Cambodia. By eroding Chinese Shih in Southeast Asia, the renegade Ho Chi Minh regime in Hanoi directly challenged both China’s suzerainty—Shih—in Indochina and—by relying on the Soviet Union—China’s great-power legitimacy—Tao. Since both armies operated within a greater Shih strategy, when Vietnam refused to accept China’s chastisement and resisted China’s attack through desperation Shih, China’s Shih-strategy increased Vietnam’s hostility. The paradox created between two opposing Shih-strategies collapsed each side’s Shih into a forces-based war of exhaustion or attrition, which China won only with heavy casualties. China’s loss of a local Li was, however, successful in achieving a greater Shih indirectly by constraining global Soviet expansionism and deepening the Sino-U.S. relationship. Table 9.1 compares five dimensions of China’s use of force in five twentieth-century wars along the Shih-Li strategic continuum. In all modern wars, the Chinese decisions to initiate war focused on ultimate Shih, not on immediate Li. When Mao decided on war in Korea against the United States, he expected tremendous losses in Li, but envisioned gaining greater Shih as a result of the war. From the political perspective of grand strategy, China’s approaches to ultimate objectives were circuitous and indirect, especially Mao’s Long March. From the

Table 9.1

Comparison of strategic dimension of Shih or Li

Shih or Li (S) Initiate war based on Tao and Shih (L) based on interests (S) Circuitous, indirect approach (L) direct approach (S) Deception as a primary means (L) as an auxiliary means (S) Strategy based on intent (L) based on forces (S) Terminate War based on Tao and Shih (L) based on interests

Civil

Korean

SinoIndian

SinoSoviet

SinoVietnamese

4 2 4 2 4 1 4 1 4 1

4 1 4 2 4 1 4 2 4 2

4 1 4 1 4 1 4 1 4 1

4 1 3 2 3 2 4 1 3 3

4 1 4 1 4 1 4 1 4 1

Notes: 1. (S): Indicator of Shih Strategy (L): Indicator of Li strategy. 2. Higher numbers indicate greater evidence of an indicator in a particular war along a numerical scale: 4 (highest), 3,2,1 (lowest).

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strategic-military perspective, China’s habitual deception in using force was a major feature rather than an auxiliary means, not only toward strong enemies but to weak peripheral countries. Chinese commanders continuously stressed annihilation on their battlefields not simply to destroy forces but to change the enemy commanders’ and populations’ intents. Although not always successful, Chinese commanders persistently attempted to manipulate enemy commanders on their battlefields. In all five cases, China terminated the wars based primarily on Shih not on Li. The Sino-Indian War and the Sino-Vietnamese War emphasized the Chinese preference for terminating war as a surprise to the enemy. In China’s major twentieth-century wars, Shih-strategy has dominated Beijing’s assessments of power, decisions to wage war, fighting war, and terminating war. Whether fighting weak peripheral states or the most powerful modern armies, Shih-strategy and its applications have evolved in parallel with the lessons that conventional strategists have learned from modern wars.

Tao in Modern War Mao’s people’s war, his Great Movement to Resist America and Aid Korea, and China’s 1969 struggle against the Soviet Union were feasible only with the power of Tao. Mao believed that he could win these wars by eroding the enemy’s Tao—first Chiang’s Shih and later those of the United States, the United Nations, and the Soviet Union. Although Tao is the core of Shih-strategy, in modern China, it has not been enough to build Tao simply by relying on the ancient Confucian moral code. During the civil war, Chiang’s reliance on Confucian moral standards could not create Tao, while Mao appealed to a Chinese nationalism humiliated by foreign invasion. Appealing to the personal misery of Chinese peasants, his personal rewards through land reform built his Tao. During the Korean and Sino-Soviet Wars, Mao needed both to create a solid national unity to fight the most powerful enemies and simultaneously to sustain internal harmony to continue the domestic revolution. In different contexts, to create national solidarity around desperation Shih, he stressed nuclear attack as the most dangerous threat: People had to choose to resist the enemy or to die. To avoid relying solely on desperation Shih and to build national Shih, he appealed to the people to resist the enemy for the honor and survival of the Chinese nation. As his domestic campaigns deepened Chinese solidarity and Tao, Mao complemented them with efforts to erode the enemy’s Tao. To disintegrate U.S. popular consensus on Washington’s Korean war policy and global public opinion against Moscow,


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Mao mobilized military means, diplomacy, and public media. During the small, brief Sino-Indian, Sino-Soviet, and Sino-Vietnamese Wars in 1962, 1969, and 1979, China built Tao through war rather than winning the war after building Tao. Despite disappointments in 1969 and 1979, these conflicts strengthened China’s domestic Shih and brought Beijing closer to China’s global Tao.

Deception in Modern War Within intent-based Shih-strategy, commanders design each operation to deceive the enemy into changing his intent by manipulating the enemy commanders. Chinese commanders have often attempted to isolate the enemy in a particular area or to induce the enemy into a prepared killing zone. In other situations, Chinese commanders presented a feinting Hsing to misinform the enemy. Peng Dehuai deceived U.S. air reconnaissance about Chinese movement into Korea in 1950 and, again in 1951 when he concealed the movement of an Army corps across the entire operational area. In India, along the Soviet border, and in Vietnam, while diplomats sent misleading signals, Chinese forces deployed aggressively to divert the enemy’s attention from the main avenues of attack. Although most Chinese deception operations were successful, the failures have led to serious damage by the airpower and firepower of more powerful enemy forces. Peng’s decision to create a formless Hsing in the fourth campaign could not overcome the permanent disabilities of inferior firepower, difficult logistics, and inadequate airpower.

Shih-Strategy and Future War Modern China has adapted traditional doctrines, organizations, and strategies to the high-technology environment, especially since the Gulf War. Several trends seem to focus the development of Chinese forces: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

to improve joint warfare capability significantly; to restructure ground forces to respond rapidly to a threat; to transform the education system to enhance professionalism; to establish a modern logistic system to support joint warfighting; to adopt a standard organization for effective management; and to adopt simulations and modern training systems.19

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China has acquired a strategic nuclear deterrence capability and sophisticated conventional weapons. More significantly than weapons, however, it will need to acquire modern systems of Command, Control, Communication, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) to support any global strategy. Information technologies, computerization, and technology-intensive forces broaden the strategic spectrum of the Shih-strategy rather than narrowing its scope. Technological advances in communications and transportation will increase the tempo and enhance the scope for deception and surprise. Improvement of technical intelligence and computer technology will expand possibilities for determining and attacking enemy intent. Since Shih-strategy rests on a foundation of people rather than equipment, technological advances do not portend fundamental changes in China’s strategic culture. Mao’s doctrines of mass mobilization and protracted war, however, will wane as China’s people gain modern sophistication and materialist values. Instead of Mao’s obsessive reliance on people’s power in Shih and Tao, modernization promises improvements in China’s capabilities to estimate an enemy’s intent and employ force, deception, and people to change it. Although China and its enemies have decisive weapons, Shih-strategists continue to focus on planners or commanders—not on weapons—in designing strategic options. Although China and its enemies have sophisticated intelligence capabilities, Shih-strategists prefer strategic deception and surprise in an increasing operational tempo. Under modern high-tech conditions, Shih-strategists will design more effective combinations of orthodox and unorthodox than they could with conventional equipment. The strategy of the circuitous and indirect approach will be more effective in a context of information technologies. Shih-strategists will prefer to punish the weak as an indirect means to resist the strong in hightechnology conditions since the strong have decisive weapons. Shih-strategists will stress more significantly the strategy to win a war without fighting in a context with weapons of massive destruction and sophisticated intelligence systems. As the psychological impact and strategic feasibility of surprise increase in high-technological conditions, Shih-strategists will re-emphasize the importance of winning the first battle.

Epilogue Embracing the PLA’s new approach to warfare and using force, China’s 1985 strategy accepted the common great-power responsibility to act beyond narrow national interests in tacit understandings of incremental


231

and specific multilateralism. “China is seeking to enhance its international influence by redefining its national identity as a responsible great power; by improving its foreign political, diplomatic, and military relationships; by settling border disputes with neighboring states; and by increasing its role in and contribution to regional and global multilateral institutions.” Rather than regional hegemony, the Confucian role of elder brother projects China’s Tao smoothly onto a global community of equal and responsible great powers.20 Evolving beyond seeking direct military victory without fighting, China’s contemporary Shih-strategy is learning to entice other states indirectly into multilateral dialogues and pledges to foreswear the use or threat of force. The foundations of China’s use and nonuse of force would remain solid: domestic stability, solidarity, and legitimacy—Shih—a peaceful nonthreatening political environment—Tao—and China’s great-power status. Beyond using military force, Beijing’s Shih-strategy uses China’s great-power status—a functional Li—to make the world safe and congenial— Tao—to China’s drive to modernization through economic growth— great Shih. Just as Mao refined Shih-theory to accommodate early-twentieth-century China, Beijing is refining China’s strategic culture to accommodate economic globalization as an objective condition. Instead of the huge military forces of the Mao-Deng era, China is learning to exploit economic growth as a prominent instrument in its Shih-strategy. China’s grand strategy has adopted economic strength as a significant vehicle for projecting people’s power. Beijing’s pragmatic leaders have found as much—or more—utility in financial, industrial, and technological instruments as in military forces.21 Liberal Euro-American analyses conveniently combine several interactive effects in fitting the patterns for China’s use of force into their own fashionable worldviews. As communism has lost credibility, China’s policy and strategy have simply shifted away from a defunct ideological basis for conflict. With the demise of ideological fervor, the peaceful resolutions of China’s territorial disputes with Russia, Mongolia, the Central Asian republics, and Vietnam suggest a benign, responsible China. The economic pressures of globalization have sharply increased the costs of using force, while electronic communications media have made war socially unacceptable. Accepting Beijing as a legitimate member of the United Nations Security Council substantially accomplished China’s status drive to great-power status and transformed China into a status-quo, peaceful country. Territorial security and diplomatic recognition have enhanced China’s sense of sovereignty and aspiration into a conservatism that prefers negotiation and diplomacy to force. In some contrast, historical and strategic analyses within the Clausewitzian-realist perspective conclude that “China will be more likely

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to resort to force—and relatively high levels of force—when disputes involve territory and occur in periods where the perceived gap between desired and ascribed status is growing or larger.”22 China’s new policy aims are nothing more than national interest or free-riding on other great powers; Beijing’s formidable power is restrained only in confrontation with the other great powers. Transforming China’s peasant masses into a huge entrepreneurial-capitalistic middle class will ultimately foment another Chinese civil war that will spread throughout the world through complex interdependence. Euro-American analyses handily ignore China’s strategic culture—Shih and Tao—and Beijing’s still increasing agility and deepening engagement since the end of the Cold War. As China’s national Shih solidified and China found its place in the world, Beijing has become better at expanding and exerting its influence, preserving Shih, and maintaining China’s Tao. While Euro-Americans rejoice that China has finally accepted the liberal, or realist, norms of conventional international relations, history suggests that Beijing has simply adapted ancient Shih-strategic theory, once again, to the contemporary strategic context. The nature of power has changed, Beijing has rebuilt national Shih, and China has recovered its proper Tao with greatpower status. Rather than adopting the liberal-realist Euro-American worldview, the Chinese have refined their ancient Confucian-Taoist perspective on the world and created a new role for China in it. As Chinese abandon their obsession with centuries of humiliation before Mao’s revolution, despite two decades of impressive economic growth, China’s new self-image seems less a capitalist than a great-power mentality. In contrast to China’s selfimage as a victim in the 1930s, a developing country in the 1950s, or a geopolitical parvenu in the 1980s, modern Chinese have accepted a global identity. In harmony with the Chinese people, Beijing shares global responsibilities with the other great powers confident in China’s national solidarity and Shih within China’s proper Tao. Although Beijing’s policy continues to evolve and adapt, the heart and soul of China’s strategic culture remain the people’s power—political or economic—and intent-based strategy. Although China’s nonuse of force may become as effective as its use of force, the strategic principles—Shih-strategy—continue, as Sun Tzu taught, to guide China’s rulers.

Glossary

The Chinese proper names and places may present some confusion to Euro-American readers, since various systems of transliteration from Chinese ideographs to Euro-American alphabetic expressions refer to a single person or place in several different ways. To offer an interpretation of Chinese strategic culture for a general reader, rather than a more literal, rigid (or some might say precise) version for sinologists, the authors hope to accommodate contemporary familiarities with some common Chinese proper names and places. The authors have tried to avoid military jargon— Chinese and English, ancient and modern—political rhetoric, and ideological implications that could introduce confusion for many readers. Although neither of the two common systems of transliteration—Pinyin and Wade-Giles—is faultless in expressing Chinese thoughts in EuroAmerican terms, most mainland Chinese writers apply Pinyin formally in translating source materials and to their own work. In contrast, many important expressions are already familiar to Euro-American readers in their Wade-Giles orthographies. To offer the work to both Chinese audiences and Euro-American readers, the authors have adopted the general Pinyin system of transliteration as the work’s standard orthography but have embedded a number of exceptions. To reflect contemporary usages, the authors have used the Wade-Giles expression—Peking—to refer to China’s capital through and during Sun Yatsen’s Peking Republic before the start of the Chinese Civil War. Reflecting contemporary usages, the authors have preserved the Wade-Giles expression—Peiping—to refer to the same city through the Chinese Civil War. Following modern Chinese usage, the authors have adopted the Pinyin expression—Beijing—to refer to the same city after the Chinese Civil War ended in 1949. Quotations from English sources appear in the transliteration used by the English author or source in their original forms. Quotations and references from Taiwanese authors and sources typically appear in the WadeGiles transliteration.

234

Glossary

In expressing Chinese proper names, the authors have tried to adhere to the Chinese standards of separating the family name from a personal name in two English words—both with initial capitals—and combining the two characters of a personal name into a single English word with a hyphen. As exceptions to the work’s general use of Pinyin transliteration, the familiar names of some historical persons and famous places, and some military, strategic, and political terms appear throughout the work in their more familiar, modern English-language alphabetic expressions. The Glossary of the work’s standard, Pinyin, and Wade-Giles transliterations relates the various expressions of these exceptions to avoid confusion. STANDARD Chiang Kai-shek Chuang Tzu Han Fei Tzu Hanguguan Hong Kong Hsing HsingHsun Tzu Huai Nan Tzu Hu Yin Kuan Tzu Kuomintang (KMT) Lao Tzu Lord Guan Luoyang Mao Tse-tung Mencius Peng Yue Qing Bu Quemoy Ruijin Shang Yang (Lord Shang) Shanxi Shenyang Shih Sun Pin Sun Tzu Sun Yatsen Tai Kung (Chiang) Tai KungTao Te

PINYIN Jiang Jieshi Zhuang Zi Hen Feizi Han Yu guan Xianggang Xing Xun Zi Huai Nan Zi He In Guan Zi Guo Min Dang (GMD) Lao Zi Guan Yu Luoyan Mao Zedong Meng Zi Feng Yue Qing-bu Jinmen Rui-jin Shang Jun Shansi Shenyang Shi Sun Bin Sun Zi or Sunzi Sun Yixian Tai Gong ( Jiang) Dao De

WADE-GILES Chiang Kai-shek Chuang Tsu Han Fei Tsu Hankukuan Hong Kong Hsun Tsu Huai Nan Tsu Hu Yin Kuan Tsu Kuomintang Lao Tsu Kuan Yu Lo-yang Mao Tse-tung Meng Tsu P’eng Yueh Ch’ing Pu Quemoy Jueichin Shang Yang Shanhsi Mukden Shih Sun Pin Sun Tsu Sun Wen Tao Te

Glossary Wei Liao Tzu Wei-Chi game Wuguan Wu Tzu Xian Xianyang Xinbaoan Xuzhou Yanan Yangzi River Yellow River Yi Di

Wei Liao Zi Wei Qi Wu Guan Wu Zi Xi’an Ziangyang Xinbao’an Suzhou Yan’an Chiangjiang River Huanghe River Eze

235 Wei Liao Tsu Wei Ch’i Wukuan Wu Tsu Hsian Hsuanyang Hsinpaoan Suchou Yenan Yangtzu River Yellow River I Ti

Character List Throughout the book, the authors have expressed Chinese characters in the Pinyin form, except those few words that have become familiar to EuroAmerican readers in their Wade-Giles forms. The left column presents the standard transliteration that the authors have used in this book. The asterisk indicates Wade-Giles transliterations used in the book, which, the authors feel, are more familiar to Euro-American readers than their Pinyin transliterations. The center column presents the Chinese Mandarin characters, and the right column presents the common Wade-Giles [in brackets] or Pinyin (in parentheses) transliteration of the characters. Standard Baojia Beijing Beiping Bengbu Cai dynasty Cai Mao Cao Cao Cao dynasty Cao Pi Changchun Chengde Chenguanzhuang Chiang Ching-kuo* Chiang Kai-shek*

Mandarin

[Wade-gile] or Pinvin [Paochia] [Peking] [Peiping] (Old name of Beijing) [Pangpu, Pangfu] [Tsai] [Tsai Mao] [Tsao Tsao] [Tsao] [Tsao Pi] [Changchun] [Chengte] [Chenkuanchuang] ( Jiang Jingguo) ( Jiang Jieshi)

236 Chijiuzhan Chongqing Chu dynasty Chuang Tzu* Dagu Dalian Deng Xiaoping Donggu (Tonggu) Fancheng Fu Zouyi Fuguoqiangbing Fujian Province Gongming Gongsun Zan Guangxi Guangzhou Province Gubeikou Guilin Guizhou Han dynasty Han Fei Tzu* Han Xin Hanguguan Hankou Heilongjiang Heishan Henan Province Hezong Hong Kong* Hsing* Hsun Tzu* Hu Yin Hu Zongnan Hua People Huai Nan Tzu* Huai-Hai Huangpo Huangpu Hui Wang Huludao Hunan Province Jiang Zemin

Glossary [Chihchiuchan] [Chungching] [Chu] (Zhuang Zi) [Taku] [Dairen] [Teng Hsiaoping] [Tungku] [Fancheng] [Fu Tsoui] [Fukuochiangping] [Fuchien] [Kungming] [Kungsun Tsan] [Kuanghsi] [Kuangchou] [Kupeikou] [Kweilin] [Kweichou] [Han] (Han Feizi) [Han Hsin] [Hankukuan] [Hankou] [Heilungchiang] [Heishan] [Henan] [Hetsung] (Xianggang) (Xing) (Xun Zi) [Hu Yin] [Hu Tsungnan] [Hua] (Huai Nan Zi) [Huaihai, Huai-Hai] [Huangpo] [Huangpu] [Huei Wang] King Hui [Hulutao] [Hunan] [Chiang Tsemin]

Glossary Jiangling Jiangxi Jiangxia Jifu Jijifangyu Jin dynasty Jingzhou Jinzhou Kian-Chienning Line Kuan Tzu* Kunming Kuomintang (KMT)* Lanzhou Lao Tzu* Li Li Peng Li Si Li Zongren Liangcheng Liaodong Liaoxi-Shenyang Lin Biao Lin Wu Lin Zhiqi Liu Bang Liu Bei Liu Biao Liuzhou Lord Guan* Lord Shang* Lu dynasty Lunghai (Railroad) Luoyang Lushun Mao Anying Mao Tse-tung* Mencius* Ming dynasty Nanjing Nianzhuang Peiping-Tianjin Peng Dehuai

237 [Chiangling] [Kiangsi] [Chiangsia] [Qifu, Chifu] [Chichifangyu] [Chin] [Chingchou] [Chinchou] [Chian-Chienning] (Guan Zi) [Kunming] [Guo Min Dang] (GMD) [Lanchou] (Lao Zi) [Li] [Li Peng, Li Feng] [Li Ssu] [Li Tsung Jen] [Li Tsong-jen] [Liangtseng] [Liaotung] [Yaosi-Chenyang] [Linpiao] [Lin Wu] (general of Zhao) [Lin Chihchi] [Liu Pang] [Liu Pei] [Liu Piao] [Liuchou] (Guan Yu) (Shang Jun) [Lu] [Lunghai] [Luoyang] [lushun] [Mao Anying] (Mao Zedong) (Meng Zi) [Ming] [Nanching] [Nienchuang] (Beiping-Tianjin) [Peng Tehuai]

238 Peng Yue Pengcheng Qin dynasty Qin Shi Huangdi Qing dynasty Qing Bu Qingdao Qinghai Qinhuangdao Quemoy* Quilin Quizhou Ren Ruijin Shaanxi Province Shandong Shang dynasty Shang Yang Shanghai Shanhaiguan Shanxi Province Shanxi Province Shenyang Shih* Shu dynasty Shuangduiji Shu-Han* dynasty Sichuan Sima Fa Sima Qian Song dynasty Ssu Ma* Sui dynasty Sun Pin* Sun Quan Sun Tzu* Sun Yatsen* Suzhou Tai Kung* Taiyuan Tan Daoyuan Tang dynasty

Glossary [Peng yueh] [Pengcheng] [Chin] [Chin Shi Huangti] [Ching] [Ching Pu] [Chingtao] [Chinghai] [Chinhuangtao] (Jinmen) [Kueilin] [Kueichou] [Jen] [Jueichin] [Hsiahsi] [Shantung] [Shang] [Shang Yang] (Lord Shang) [Shanghai] [Shanhaikuan] [Shanhsi] [Shanhsi] [Chenyang, Shenyang] (Shi) [Shu] [Shuangtsueichi] (Shu-Han) [Ssuchuan] [Ssuma Fa] [Ssuma Chien] [Sung] (Sima) [tuo] (Sun Bin) [Sun Chuan] (Sun Zi) (Sun Yixian: Sun Wen) [Suchou] (Tai Gong) [Taiyuan] [Tan Taoyuan] [Tang]

Glossary Tang Enbo Tao* Te* Tian Guang Tian Shi Tianjin Tonggu Wang Anshi Wang Tiancheng Wei dynasty Wei dynasty Wei Liao Tzu* Wei-Chi game* Weishui Wu dynasty Wu Tzu* Wuguan Wuhan Xian Xian (Xiandi) Xiang Yu Xiangyang Xianyang Xiao Xiao He Xiaojifangyu Xichu Ba Wang Xinbaoan Xingquo Xinhai Revolution Xinye Xizhou Xu dynasty Xuzhou Yan dynasty Yan Xishan Yanan Yang Fengan Yang Hucheng Yangjiagou Yangzi River Yao dynasty

239 [Tang Enpo] (Dao) (De) [Tien Kuang] [Tien Fu] [Tientsin] [Tungku] [Wang Anshih] [Wang Tiencheng] [Wei] [Wei] (Wei Liao Zi) (Wei Qi) [Weishuei] [Wu] (Wu Zi) [Wukuan] [Wuhan] [Hsian] [Hsienti] [Hsiang Yu] [Hsiangyang] [Hsuanyang] [Hsiao] [Hsiao He] [Hsiaochifangyu] [Hsichu Pa Wang] [Hsinpaoan] [Hsingkuo] [Hsinhai] [Hsinyeh] [Hsichou] [Hsu] [Suchou] [Yen] [Yen Hsishan] [Yenan] [Yang Fengan] [Yang Hucheng] [Yang Chiakou] [Yangtzu] [Yao]

240 Yi Di Yichang Yin and Yang Yuan dynasty Yuan Shao Yuan Shikai Yue dynasty Yunnan Province Zhai dynasty Zhang Fei Zhang Huizan Zhang Liang Zhang Xueliang Zhang Yun Zhangjiakou Zhao dynasty Zhao Zilong Zheng dynasty Zhongshan(kuo) Zhou dynasty Zhou Enlai Zhoushan Island Zhuge Liang Zhujiang River

Glossary [I Ti] [Ichang] [yin and Yang] [Yuan] [Yuan Shao] [Yuan Shihkai] [Yueh] [Yunnan] [Chi] [Chang Fei] [Chang Hueitsan] [Chang Liang] [Chang Hsiaoliang] [Chang Yun] [Changchiakou] [Chao] [Chao Tsulung] [Cheng] [Chungshan] [Chou] [Chou En-lai] [Choushan] [Chuke Liang] Gongming [Chuchiang]

Notes

1 Strategy and Culture 1. Christopher Coker, “What Would Sun Tzu Say about the War on Terrorism?,” Journal of the Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies 148(1) (February 2003): 16–20; especially 16, 17. 2. Alastair Iain Johnston, “China’s Militarized Interstate Dispute Behavior 1949–1992: A First Cut at the Data,” in Chinese Foreign Policy in Transition, ed. by Guoli Liu, 259–293 (New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 2004), 260. (First published as Alastair Iain Johnston, “China’s Militarized Interstate Dispute Behavior 1949–1992: A First Cut at the Data,” The China Quarterly 153 (March 1998): 1–30.) 3. John K. Fairbank, “Varieties of the Chinese Military Experience,” in Chinese Ways in Warfare, ed. Frank Kierman and John K. Fairbank, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974), 6–7, 11, 25. See also Zhuge Liang and Liu Ji, Mastering the Art of War: Zhuge Liang and Liu Ji’s Commentaries on the Classic by Sun Tzu, trans. by Thomas Cleary (Boston: Shambhala, 1989), 20; Alastair Iain Johnston, Cultural Realism: Strategic Culture and Grand Strategy in Chinese History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995), 63–65, 117–123. 4. See Thomas Cleary, trans. The Art of War: Sun Tzu, (Boston: Shambhala, 1988), 19; Wei Rulin and Liu Zhongpin, Zhongguo Junshi Sixiang Shi (History of Chinese Military Thought) (Taipei: Liming, 1985), 437; Georges Tan Eng Bok, “Strategic Doctrine,” in Chinese Defense Policy, ed. Gerald Segal and William Tow (London: Macmillan, 1984), 4; Edward S. Boylan, “The Chinese Cultural Style of Warfare,” Comparative Strategy 3(4) (August–October 1982): 341–364; 345; Howard L. Boorman and Scott A Boorman, “Strategy and National Psychology in China,” The Annals 370 (1967): 152; Wang Jiandong, Sunzi Bingfa Sixiang Tixi Jingjie (A Clarification of the Structure of Thinking in Sun Tzu’s Art of War) (Taipei: n.p., 1976), 77. 5. See Chong-pin Lin, China’s Nuclear Weapons Strategy: Tradition without Evolution (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1988), 31–33; Zhuge Liang and Liu Ji, Mastering the Art of War, 20. Jonathan Adelman and Shih Chih-yu, Symbolic War: The Chinese Use of Force, 1840–1980 (Taipei: Institute of International Relations, National Chengchi University, 1993), 31.

242

Notes

6. See Peter Alexis Boodberg, “The Art of War in Ancient China: A Study Based upon the Dialogues of Li, Duke of Wei, Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1930, xii–xiv; Mark Edward Lewis, Sanctioned Violence in Early China (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990), 103. 7. The economic notions of sunk costs and the endowment effect reflect the human propensity to perceive either possessions or losses as gaining value with time: People place an extra value on things that they already own or have already lost. The sunk-costs and endowment effects obscure any rational assessment of investments in terms of expected future returns. For using force, this effect appears in comparing victories or gains with losses and casualties in contrast to what is left of armies and resources after a battle. (If thousands of us have sacrificed their lives, how can we give up now?) See “To Have and To Hold,” The Economist 368(8339) (August 30, 2003): 56. 8. See John G. Morgan and Anthony D. McIvor, with the Secretary of the Navy’s Action Team, “Rethinking the Principles of War,” United States Naval Institute Proceedings 130/10/1, 208 (October 2003): 35, quoting Antoine Henri de Jomini, The Art of War (New York: Greenhill, 1996). 9. See John W. Garver, Foreign Relations of the PRC (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1993). 10. See Lionel Max Chassin, The Communist Conquest of China: A History of the Civil War 1945–1949 (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1965), 43–52. 11. See Shu-Guang Zhang, Mao’s Military Romanticism: China and the Korean War, 1950–1953 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1995), 76. 12. See Max Hastings, The Korean War (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987), 123. 13. See Melvin Gurtov and Byong-Moo Hwang, China Under Threat: The Politics and strategy of Diplomacy (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980), 120. 14. Carl Von Clausewitz, On War, trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), 283. See also Ralph D. Sawyer, trans. and ed. The Seven Military Classics of Ancient China (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1993) 70–94. 15. See Graham T. Allison, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (Boston: Little, Brown, 1971), 4–5, 10–11. 16. See Allen S. Whiting, The Chinese Calculus of Deterrence: India and Indochina (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1975); Allen S. Whiting, China Crosses the Yalu: The Decision to Enter the Korean War (New York: Macmillan, 1960). 17. See Gerald Segal, Defending China (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1985); Melvin Gurtov and Byong-Moo Hwang, China Under Threat (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980). 18. See Thomas J. Christensen, “Threat, Assurances, and the Last Chance for Peace: The Lessons of Mao’s Korean War Telegrams,” International Security, 17(1) (1992): 122–154.

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19. See John Fairbank, The Chinese World Order (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968). 20. Euro-American visions of warfare arose in the context of independent nationstates in a rough balance-of-power system, while Chinese approaches to warfare developed around internal rebellion, probing raids or invasions by mobile nomads, or resistance of southern aborigines to Chinese dominance and expansion. See Adelman and Shih, Symbolic War, ch. 2. 21. See Alistair Johnston, “Thinking About Strategic Culture,” International Security, 19(4) (Spring 1995): 32–64. 22. See Ken Booth, Strategy and Ethnocentrism (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1979). 23. See Alistair Johnston, Cultural Realism: Strategic Culture and Grand Strategy in Chinese History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995). 24. See Zhang, Mao’s Military Romanticism. 25. See Shen Kuiguan, “Dialectics of Defeating the Superior with the Inferior,” in Chinese Views of Future Warfare, ed. Michael Pillsbury (Washington DC: National Defense University Press, 1997). 26. See Chen Jian, China’s Road to the Korean War (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994); Hao Yufan and Zhai Zhihai, “China’s Decision to Enter the Korean War: History Revisited,” The China Quarterly, 121 (March 1990); Adelman and Shih, Symbolic War. 27. Byung-Chon Ro, Dohae Sonja Byungbub (Sun Tzu’s Art of War) (Seoul: Hanwon Press, 1990), 26, 240. See also Sawyer, The Seven Military Classics of Ancient China, 149, 157; Sun Tzu, Sun Tzu: The Art of Warfare, translated by Roger T. Ames (New York: Ballantine, 1993), 18. 28. See John Fairbank, The United States and China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983), 71, 124. 29. J.J.L. Duyvendak, trans. and ed., Tao Te Ching (The Book of the Way and Its Virtue) (Boston: Tuttle, 1992), bk. 1, ch. 31, p. 77; bk. 1, ch. 30, p. 76; Bk. II, ch. 68, p. 144. 30. Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, trans. Ch’u Ta-kao (New York: Samuel Weiser, 1973), ch. 25, 40, 48. See also ch. 29. 31. See Mencius, Works of Mencius, 2 vols., translated by Jasper Legge (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1895), vol. 1, bk. 1, pp. 3, 7; bk. 3, p. 3; bk. 6, p. 2. 32. Coker, “What Would Sun Tzu Say about the War on Terrorism?” 18. 33. Ralph D. Sawyer, trans. The Complete Act of War: Seen Tzu and Sun Pin, (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1996), Ch. 3, Planning Offensives, 175–179 (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1994), 177. 34. James E. Dougherty and Robert L. Pfaltzgraff, Jr., Contending Theories of International Relations, 4th edn. (New York: Longman, 1996), 185. 35. Andrew Lambert, “The Future of Airpower,” RUSI Journal, 148(3) (June 2003): 46–53; 49. 36. See Roger T. Ames, The Art of Rulership: A Study of Ancient Chinese Political Thought (New York: State University of New York Press, 1994), 66. 37. Although his family name was Chiang (Jiang), and King Wen bestowed the additional honorific title Wang, historians have recognized Chiang Tai Kung

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38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44.

Notes Wang by his primary honorific title Tai Kung (Taigong). The Chinese honorific Tzu means honorable teacher. Sun Tzu’s name was Sun Wu; people addressed and referred to him as Sun Tzu; Sun Tzu’s book, Sun Tzu Bingfa, is The Art of War. Wu Tzu’s name was Wu Qi; people addressed and referred to him as Wu Tzu; Wu Tzu’s book, Wu Tzu Bingfa, is the Wu Tzu. Wei Liao Tzu’s name was probably Wei Liao; people addressed and referred to him as Wei Liao Tzu; he or his descendants wrote the Wei Liao Tzu Bingfa, the Wei Liao Tzu. See Roger T. Ames, trans. Sun Tzu: The Art of Warfare (New York: Ballantine, 1993), 82; Sawyer, The Seven Military Classics of Ancient China, 71. See Ames, Sun Tzu: The Art of Warfare, 77, 82. See Fairbank, The United States and China, 53. See Ralph D. Sawyer, trans., The Tao of War (Cambridge, MA: Westview, 1999), 151. See Ro, Dohae Sonja Byungbub, 81, 167. See Boylan, “The Chinese Cultural Style of Warfare, 341–364” Comparative Strategy, 3(4) (1982). See Melvin Gurtov and Byong-Moo Hwang, China Under Threat (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980), 242–243.

2 The Idea of Shih 1. Byung-Chon Ro, Dohae Sonja Byungbub (Sun Tzu’s Art of War) (Seoul: Hanwon Press, 1990), 132. The term men refers to military troops rather than general human beings. 2. Sun Pin, Sun Pin: Military Method, trans. Ralph D. Sawyer (San Francisco: Westview Press, 1995), 116. 3. Roger T. Ames, The Art of Rulership: A Study of Ancient Chinese Political Thought (New York: State University of New York Press, 1994), 66. 4. Ralph D. Sawyer, trans, Sun Tzu, Art of War, Ch. 3, Planning Offensives, 175–179 (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1994), 177; See also Byung-Chon Ro, Dohae Sonja Byungbub, 80, 81. 5. Also known by its Japanese name, Go, Chinese Wei-Chi is a military strategic board-game between two players for spatial control of the board. See Scott Boorman, The Protracted Game: A Wei-Chi Interpretation of Maoist Revolutionary Strategy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1969). 6. See Chuang-tzu, Chuang-tzu, trans. by James Legge (New York: Ace, 1971), ch. 22. 7. See Chuang-tzu, Ch. 22. 8. Lin Yu Tang, The Wisdom of Lao Tse (New York: The Modern Library, 1948), 205–206. 9. Huai Nan Tzu, (140 BC?), quoted in Science and Civilization in China, by Joseph Needham, vol. 2, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956), 51. 10. Wang Ch’ung, (AD. 27–97), quoted in Science and Civilization in China, by Joseph Needham, vol. 4, 7.

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11. Richard Wilhelm, The I Ching or Book of Changes (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1967), 297. At the same time that Lao Tzu was developing this dualistic worldview, Heraclitus of Ephesus also taught not only the Taoist idea of continuous change, but the notion of cyclical flow. “The way up and down is one and the same. . . . Cold things warm themselves, warm cools, moist dries, parched is made wet. . . . God is day-night, winter-summer, war-peace, satietyhunger”. See George S. Kirk, Heraclitus—The Cosmic Fragments (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), 105, 149, 184. 12. Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, trans. Gh’u Ta-Kao (New York: Samuel Weisen, 1973), ch. 36, 22. 13. Byung-Chon Ro, Dohae Sonja Byungbub, 128; Ralph D. Sawyer, The Complete Art of War: Sun Tzu and Sun Pin (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996), 63. 14. Sawyer, The Seven Military Classics of Ancient China, (San Francisco Westview, 1993), 157. See also Byung-Chon Ro, Dohae Sonja Byungbub 27–28. 15. See Byung-Chon Ro, Dohae Sonja Byungbub, 132. 16. See Wade Baskin, ed., Classics in Chinese Philosophy (New York: Philosophical Library, 1972), 141–142. 17. Sawyer, Sun Pin, 11 18. Ames, Art of Rulership, 74. 19. Probably the fourth emperor of China, Yao introduced principles of filial piety, compassion, benevolence, and love and treated the people as his own sons and younger brothers. See Bai Shouyi, ed., An Outline History of China (Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 1982), 52; L.H. Dudley Buxton, The Peoples of Asia (New York: Kegan Paul, Trench, and Trubner, 1925), 153; Marcel Garnet, Chinese Civilization (New York: Kegan Paul, Trench, and Trubner, 1930), 63; Kenneth S. Latourette, The Chinese: Their History and Culture 2 volumes (New York: Macmillan, 1934), 35–36. 20. Ames, Art of Rulership, 74. 21. See Arthur Waley, Three Ways of Thought in Ancient China (London: Allen and Unwin, 1939), 199–252. 22. Thomas Kane, “China’s Foundations: Guiding Principles of Chinese Foreign Policy,” in Chinese Foreign Policy in Transition, edited by Guoli Liu, 101–115 (New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 2004), 106. 23. See William Theodore de Bary, Wing-tsit Chan, and Burton Watson, eds., Sources of Chinese Tradition, vol. 1 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960), 129–131. 24. See Baskin, Classics in Chinese Philosophy, 138–139, 142. 25. See Jacques Gernet, A History of Chinese Civilization, 2nd ed. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 90; Ames, Art of Rulership, 90. 26. Li Si, quoted in de Bary, Chan, and Watson, Sources of Chinese Tradition, 142. 27. See Ames, Art of Rulership, 76, 85. 28. See Gernet, History of Chinese Civilization, 159. 29. Hsun Tzu wrote 32 essays—The Hsun Tzu. Convinced that man was naturally evil, he recognized the Confucian ideal of transformation as the result of artificial training by an enlightened ruler using state power to improve people. See de Bary, Chan, and Watson, Sources of Chinese Tradition, 114.

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30. See Ames, Art of Rulership, 86. 31. See Gernet, A History of Chinese Civilization, 96. 32. See John Fairbank, The United States and China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983), Ch. 3, “The Confucian Pattern.” 33. See Sawyer, The Complete Art of War, 106, 107. 34. Sawyer, Sun Tzu, Art of War, 167. 35. Mencius, in Mencius, trans. Sun-kyun Pum (Seoul: Hae Won, 1997), 136. 36. Andrew Lambert, “The Future of Airpower,” RUSI Journal 148(3) (June 2003): 46–53; especially 49. 37. See Byung-Chon Ro, Dohae Sonja Byungbub, 27–28, 32–33; Sawyer, The Seven Military Classics, 157. 38. See Byung-Chon Ro, Dohae Sonja Byungbub, 2. 39. Ralph D. Sawyer, trans, The Seven Military Classics, 41. See also Ki-dong Kim, Chungkuk Byungpub ui Chihae (The Wisdom of the Chinese Military Art), (Seoul: Soe-kwang-Sa, 1993), 13–61. 40. Byung-Chon Ro, Dohae Sonja Byungbub, 80; see also 28. 41. See Sawyer, Seven Military Classics, 70–94; Quotations from 52, 70. 42. See Ames, Art of Rulership, 77. See also 66, 76. 43. See J.A.C. Roberts, The Complete History of China (New York: Sutton, 2003), 4. 44. See Sawyer, Seven Military Classics, 68–72, 126–127; Ames, Art of Rulership, 7. 45. The orthodox understanding of Clausewitz’s axiom subordinated war to politics. More liberal interpretations expect political leaders to use force in parallel with nonmilitary policy instruments. 46. See United States, Department of Defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Doctrine for Joint Operations, Joint Publication (JP) 3–0, September 10, 2001 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2001), I-4–I-6, III-1–III-4; United States, Department of Defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Doctrine for Campaign Planning, Joint Publication (JP) 5–00.1, January 25, 2002 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2002), I-4–II-2. 47. See Basil H. Liddell Hart, Strategy, 2nd rev. edn. (London: Praeger, 1967), 322; John Collins, “Grand Strategy: Principles and Practices,” in Military Strategy: Theory and Application, ed. by Arthur F. Lykke, Jr. (Carlisle Barracks, PA: U.S. Army War College, 1993), 20–28. 48. See Ames, Art of Rulership, 70. 49. Ames, Art of Rulership, 71. 50. Sawyer, Sun Pin, 140. See also 138; Sawyer, Seven Military Classics, 121. Historians attribute the Sima Fa to Tian Rangju, a Zhai general who commanded King Jian Gong’s (547–490 BC) army. Tian Rangju’s descendants compiled the Sima Fa in about 342 BC. 51. See Byung-Chon Ro, Dohae Sonja Byungbub, 27. 52. Ames, Art of Rulership, 70. 53. See Byung-Chon Ro, Dohae Sonja Byungbub 2. 54. Byung-Chon Ro, 263, 281; see also 191. 55. See Sawyer, The Complete Art of War, 64. 56. See Byung-Chon Ro, Dohae Sonja Byungbub, 114. 57. Sawyer, The Seven Military Classics, n. 433.

Notes 58. 59. 60. 61.

62. 63. 64.

65. 66. 67.

68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77.

78. 79. 80.

81. 82. 83.

84.

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Byung-Chon Ro, Dohae Sonja Byungbub, 154. See also 127. Byung-Chon Ro, 157. See Gernet, History of Chinese Civilization, 158. Roger T. Ames, trans., Sun Tzu: The Art of Warfare (New York: Ballantine, 1993), 76–77, 81, 119. See also Byung-Chon Ro, Dohae Sonja Byungbub, 154, 157, 284. Byung-Chon Ro, Dohae Sonja Byungbub, 157, 156. See also 27. Confucius, The Analects of Confucius, trans. Simon Leys (New York: W. W. Norton, 1997), 1. Confucius, The Sayings of Confucius: A New Translation of the Greater Part of the Confucian Analects, trans. and annotated by Lionel Giles, (Boston: Tuttle, 1993), 59–60. Confucius, The Sayings of Confucius, 36. Gernet, History of Chinese Civilization, 9. Players alternately place their white or black markers—stones—on intersections of the board’s perpendicular lines. Patterns of stones of one color that surround an area control that area for the player who placed those stones. See Boorman, The Protracted Game, 26–27. See Byung-Chon Ro, Dohae Sonja Byungbub, 39. Sawyer, The Complete Art of War, 50. Sawyer, The Complete Art of War, 51; Byung-Chon Ro, Dohae Sonja Byungbub, 82. Carl Von Clausewitz, On War, trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976), 96, 97, 228. Lambert, “The Future of Airpower,” 49–50. Sawyer, The Complete Art of War, 41. Sawyer, The Complete Art of War, 41. Byung-Chon Ro, Dohae Sonja Byungbub, 69. Hans Delbruck understands all strategies as either annihilation or exhaustion. See Delbruck, History of the Art of War within the Framework of Political History: Antiquity (Contribution in Military Studies), 4 vols., trans. Walter J. Penfroe, Jr., vol. 2, Warfare in Antiquity (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1975), 140, 362–363. Byung-Chon Ro, Dohae Sonja Byungbub, 39, 40, 131, 143, 178. The Wiles of War: 36 Military Strategies from Ancient China, trans. Sun Haichen (Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 1993), 51, 113, 178, 251. Joint Publication 1–02, Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms (April 12, 2001, as amended through April 9, 2002); available from www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/doddict/ Clausewitz, On War, 202–203. Byung-Chon Ro, Dohae Sonja Byungbub, 37–43; see also 127. See Delbruck, History of the Art of War, 140, 362–363; Gordon A. Craig, “Delbruck: The Military Historian,” in Makers of Modern Strategy, Military Thought from Machiavelli to Hitler, ed. Edward Mead Earle, (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1943), 260–283. Lambert, “The Future of Airpower,” 50.

248

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3 Ancient Chinese Wars 1. Qin Shih Huangdi ended the Warring States period, unified China in 221 BC, and took the title of emperor. As sole ruler of China from 221 to 210 BC, he first gave the country standard law, currency, road system, weights, and measures. 2. See Kuan Yang, Zhanguo Shi (History of the Warring States) (Taipei: Gufon Chubanshe, 1986), 215. 3. Mark E. Lewis, “Warring States: The Political History,” in The Cambridge History of Ancient China: From the Origins of Civilization to 221 B.C., ed. Michael Loewe and Edward L. Shaughnessy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 611. 4. Victoria Tin-bor Hui, “Toward a Dynamic Theory of International Politics: Insights from Comparing Ancient China and Early Modern Europe,” International Organization 58(1) (Winter 2004) 189. See also Lin Jianming, Qin Shi (A History of Qin) (Taipei: Wunan Chubanshe, 1992), 328; Douglas C. North and Robert P. Thomas, The Rise of the Western World: A New Economic History (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1973), 2. 5. Hsu Cho-yun, “War and Peace in Ancient China: The History of Chinese Interstate-International Relations,” Occasional Paper 75 (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Asian Program, 1997), 5. 6. Lewis, “Warring States, 639. 7. Hui, “Toward a Dynamic Theory of International Politics, 191. 8. Zhongyue Mu and Guoqing Wu, Zhongguo Zhanzhengshi (History of Wars in China), vol. 2 (Beijing: Jincheng Chubanshe, 1992), 148. 9. Hui, “Toward a Dynamic Theory of International Politics, 189. 10. Mu and Wu, Zhongguo Zhanzhengshi, 10. 11. See Ki Dong Kim, Chungkuk Byungpub ui Chihae (The Wisdom of the Chinese Military Art) (Seoul: Soe-kwang-Sa, 1993), 23. 12. See Kunsa Pyonchan Wuiwonhoe (Military History Committee), Yokdaebyongyo I (I, Chronicle History of Military Thought) (Seoul: Guningongjehoe, 1991), 192, 195, 204. 13. See Kunsa Pyonchan Wuiwonhoe, Yokdaebyongyo I, 214. 14. See Kunsa Pyonchan Wuiwonhoe, Yokdaebyongyo I, 206. 15. The generals commanding the two major choke points in the east— Hanguguan and Wuguan—surrendered without fighting. See Kim, Chungkuk Byungpub ui Chihae, 21–22. 16. See Kunsa Pyonchan Wuiwonhoe, Yokdaebyongyo I, 214. 17. See Kunsa Pyonchan Wuiwonhoe, Yokdaebyongyo I, 216–217, 222–223. 18. Kunsa Pyonchan Wuiwonhoe, Yokdaebyongyo I, 216–217. 19. Confucius reported that Chin-sung-ja had killed his king, Kan-gong, to seize royal power. Confucius advised his king that it was righteous to raise an army to destroy the state in which a vassal had killed his king and usurped power. See Kim, Chungkuk Byungpub ui Chihae, 152, 154.

Notes

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20. In 205 BC, Xiang Yu replaced King Jonsi of Shandong with Jondo, divided the peninsula into three states and appointed subordinate kings for each state. See Kunsa Pyonchan Wuiwonhoe, Yokdaebyongyo I, 217. 21. Kunsa Pyonchan Wuiwonhoe, Yokdaebyongyo I, 261. 22. Kunsa Pyonchan Wuiwonhoe, Yokdaebyongyo I, 207. 23. Shih-strategists usually compared the enemy’s Tao with their own before raising an army. See Ro Byung-Chon, Dohae Sonja Byungbub (Sun-Tzu’s Art of War) (Seoul: Hanwon Press, 1990), 27. 24. Ralph D. Sawyer, ed. and trans., The Seven Military Classics of Ancient China, (San Francisco: Westview, 1993), 58. The origin of Tai Kung’s The Six Secret Teachings and the Three Strategies is controversial. Shih Chi recorded that Zhang Liang received a book from an old man with the comment that “if you read this, you can become a teacher of kings.” He discovered the book to be Tai Kung’s military strategy. See also Sawyer, The Seven Military Classics, 282. 25. See Kunsa Pyonchan Wuiwonhoe, Yokdaebyongyo I, 213–214. 26. Han succeeded Qin and ruled China between 206 BC and AD 220. See John K. Fairbank, China: A New History, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992), 57–71. In AD 9, when the Han court lost prestige, a Han minister, Wang Mang, took the throne and reigned until AD 23 when the later Han succeeded it. See Charles O. Hucker, Imperial Past, (Stanford CA: Stanford University Press, 1975), 128–130. 27. As the Han court declined, peasant discontent and uprisings increased and culminated in AD 184 with the Yellow Scarf Faction, religious sectaries organized on communal lines hoping for an age of “Great Well-being.” See Mark Elvin, The Pattern of the Chinese Past, (Stanford CA: Stanford University Press, 1973), 35. 28. In AD 199, Emperor Xian cut his finger and used his blood to compose a decree: “We believe that in the human order the bond of father and son is foremost, and that in the social order the obligation between sovereign and servant is paramount. Of late, the treasonous Cao Cao, abusing his authority, insulting and degrading his sovereign, has connived with his cohorts to the detriment of our dynasty’s rule. Instructions, rewards, land grants, and punishments now fall outside the imperial jurisdiction. . . . Exterminate this perfidious faction and restore the security of our holy shrines for our ancestors’ sake.” See Luo Guanzhong, Three Kingdoms, trans. Moss Roberts, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 160. 29. Their timeless peach-garden oath idealized in the allegory of Three Kingdoms— Wei (AD 220–265), Shu Han (AD 221–263), and Wu (AD 222–280)—the same virtues that later inspired European chivalry. “We three, though of separate ancestry, join in brotherhood here, combining strength and purpose, to relieve the present crisis. We will perform our duty to the Emperor and protect the common folk of the land. We dare not hope to be together always but hereby vow to die the selfsame day. Let shining Heaven above and the fruitful land below bear witness to our resolve. May Heaven and man scourge whosoever fails this vow.” See Lou Guanzhong, The Three Kingdoms, 9.

250

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30. See Lou Guanzhong, The Three Kingdoms, 300–301. 31. Kunsa Pyonchan Wuiwonhoe (Military History Committee), Yokdaebyongyo II (II, Chronicle History of Military Thought), (Seoul: Guningongjehoe, 1991), 45. 32. Remembered in Chinese folklore and idealized in historical fiction, Liu Bei’s withdrawal became the ideal for Chinese civil–military relations and the model for Mao Tse-tung’s Long March from Jiangxi in the 1930s. See Lou Guanzhong, Three Kingdoms, 314–317. 33. Xun You said to Cao Cao, “Why did you grant such exalted titles to those craven toadies? And why make them naval superintendents into the bargain? . . . Do you think I don’t know them for what they are?” Cao Cao replied. “Do not forget, we have an army of Northerners unused to naval warfare. Those two can be of help at the moment. When we have accomplished what we want, they will be dealt with as they deserve!” See Lou Guanzhong, Three Kingdoms, 316. 34. Traditions uggested that Cai Mao and Zhang Yun were executed because of treachery. A spy from Sun Quan delivered to Cao Cao false information that led him to understand that the two generals had connections with the enemy. A better understanding is that the two southerners could not adjust to service under the new lord. The new chief naval commanders were Mao Ji and Yu Jin. See Lou Guanzhong, Three Kingdoms, 350–351. 35. Although the Three Kingdoms refers to about 500,000 men, Cao Cao himself stated that he marched to Sun Quan’s base commanding 800,000 men. Cao Cao had created a cavalry arm after destroying Yuan Shao who controlled the northern Chinese source of excellent horses. Cao Cao also created a small navy after he seized Jingzhou along the Yangzi River. Sun Quan’s staffs estimated that Cao Cao had only 150,000–160,000 infantry. Liu Bei commanded about 100 thousand troops, although Sun Quan’s estimate was only 20,000–30,000. Although Liu Bei’s army was small, it included experienced cavalry units, powerful fire support units equipped with long-range bows, and a navy. Although sources differ, Sun Quan had 50,000–200,000 troops including the most powerful navy and cavalry troops. See Kunsa Pyonchan Wuiwonhoe, Yokdaebyongyo II, 66–69; Ki-Hyun Paik, The History of the Chinese Military System, (Seoul: Sam-Po-Sa, 1998), 89–103. 36. Lou Guanzhong, Three Kingdoms, 328. 37. See Lou Guanzhong, Three Kingdoms, 325. 38. Lou Guanzhong, Three Kingdoms, 340. 39. Sun Quan justified his decision by saying that “long, too long, has the traitor sought to remove the Han and establish his own house.” With his sword, Sun Quan sheared a corner off the table at which he received petitions saying that “Any officer or official who advocates submission will be dealt with so!” Lou Guanzhong, Three Kingdoms, 341. 40. See Byung-Chon Ro, Dohae Sonja Byungbub, 27. 41. The Three Kingdoms related that Liu Bei mobilized seven hundred thousand soldiers to invade Wu, Sun Quan’s kingdom. See Lou Guanzhong, The Three Kingdoms, 617.

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42. Lou Guanzhong, The Three Kingdoms, 611. 43. See Lou Guanzhong, The Three Kingdoms, 300–301. 44. Cao Cao’s spies reported: “Liu Bei is accompanied by a multitude of common folk. They’re only three hundred li from here and moving at barely ten li a day.” Cao Cao ordered five thousand horsemen to overtake Liu Bei within one day. See Lou Guanzhong, The Three Kingdoms, 317. 45. As technology developed, new weapons appeared on the battlefield. Arrows with iron tips became popular. Gongming, Liu Bei’s chief advisor, invented a device for launching multiple arrows to attack moving targets, especially heavy cavalry. A primitive fighting vehicle also appeared in the battlefield. See Paik, The History of the Chinese Military System, 101–102.

4 The Chinese Civil War 1. The Qing dynasty from Manchu succeeded the Ming dynasty in 1636. Among modern foreign invasions were the Anglo-Chinese Opium War (1839–1842), the Anglo-French invasion, and the Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895). Domestic rebellions included the Taiping Rebellion (1851–1864), the Nian Movement (1853–1868), and the Boxer Rebellion (1898–1901). See John K. Fairbank, China: A New History (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1992). 2. After 1924, Mao worked in the united front under the KMT as director of the Peasant Movement Training Institute. See Fairbank, China: A New History, 280–281, 301–304. 3. See James P. Harrison, Modern Chinese Nationalism (New York: Hunter College of the University of New York, 1969), 22. 4. Sun Yatsen remarked at the opening of the Whampoa Military Academy in 1924 that “it was the lessons of the revolutions of Soviet Russia that have led us today to inaugurate this academy.” F. F. Liu, A Military History of Modern China: 1924–1949 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1956), 8, 68, 83. 5. See Owen Lattimore, China Memoirs: Chiang Kai Shek and the War Against Japan (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1990), 135–136.; Sven Hedin, Chiang Kai Shek: Marshal of China (New York: John Day, 1940), 80–91. 6. Stuart Schram, Mao Tse Tung (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1966), 47. 7. Fairbank, China: A New History, 285. 8. Liu, A Military History of Modern China, 99. 9. Oliver J. Caldwell, A Secret War: Americans in China, 1944–1945 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1972), 25. 10. Fairbank, China: A New History, 293; Jin-young Seo, Joong Kuk Hyuk Myung Sa: (History of the Chinese Revolution) (Seoul: Hanwoolsa, 1992), 162. 11. Chiang Kai-shek, “Speech on the 18th Anniversary of the Central Military Academy, June 16, 1942.”

252

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12. Lloyd Eastman, Seed of Destruction: Nationalist China in War and Revolution 1937–1949 (Stanford CA: Stanford University Press, 1984), 144. 13. In March, 1941, President Roosevelt pledged U.S. assistance to China: “China likewise expresses the magnificent will of millions of plain people to resist the dismemberment of their nation. China, through the generalissimo, Chiang Kai-shek, asks our help. America has said that she shall have our help.” Franklin D. Roosevelt, address on March 15, 1941, in United States, Department of State, United States Relations with China with Special Reference to the Period 1944– 1949 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1949), 49. 14. See Paul H.B. Godwin, “Change and Continuity in Chinese Military Doctrine, 1949–1999,” in Chinese Warfighting: The PLA Experience since 1949, ed. by Mark A. Ryan, David M. Finkelstein, and Michael A. McDevitt (Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2003), 25. 15. See Ralph Sawyer, ed. and trans., The Seven Military Classics of Ancient China (San Francisco: Westview, 1993), 213–214. 16. See Mao Tse-Tung, Selected Military Writings of Mao Tse-Tung (Peking: Foreign Language Press, 1972), 97. 17. Mao Tse-tung, Selected Military Writing of Mao Tse-Tung, 111. 18. See Mao Tse-tung, “On Protracted War,” 247. 19. Mao Tse-tung, “Strategy in China’s Revolutionary War,” December 1936, in Selected Military Writing of Mao Tse-Tung, 105. 20. Mao Tse-tung, “On Protracted War,” 249. 21. Military historians have called Chiang’s army the White Army to distinguish it from Mao’s Red Army. 22. Chu Wen-lin, Chiu Kung-yuan, Chang Chen-pong, Hsing Kuo-chiang, and Tseng Yung-hsien, China’s Struggle with the Red Peril (Taipei: World AntiCommunist League, 1978), 126–131. 23. Chang Chun-ming, Chiang Kai-Shek: His Life and Times (New York: St. John’s University, 1981), 296. 24. Mao Tse-tung, Selected Military Writing of Mao Tse-Tung, 126. 25. Mao Tse-tung, Selected Military Writings of Mao Tse-Tung, 124. See also James P. Harrison, The Long March to Power: History of the Chinese Communist Party, 1921–1972 (New York: Praeger, 1972), 192. 26. Chang Chun-ming, Chiang Kai-Shek: His Life and Times, 294. 27. Mao developed Sun Tzu’s principle by considering how to create circumstances where the few can defeat the many. See Mao Tse-tung, Selected Military Writing of Mao Tse-Tung, 109–111. 28. See Harrison, The Long March, 192. 29. See Soon Kyu Kim, History of Chinese Strategy and Tactics (Seoul: Research Center for Defense History, 1996), 66. 30. See Soon Kyu Kim, 72. 31. See Chang Chun-ming, Chiang Kai-Shek: His Life and Times, 381–383; Jinyoung Seo, Joong Kuk Hyuk Myung Sa: (History of the Chinese Revolution) (Seoul: Hanwoolsa, 1992), 161. 32. Chiang mobilized an additional 17 divisions with more than 153,000 men. See Chang Chun-ming, Chiang Kai-Shek: His Life and Times, 384.

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33. Mao Tse-tung, Selected Military Writings of Mao Tse-Tung, 135. 34. Chiang Kai-shek, Soviet Russia in China (New York: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, 1957), 64. 35. See Chiang Kai-shek, Soviet Russia in China, 64. 36. Jin-young Seo, Joong Kuk Hyuk Myung Sa, 172. 37. Chiang Kai-shek, Soviet Russia in China, 65. 38. Edgar Snow, Red Star over China (New York: Bantam Books, 1984), 206. 39. See Jin-young Seo, Joong Kuk Hyuk Myung Sa, 182. 40. Chiang Kai-shek, Soviet Russia in China, 63. See also Jin-young Seo, Joong Kuk Hyuk Myung Sa, 188. 41. Jin-young Seo, Joong Kuk Hyuk Myung Sa, 184–186. See also Fairbank, China: A New History, 310. 42. See Wu Tien-wei, The Sian Incident: A Pivotal Point in Modern Chinese History (Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1976), 104–105. 43. See Fairbank, China: A New History, 309. 44. Chiang Kai-shek, Soviet Russia in China, 60. 45. Chang Chun-Ming, Chiang Kai-Shek: His Life and Times, 432. 46. Mao Tse-Tung, Selected Military Writing of Mao Tse-Tung, 139. 47. Mao Tse-tung, Selected Military Writing of Mao Tse-Tung, 131. 48. See Donald G. Gillin, Warlord: Yen Hsi-shan in Shansi Province, 1911–1949 (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1967). 49. Caldwell, A Secret War, 106–107. 50. See Jin-young Lee, Joongkuk In Minhae Bang Kunsa: History of Chinese People’s Liberation Army (Seoul: Research Center for Defense History, 1998), 138–139; Jin-young Seo, Joong Kuk Hyuk Myung Sa, 202. 51. Dick Wilson, The Long March 1935 (New York: Viking, 1971), 258. See also Jin-young Seo, Joong Kuk Hyuk Myung Sa, 272–273. 52. See William Hinton, Fan Shen: A Documentary of Revolution in a Chinese Village (New York: Random House, 1966), 200. 53. See Jin-young Lee, Joong Kuk in Minhae Bang Kunsa, 24–25. 54. After the end of World War II, Chiang received at least $700 million in aid from the United States. See Lionel Max Chassin, The Communist Conquest of China: A History of the Civil War 1945–1949 (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1965), 96. 55. See Soon Kyu Kim, History of Chinese Strategy and Tactics, 264. 56. Mao Tse-tung, Selected Military Writing of Mao Tse-Tung, 349; See also Soon Kyu Kim, History of Chinese Strategy and Tactics, 270, 311. 57. Moscow reminded Mao that “it was advantageous for you that the Soviet Army was in Port Arthur and Manchuria.” “On the Issue of Port Arthur,” Cold War International History Project Bulletin, issue 12/13 (Fall–Winter 2001): 254–255. 58. See Chen Zhao, Liao-Shen Zhanyi (The Liao–Shen campaign) (Shanghai: People’s Press, 1959); Zhong Yu-fei, Liao–Shen Zhanyi (The Liao–Shen campaign) (Beijing: Qingnian Chubanshe, 1964); Liu, A Military History of Modern China; William W. Whitson, The Chinese High Command: A History of

254

59. 60.

61. 62.

63.

64.

65. 66. 67.

68. 69.

70. 71. 72.

73. 74.

75.

Notes Communist Military Politics 1927–1971 (New York: Praeger, 1973); Zhongguo Renmin Jiefangjun Zhanshi (A Combat History of the People’s Liberation Army), vol. 3 (Beijing: Military Science Press [Junshi Kexueyuan Chubanshe], 1987). See F.F. Liu, “Defeat by Military Default,” in The Kuomintang Debacle of 1949: Collapse or Conquest?, ed. P.Y. Loh (Boston: D.C. Heath, 1965), 10–11. Thomas Cleary, trans., The Art of War, in Classics of Strategy and Counsel: The Collected Translations of Thomas Cleary, by Thomas Cleary, vol. 1 (Boston: Shambhala, 2000), 110. Mao Tse-tung, Selected Military Writing of Mao Tse-Tung, 368. Mao Tse-tung, “The Momentous Change in China’s Military Situation,” November 14, 1948, in Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, vol. 4 (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1975), 287. See also Mao Tse-tung, Selected Military Writings of Mao Tse-Tung, 368. See Larry M. Wortzel, “The Beiping–Tianjin Campaign of 1948–1949: The Strategic and Operational Thinking of the People’s Liberation Army,” in Chinese Warfighting: The PLA Experience since 1949, ed. Mark A. Ryan, David M. Finkelstein, and Michael A. McDevitt (Armonk NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2003), 60. See Zhongguo Renmin JiefangjunQuangquo Jiefang Zhangzheng Shi (Chinese People’s Liberation Army: History of the War of Liberation) (Beijing: Military Science Press [Junshi Kexue Chubanshe], 1997), 241–260. Mao Tse-tung, Selected Military Writing of Mao Tse-Tung, 370. Mao Tse-tung, Selected Military Writing of Mao Tse-Tung, 369–371. See Zhongguo Renmin Jiefangjun Quangquo Jiefang Zhangzheng Shi, 368–372; Mao Tse-tung, “The Concept of Operations for the Peiping–Tianjin Campaign,” in Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, vol. 4 (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1975), 289–190. See Zhongguo Renmin Jiefangjun Quangquo Jiefang Zhangzheng Shi, 372. In January 1949, Stalin suggested Soviet mediation to reach a peaceful solution to the civil war and expressed concern about U.S. intervention. See Sergei N. Goncharov, John W. Lewis, and Xue Litai, Uncertain Partners (Stanford CA: Stanford University Press, 1993), 26. See Soon Kyu Kim, History of Chinese Strategy and Tactics, 302. Roger T. Ames, Sun Tzu: The Art of Warfare (New York: Ballantine, 1993), 76–77. Mao Tse-tung to Su Yu, Zhang Zhen, Zhou Jingming, and the Chinese Communist Party East Chinese Bureau, June 21, 1949, Chinese Central Archives, Beijing. Mao declared that “[Today] we have . . . defeated both domestic and foreign aggressors.” Philip Short, Mao: A Life (New York: Henry Holt, 1999), 419. See He Di, “The Last Campaign to Unify China: The CCP’s Unrealized Plan to Liberate Taiwan, 1949–1950,” in Chinese Warfighting: The PLA Experience since 1949, 74. Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works of Mao Tse-Tung, vol. 2 (Peking: Foreign Language Press, 1975), 186.

Notes

255

76. Mao Tse-tung, “On Protracted War,” May 1938, in Selected Military Writings of Mao Tse-Tung, 228; See also 88, 94–96, 260, 288, 350. 77. See Jin-young Lee, Joongkuk in Minhae Bang Kunsa, 98. 78. Caldwell, A Secret War, 112. See also Eastman, Seed of Destruction, 147–148. 79. See Mao Tse-tung, “On Protracted War,” 228–254. 80. For a summary of Mao’s ten principles, see Mark A. Ryan, David M. Finkelstein, and Michael A. McDevitt, “Introduction: Patterns of PLA Warfighting,” in Chinese Warfighting, 9–10; Godwin, “Change and Continuity in Chinese Military Doctrine,” 29–30. 81. Sun Tzu, in Classics of Strategy and Counsel, 83, 85. 82. Sun Tzu, in Classics of Strategy and Counsel, 160. 83. Wang Xi, Spring and Autumn Annals, commenting on Sun Tzu, in Classics of Strategy and Counsel, 161. 84. Sun Tzu, in Classics of Strategy and Counsel, 66. 85. Meng Shi (502–556) commenting on Sun Tzu, in Classics of Strategy and Counsel, 66. 86. Sun Tzu, in Classics of Strategy and Counsel, 104. 87. Mei Yaochen (1002–1060) commenting on Sun Tzu, in Classics of Strategy and Counsel, 48. 88. Wang Xi, Spring and Autumn Annals, 70. 89. Du Mu (803–853) commenting on Sun Tzu, in Classics of Strategy and Counsel, 93. 90. Sun Tzu, in Classics of Strategy and Counsel, 105. 91. Du Mu (803–853) commenting on Sun Tzu, in Classics of Strategy and Counsel, 112. 92. See Wortzel, “The Beiping–Tianjin Campaign of 1948–1949,” 68. 93. See Scott Boorman, The Protracted Game: A Wei-Chi Interpretation of Maoist Revolutionary Strategy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1969), 26–27. 94. Byung-Chon Ro, Dohae Sonja Byungbub (Sun Tzu’s Art of War) (Seoul: Hanwon Press, 1990) 155.

5 The Korean War 1. Jonathan D. Spence, “The Once and Future China,” Foreign Policy 146 (January–February 2005): 44–46. 2. See Dieter Heinzig, Die Sowjetunion und das Kommunistische China 1945–1950: Der Beschwerliche Weg zum Bündnis (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 1998. 3. Peter Lowe, The Origins of the Korean War (London: Longman, 1986), 152, citing MacArthur to Department of Army, May 29, 1950; See also Memorandum Dean Rusk to Dean Acheson, May 30, 1950, in United States, Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States—1950, vol. 6, East Asia and the Pacific (Washington, DC: Department of State, 1976), 349–351.

256

Notes

4. See United States, Department of State, memorandum of conversation between Dean Acheson and Jawaharlal Nehru, October 19, 1949, State Department decimal file 845.002/10–1949, record group 59. 5. United States, Department of State, State Department to New Delhi, July 22, 1950, State Department decimal file 795.00/7–2250, record group 59. 6. United States, Department of State, State Department to New Delhi, July 28, 1950, State Department decimal file 795B.00/7–2850, record group 59. 7. In July 1950, the United Nations Security Council had adopted a resolution requesting the United States to designate a commander for all forces being offered by U.N. members. President Harry S. Truman designated General Douglas A. MacArthur as commander, United Nations Command. Although the Republic of Korea was not a member of the United Nations, its army joined UNC by the agreement of the president of the Republic of Korea. 8. United States, Department of State, State Department to New Delhi, September 16, 1950, State Department decimal file 795.00/9–450, record group 59; United States, Department of State, New Delhi to State Department, September 18, 1950, State Department decimal file 795.00/9–1850, record group 59. 9. See Chen Jian, China’s Road to the Korean War (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 156, 161; Sergei N. Goncharov, John W. Lewis, and Xue Litai, Uncertain Partners: Stalin, Mao, and the Korean War (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1993), 153. 10. By October 20, 1950, an intelligence summary from General MacArthur’s headquarters predicted the war’s imminent end: “Communications with, and consequent control of, the enemy’s field units have dissipated to a point of ineffectiveness.” Max Hastings, The Korean War (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987), 124. 11. Jawaharlal Nehru, Jawaharlal Nehru’s Speeches, 1949–1953 (Delhi: Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, 1961), 418. See also Robert J. Donovan, Tumultuous Years: The Presidency of Harry S. Truman, 1949–1953 (New York: Norton, 1982), 308. 12. See Goncharov, Lewis, and Xue, Uncertain Partners, 162–163. For a general treatment of the issues and dilemmas surrounding China’s complicated entrance into the Korean War, see Thomas J. Christensen, Useful Adversaries: Grand Strategy, Domestic Mobilization, and Sino-American Conflict, 1947–1958 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996), 149–170. 13. See Shu Guang Zhang, Mao’s Military Romanticism: China and the Korean War, 1950–1953 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1995), 18–19. 14. See Nie Rongzhen, Nie Rongzhen Huiyilu (Memoirs of Nie Rongzhen) (Beijing: PLA Press, 1984), 735; Peng Dehuai Zhuan (Biography of Peng Dehuai) (Beijing: Contemporary China Press, 1993), 400; Yang Fengan and Wang Tiancheng, Jiayu Chaoxian Zhanzheng De Ren (Those Who Led the Korean War) (Beijing: Chinese Communist Party Central Party School Press, 1993), 65, 80–82; Xu Yan, Diyi Ci Jiaoliang: Kang Mei Yuan Chao Zhanzheng Lishi Huigu Yu Fansi (The First Trial of Strength: Historical Retrospective and Review of the War to Resist America and Aid Korea) (Beijing: Zhongguo

Notes

15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22.

23. 24.

25. 26.

27.

28.

29. 30.

31. 32.

33.

257

Guangbo Dianshi Chubanshe (China Broadcasting and Television Press), 1990), 23–24. See Chen Jian, China’s Road to the Korean War, 146. See Byung-Chon Ro, Dohae Sonja Byungbub (Sun Tzu’s Art of War) (Seoul: Hanwon Press, 1990), 91. Mao Tse-tung, Selected Military Writings of Mao Tse-tung (Peking: Foreign Language Press, 1972), 260. Chen Jian, China’s Road to the Korean War, 153–154. Kavalam M. Panika, In Two Chinas: Memoirs of a Diplomat (London: Allen and Unwin, 1955), 108. See John Toland, In Mortal Combat: Korea, 1950–1953 (New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc, 1991), 241–242. Peter Lowe, The Korean War (London: Macmillan, 2000), 41–47. Rosemary Foot, The Wrong War: American Policy and the Dimensions of the Korean Conflict, 1950–1953 (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1985), 80. Chen Jian, China’s Road to the Korean War, 169. Yang Fengan and Wang Tiancheng, Hankukjon el ikeunsaram: Chinese Leaders in Korean War, trans. by Research Center for Defense History (Seoul: Research Center for Defense History, 1993), 70. See Xie Lifu, Chaoxian Zhangzheng Shilu (Record of the Korean War) (Beijing: World Affairs Press, 1994), 159–162. Telegram to Joseph Stalin, in Mao Tse-tung, Jianguo Yilai Mao Tse-tung Wengao (Mao Tse-tung’s Manuscripts since the Founding of the State), vol. 1 (September 1949–December 1950), (Beijing: Central Press of Historical Documents, 1987), 539–541. See Xu Yan, Diyi Ci Jiaoliang: Kang Mei Yuan Chao Zhanzheng Lishi Huigu Yu Fansi (The First Trial of Strength: Historical Retrospective and Review of the War to Resist America and Aid Korea), 22, 27; Peng Dehuai, Peng Dehuai Junshi Wenxuan (Selected Military Works of Peng Dehuai) (Beijing: Central Archives and Manuscript Press, 1988), 322. His newly opened front comprised land reform, repressing counter-revolutionaries, economic construction, and thought reform. Stuart Schram, Mao Tsetung (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1966), 253. Chen Jian, China’s Road to the Korean War, 194. Mao Tse-tung composed this poem of 56 Chinese characters when he occupied Nanjing after crossing the Yangzi River. Yang and Wang, Jiayu Chaoxian Zhanzheng De Ren (Those Who Led the Korean War), 21. Hao Yufan and Zhai Zhihai, “China’s Decision to Enter the Korean War: History Revisited,” The China Quarterly, 121 (March 1990): 108. Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, vol. 2 (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1975), 49; See also Chen Jian, China’s Road to the Korean War, 193. Mao’s telegram to Zhou Enlai in Moscow, “Reasons for Our Army to Enter the Korean War,” October 13, 1950, in Mao Tse-tung, Jianguo Yilai Mao Tse-tung Wengao (Mao Tse-tung’s Manuscripts since the Founding of the State), vol. 1.

258

Notes

34. See “The Chinese People Are Determined to Liberate Taiwan,” Renmin Ribao (People’s Daily), March 15, 1949. 35. Mao Tse-tung to Su Yu, Zhang Zhen, Zhou Jingming, and the Chinese Communist Party East China Bureau, June 14, 1949 and June 21, 1949, in Dang De Wenxian (Party Documents) no. 2, [unpublished] 1990, 48–49, Central Chinese Archives, Beijing. 36. See Han Huanzhi, et al., Dangdai Zhongguo Jundai De Junshi Gongzuo (Military Affairs of the Contemporary Chinese Army), China Today Series, vol. 1 (Beijing: Chinese Social Science Press, 1988), 160–161; Wang Dinglie, et al., Dangdai Zhongguo Kongjun (Military Affairs of the Contemporary Chinese Air Force), China Today Series (Beijing: Social Science Press, 1989), 35, 38; People’s Republic of China, People’s Liberation Army, Junshi Ziliao (Army Historical Materials), 10 (1985): 26; Lu Liping, Tong Tian Zhi Lu (Path to the Sky) (Beijing: PLA Press, 1989), 137–146, 165–166; Muo Shentian, “Zhang Aiping in the Initial Stage of the Creation of the People’s Navy in East China,” Daijang Nanbei (North and South of the Yangtze River), 3 (1990). 37. See Su Yu, “Report on the Problem of Liberating Taiwan,” January 5, and January 27, 1950, Chinese Central Archives, Beijing. 38. Deng Lifeng, Xin Zhongguo Junshi Huodong Jishi (Record of Military Activities of New China) (Beijing: Chinese Communist Party Historical Materials Press, 1989), 82. 39. See Han Huanzhi, et al., Dangdai Zhongguo Jundai De Junshi Gongzuo (Military Affairs of the Contemporary Chinese Army), China Today Series, vol. 2 (Beijing: Chinese Social Science Press, 1988), 155; Wang Dinglie, et al., Dangdai Zhongguo Kongjun (Military Affairs of the Contemporary Chinese Air Force), 66–67, 79–81, 83–85; Yang Guoyu et al. Dangdai Zhongguo Haijun (The Contemporary Chinese Navy) (Beijing: Social Science Press, 1987), ch. 1–3. 40. Central Military Commission to Chen Yi, Commander, PLA East China Headquarters, August 11, 1950, in Zhonggong Zhongyang Wenjian Huibian (A Collection of Chinese Communist Party Central Committee Documents) [internal version, unpublished], 1950, 1208, Chinese Central Archives, Beijing. See also Xiao Jinguang, Xiao Jinguang Junshi Huiyilu (Memoirs of Xiao Jinguang), vol. 2 (Beijing: PLA Press, n.d.), 26; Deng Lifeng, Xin Zhongguo Junshi Huodong Jishi (Record of Military Activities of New China), 113. 41. See Mao’s written instructions in the CMC report, September 9, 1950, in Mao Tse-tung, Jianguo Yilai Mao Tse-tung Wengao (Mao Tse-tung’s Manuscripts since the Founding of the State), 4; United States, Department of State, Memorandum of Conversation, September 27, 1950, State Department decimal file 795.00/9–2750, record group 59; United States, New Delhi to State Department, September 28, 1950, United States, Department of State Foreign Relations of the United States, 1950, vol. 7, Part 2, Far East and Australasia (Washington, DC: Department of State, 1976), 808–810; Panika, In Two Chinas, 109–111. 42. Mao Tse-tung to Chen Yi, November 17, 1950, in Mao Tse-tung, Jianguo Yilai Mao Tse-tung Wengao (Mao Tse-tung’s Manuscripts since the Founding of the State), 669–670.

Notes

259

43. See Chen Jian, China’s Road to the Korean War, 128. 44. Mao’s telegram to Zhou Enlai in Moscow, “The Advantages of Entering the War,” October 15, 1950, in Mao Tse-tung, Jianguo Yilai Mao Tse-tung Wengao (Mao Tse-tung’s Manuscripts since the Founding of the State), vol. 1. 45. Over the period 1949–1981, correlation tests between domestic unrest and China’s foreign military activity associate a consistent increase in domestic unrest with decreases in external use or threat of force. This empirical result suggests a preoccupation model as a better fit to China’s use of force than conventional diversionary theory. The same data also reject a suppression model—high external military activity followed by low domestic unrest. China’s experiences with external military action and domestic unrest suggest that Beijing’s preoccupation with domestic social order—national Shih—has been associated with a reluctance to use force. See Alastair Iain Johnston, “China’s Militarized Interstate Dispute Behavior 1949–1992: A First Cut at the Data,” in Chinese Foreign Policy in Transition, ed. Guoli Liu, 259–293 (New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 2004), 274–275. 46. Chen Jian, China’s Road to the Korean War, 209. 47. Joseph C. Goulden, Korea: The Untold Story of the War (New York: McGrawHill Times Book, 1982), 208. 48. Telegram to Zhou Enlai “Concerning the principles and deployments of the People’s Volunteer Army as it Enters Korea for Combat,” October 14, 1950, in Useful Adversaries, by Christensen, 274–275. 49. Joseph C. Goulden, Korea: The Untold Story of the War, 259, 287–289, 323. 50. See Yu Bin, “What China Learned from Its Forgotten War in Korea,” in Chinese Warfighting: The PLA Experience since 1949, ed. Mark A. Ryan, David M. Finkelstein, and Michael A. McDevitt, 123–142 (Armonk NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2003), 127; See also Zhao Yihong, Sanshiba Jun Chuanqi (The Story of the 38th Army) (Lanzhou: Dunhuang Yishu Chubanshe (Dunhuang Arts Press), 1994), 270–289; Xie Lifu, Chaoxian Zhangzheng Shilu (Record of the Korean War), 203–205. 212, 229–230; Du Ping, Zai Zhiyuanjun Zongbu (At the Headquarters of the Chinese People’s Volunteers) (Beijing: PLA Press, 1989), 68–70. 51. See Chinese Military History of the War to Resist America and to Aid Korea, trans. the Korean Research Institute for Security (KRIS) (Seoul: Sae Kyung Sa, 1991), 34–38; Zhonggou Renmin Zhiyuanjun Jang Mei Yuan Chao Janshi (Combat History of the People’s Volunteers in the War to Resist America and Aid Korea) (Beijing: (Junshi Kexue Chubanshe) Military Science Press, 1988), 27; Xu Yan, Diyi Ci Jiaoliang: Kang Mei Yuan Chao Zhanzheng Lishi Huigu Yu Fansi (The First Trial of Strength: Historical Retrospective and Review of the War to Resist America and Aid Korea), 45. 52. Goulden, Korea: The Untold Story, 307. 53. The Chinese 38th corps found the enemy in Hui Chon but did not attack until October 29, because the Chinese misperceived them as U.S. units. See Chinese Military History of the War to Resist America and to Aid Korea, 23–24, 29, 38, 41. 54. Carl Von Clausewitz, On War, trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976), 526.

260

Notes

55. Chinese Military History of the War to Resist America and to Aid Korea, 38–40. 56. See Peng Dehuai Zhuan (Biography of Peng Dehuai), 426–427; Xie Lifu, Chaoxian Zhangzheng Shilu (Record of the Korean War), 243–256; Xu Yan, Diyi Ci Jiaoliang: Kang Mei Yuan Chao Zhanzheng Lishi Huigu Yu Fansi (The First Trial of Strength: Historical Retrospective and Review of the War to Resist America and Aid Korea), 49–52. 57. Toland, In Mortal Combat, 271. 58. Goulden, Korea: The Untold Story, 317. 59. Mathew B. Ridgway, The Korean War (New York: Doubleday, 1967), 60. 60. The U.N. advance was not a general offensive, but a reconnaissance in force after the Chinese disengagement. See Chinese Military History of the War to Resist America and to Aid Korea, 49. 61. See Xie Lifu, Chaoxian Zhangzheng Shilu (Record of the Korean War), 267–282; Yang and Wang, Jiayu Chaoxian Zhanzheng De Ren (Those Who Led the Korean War), 166–180; Du Ping, Zai Zhiyuanjun Zongbu (At the Headquarters of the Chinese People’s Volunteers), 101–126; Zhongguo Renmin Zhiyuanjun Jang Mei Yuan Chao Janshi (Combat History of the People’s Volunteers in the War to Resist America and Aid Korea), 2–3, 52–67; Xu Yan, Diyi Ci Jiaoliang: Kang Mei Yuan Chao Zhanzheng Lishi Huigu Yu Fansi (The First Trial of Strength: Historical Retrospective and Review of the War to Resist America and Aid Korea), 55–57; Zhao Yihong, Sanshiba Jun Chuanqi (The Story of the 38th Army), 297–319. 62. See Hastings, The Korean War, 146. 63. Goulden, Korea: The Untold Story, 409. 64. See Peng Dehuai Zhuan (Biography of Peng Dehuai), 437–438; Yang and Wang, Jiayu Chaoxian Zhanzheng De Ren (Those Who Led the Korean War), 200–201; Du Ping, Zai Zhiyuanjun Zongbu (At the Headquarters of the Chinese People’s Volunteers), 140–142. 65. Chinese Military History of the War to Resist America and to Aid Korea, 80–81. 66. See Xie Lifu, Chaoxian Zhangzheng Shilu (Record of the Korean War), 353; Du Ping, Zai Zhiyuanjun Zongbu (At the Headquarters of the Chinese People’s Volunteers), 143–153; Xu Yan, Diyi Ci Jiaoliang: Kang Mei Yuan Chao Zhanzheng Lishi Huigu Yu Fansi (The First Trial of Strength: Historical Retrospective and Review of the War to Resist America and Aid Korea), 61–63, 338; Zhonggou Renmin Zhiyuanjun Jang Mei Yuan Chao Janshi (Combat History of the People’s Volunteers in the War to Resist America and Aid Korea), 77–78, 88–89. 67. Byung-Chon Ro, Dohae Sonja Byungbub, 243. 68. See Xu Yan, Diyi Ci Jiaoliang: Kang Mei Yuan Chao Zhanzheng Lishi Huigu Yu Fansi (The First Trial of Strength: Historical Retrospective and Review of the War to Resist America and Aid Korea), 64; Xie Lifu, Chaoxian Zhangzheng Shilu (Record of the Korean War), 399–403; Zhonggou Renmin Zhiyuanjun Jang Mei Yuan Chao Janshi (Combat History of the People’s Volunteers in the War to Resist America and Aid Korea), 88. 69. Byung-Chon Ro, Dohae Sonja Byungbub, 190.

Notes

261

70. Joint Chiefs of Staff 99935 to Commander-in-Chief, Far East, December 29, 1950,79500/12–2950 telegram, in United States, Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States—1950, Vol. 7, Korea (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1976), 1625–1626. 71. See Roger Dingman, “Atomic Diplomacy during the Korean War,” International Security 13(3) (Winter 1988–1989): 50–91. 72. Chinese Military History of the War to Resist America and to Aid Korea, 128. 73. Xu Yan, Diyi Ci Jiaoliang: Kang Mei Yuan Chao Zhanzheng Lishi Huigu Yu Fansi (The First Trial of Strength: Historical Retrospective and Review of the War to Resist America and Aid Korea), 69; Zhonggou Renmin Zhiyuanjun Jang Mei Yuan Chao Janshi (Combat History of the People’s Volunteers in the War to Resist America and Aid Korea), 93–95; Du Ping, Zai Zhiyuanjun Zongbu (At the Headquarters of the Chinese People’s Volunteers), 192. 74. See Zhonggou Renmin Zhiyuanjun Jang Mei Yuan Chao Janshi (Combat History of the People’s Volunteers in the War to Resist America and Aid Korea) 93–95; Du Ping, Zai Zhiyuanjun Zongbu (At the Headquarters of the Chinese People’s Volunteers), 98, 102–103; Xie Lifu, Chaoxian Zhangzheng Shilu (Record of the Korean War), 426–428. 75. Mao’s directive was “Neng su sheng ze su sheng, bu neng su sheng ze huan sheng,” Peng Dehuai Zhuan (Biography of Peng Dehuai), 452–453. See also Xu Yan, Diyi Ci Jiaoliang: Kang Mei Yuan Chao Zhanzheng Lishi Huigu Yu Fansi (The First Trial of Strength: Historical Retrospective and Review of the War to Resist America and Aid Korea), 81. 76. See Xu Yan, Diyi Ci Jiaoliang: Kang Mei Yuan Chao Zhanzheng Lishi Huigu Yu Fansi (The First Trial of Strength: Historical Retrospective and Review of the War to Resist America and Aid Korea), 71–74; Zhonggou Renmin Zhiyuanjun Jang Mei Yuan Chao Janshi (Combat History of the People’s Volunteers in the War to Resist America and Aid Korea), 120–121; Du Ping, Zai Zhiyuanjun Zongbu (At the Headquarters of the Chinese People’s Volunteers), 204. 77. Chinese Military History of the War to Resist America and to Aid Korea, 104–105. 78. Byung-Chon Ro, Dohae Sonja Byungbub, 37. 79. Byung-Chon Ro, Dohae Sonja Byungbub, 155. 80. See Xie Lifu, Chaoxian Zhangzheng Shilu (Record of the Korean War), 456–458; Yang and Wang, Jiayu Chaoxian Zhanzheng De Ren (Those Who Led the Korean War), 252–261; Du Ping, Zai Zhiyuanjun Zongbu (At the Headquarters of the Chinese People’s Volunteers), 218–222. 81. See Chinese Military History of the War to Resist America and to Aid Korea, 136, 146, 148. 82. The Wiles of War: 36 Military Strategies from Ancient China, trans. Sun Haichen (Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 1993), 51; Mao Tse-tung, Selected Military Writings, 116. 83. Although exact data are not available, estimates suggest about 450,000 casualties from the Chinese Army. See Russell Spurr, Enter the Dragon (New York: Newmarket Press, 1988), 313. 84. Goulden, Korea: The Untold Story, 581.

262

Notes

85. See Lowe, The Korean War, 83; Shu Guang Zhang, Mao’s Military Romanticism, 245. 86. “On Issues Related to Korean Armistice Negotiation,” Renmin Ribao (People’s Daily) June 25, 1951; Shu Guang Zhang, Mao’s Military Romanticism, 218. 87. See Hastings, The Korean War, 232; Chinese Military History of the War to Resist America and to Aid Korea, 270–271. 88. Byung-Chon Ro, Dohae Sonja Byungbub, 81, 82. 89. Shu Guang Zhang, Mao’s Military Romanticism, 218. 90. Mao’s Speech on at the 38th meeting of the standing committee of the First National Committee of the CPPCC, August 4, 1952, quoted in The Writings of Mao Tse-tung, 1949–1976, ed. Michael Y. M. Kau and John K. Leung, (Armonk NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1986), 275–276. See also Shu Guang Zhang, Mao’s Military Romanticism, 220. 91. Shu Guang Zhang, Mao’s Military Romanticism, 218–220 92. “On Issues Related to Korean Armistice Negotiation,” Renmin Ribao (People’s Daily) June 25, 1951. 93. Chinese records report inflicting 148,293 casualties on U.N. forces from October 25, 1950 through June 10, 1951, and 523,661 from June 11, 1951 through July 27, 1953. The records disclose no Chinese casualties. See Chinese Military History of the War to Resist America and to Aid Korea, 393–394. 94. Robert S. Ross, “Beijing as a Conservative Power,” in Chinese Foreign Policy in Transition, ed. Guoli Liu, 141–150, 142. Originally published as “Beijing as a Conservative Power,” Foreign Affairs 76(2) (March–April 1997): 33–45. 95. Mao said, “We ourselves preferred to shoulder the heavy sacrifices necessary.” Among these was Mao’s personal sacrifice. His son was killed in the Korean War. See Schram, Mao Tse-tung, 245. 96. See Xu Yan, Diyi Ci Jiaoliang: Kang Mei Yuan Chao Zhanzheng Lishi Huigu Yu Fansi (The First Trial of Strength: Historical Retrospective and Review of the War to Resist America and Aid Korea), 99–100, 159–194, 326. 97. See Christensen, Useful Adversaries. 98. Mao’s note on the General Staff Department’s report, August 16, 1951, quoted in Kau and Leung, The Writings of Mao Tse-tung, 1949–1976, 27. See also; Shu Guang Zhang, Mao’s Military Romanticism, 224. 99. Shim Jae Hoon, “Sitting on the Fence,” Far Eastern Economic Review 157(45) (November 10, 1994): 1.

6 The Sino-Indian War 1. “Two Systems, One Grand Rivalry,” The Economist 367(8329) ( June 21, 2003): 21–23; 22. 2. “It is wise and essential that we should think of military steps lest others fail. That is why we have been engaged in road-building, building up our military apparatus, etc.” India, Ministry of External Affairs, Prime Minister on

Notes

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

263

Sino-Indian Relations, vol. 1, “Indian Parliament,” part 2 (New Delhi: External Publicity Division, Government of India, 1961–1962), 95–96. See also New York Times, October 26, 1962. See Steven A. Hoffman, India and the China Crisis (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 9–74; Neville Maxwell, India’s China War (New York: Pantheon, 1970) 47–134; Allen S. Whiting, The Chinese Calculus of Deterrence: India and Indochina (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1975), 1–41; Luke T. Chang, China’s Boundary Treaties and Frontier Disputes (New York: Oceana, 1982), 61–78. The Nationalist Creed taught at the National Central Political Training Institute in 1944, quoted in A Secret War: Americans in China, 1944–1945, by Oliver J. Caldwell (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1972), 35. Before 1949, Sun Yatsen, Mao Tse-tung, and Chiang Kai-shek had variously asserted that all territory that ever belonged to China and all territory in which Chinese people formed a majority should be incorporated into a new China. Neville Maxwell, “China’s Aggression in 1962 and the Hindu Bomb,” World Policy Journal 16(2) (Summer 1999): 111–118; 112; See also H. W. Brands, The Specter of Neutralism: The United States and the Emergence of the Third World, 1947–1960 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1989), 15. See United States, Central Intelligence Agency, “National Intelligence Estimate 23,” September 4, 1951, President’s Secretary’s File, Harry S. Truman Papers, Harry S. Truman Library, Independence, Missouri. In 1947, India requested grain, loans, and help in flood-control, irrigation, and hydropower projects from the United States. The Truman administration responded that U.S. commitments to Europe precluded any increases in U.S. grain shipments to India and referred Nehru’s government to the World Bank, the U.S. Export-Import Bank, or private American banks for interest-bearing loans. See United States, National Archives, Record Group 59, New Delhi to State Department, June 27, 1947, State Department decimal file 845.00/6–2747; New Delhi to State Department, September 2, 1947, State Department decimal file 102.78/9–247; New Delhi to State Department, September 3, 1947, State Department decimal file 845.01/9–347; State Department to New Delhi, October 3, 1947, State Department decimal file 102.78/10–347. Jawaharlal Nehru, quoted in Mainsprings of Indian and Pakistani Foreign Policies, by S. M. Burke (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1974), 93. See also K. Raman Pillai, India’s Foreign Policy: Basic Issues and Attitudes (Meerut, India: Meenakshi Prakashan, 1969), 28. Maxwell, “China’s Aggression in 1962,” 113, quoting Jawaharlal Nehru without source. “If a state proceeds alone to survey and delimit its border areas, no juridical principle will apply to another state which, being directly interested, has not cooperated in any way in its execution or consented to accept its consequences. From the point of view of the nonparticipating state, the international boundary remains undefined.” A. Oye Cukwurah, The Settlement of Boundary Disputes in International Law (Dobbs Ferry NY: Oceana, 1967), 159. Brands, Specter of Neutralism, 22.

264

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11. See Sarvepalli Gopal, Jawaharlal Nehru: A Biography (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1976–1984), 2: 195; Charles H. Heimsath and Surjit Mansingh, A Diplomatic History of Modern India (Bombay: Allied, 1971), 191–192; D. R. SarDesai, “India and Southeast Asia,” in Indian Foreign Policy, ed. Bal Ram Nanda, 78–101 (Delhi: Vikas, 1976), 87–88; Menno T. Kamminga, “Building Railroads on the Sea: China’s Attitude towards Maritime Law,”The China Quarterly 59 (September 1974): 544–588; especially 545–546. 12. See George McT. Kahin, The Asian-African Conference: Bandung, Indonesia, April 1955 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1956). 13. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), The Arms Trade With the Third World (Stockholm: Almquist and Wiksell, 1971), 468. See Zhou Enlai’s speech at Bandung, April 23, 1955, in Kahin, The Asian-African Conference, 60. 14. The pre–1911 Qing government and the successor Yuan Shikai administration of the Republic of China had signed a series of trade agreements concerning the Sino–Indian border after 1865. Sir Henry McMahon, chairing a Simla conference of British, Chinese, and Tibetan plenipotentiaries, drew the McMahon line in 1913 in a draft Tripartite Convention that the three representatives initialed. No Chinese government ever recognized either the McMahon Line or the 1913–1914 Simla Treaty that established it. The Kuomintang view had consistently been that the new Republic of China had refused to accept that the then-independent Tibet had ceded to India the 90,000 sq km that became the North Eastern Frontier Agency in Arunachal Pradesh province. While the Chinese representative, Chen Yifan, initialed the draft convention, the McMahon Line appeared in an appendix that had not been initialled, and Chen did not sign the treaty during the Simla Conference. See George N. Patterson, Peking Versus Delhi (New York: Praeger, 1963), 170; Melvin Gurtov and Byong-Moo Hwang, China Under Threat: The Politics and Strategy of Diplomacy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980), 119; Maxwell, India’s China War, 39–64; Alistair Lamb, The McMahon Line: A Study in Relations between India, China, and Tibet, 1904–1914 (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1966), 1; 3–9, 638–639. 15. See exchange of notes between Nehru and Zhou Enlai, August 28, 1959, in Xu Yan, Zhong-Yin Bianjie Zhi Zhan Lishi Zhenxiang (The Historical Truth of the Sino-Indian Border War) (Hong Kong: Tian Di, 1993), 45. 16. See Gurtov and Hwang, China Under Threat, 115. 17. Although Indian officials in Ladakh recognized the advantages—terrain, logistics, and mobility—that China had created by building the road, Nehru remained unaware of the situation until the road was a fait accompli. “I do not know when the road was actually made, but we heard of it at the end of 1957 or 1958, I forget exactly when.” India, Prime Minister on Sino-Indian Relations, 108, 62, 123. See also Maxwell, India’s China War, 86–89, 181, 205, 254. 18. See Whiting, The Chinese Calculus of Deterrence, 107. 19. See Maxwell, India’s China War, 73.

Notes

265

20. India had rejected Soviet or U.S. military assistance until 1959. Moscow exploited India’s chagrin after the 1959 confrontations by proposing to meet India’s requirements “for considerably less cost than the United States.” Wynfred Joshua and Stephen P. Gibert, Arms for the Third World: Soviet Military Aid Diplomacy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1969), 58. See also Christian Science Monitor, October 4, 1960; Times of India (New Delhi), October 4, 1960; New York Times, April 2, 1961. After Moscow and New Delhi agreed to deepen Soviet-Indian relations around Indian belligerence toward China and Pakistan, Moscow became the dominant military supplier and advisor to India. For a summary of Soviet military assistance to India, see William H. Mott IV, Soviet Military Assistance: An Empirical Perspective (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2001), 225–239. 21. See John Rowland, A History of Sino-Indian Relations: Hostile Coexistence (Princeton, NJ: D. Van Nostrand, 1967), 116. 22. See United States, Department of the Army, Office of the Chief of Military History, People’s Liberation Army Unit History, trans. Military Advisory Group to China (Taiwan) (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1965), 31, 78; George N. Patterson, Tibet in Revolt (London: Faber and Faber, 1960); and Lowell Thomas, Jr., The Silent War in Tibet (New York: Doubleday, 1959). 23. See Xinhua News Agency, March 28, 1959, Peking Review, March 31, 1959, 7. 24. Tibet was Chinese territory in 1950. On March 20, 1959, Tibetans opposed to Chinese policy organized a revolt, which the PLA crushed in two days. Thousands of Tibetans escaped into Nepal and India. See Patterson, Peking Versus Delhi, 161; Maxwell, India’s China War, 103–105, 263; “Two Systems, One Grand Rivalry,” The Economist, 21. 25. See Maxwell, India’s China War, 175, 235. 26. See Gurtov and Hwang, China Under Threat, 115–116. 27. Maxwell, “China’s Aggression in 1962,” 113, summarizing correspondence between Zhou and Nehru. 28. See Gurtov and Hwang, China Under Threat, 117, 120; Maxwell, India’s China War, 174, 183. 29. “Osnovnye napravleniya vneshnepoliticheskoi propagandy v kul’turnykh svyazei KNR s zarubezhnymi stranami,” Stenographic Transcript No. 17238, April 24, 1959, by Zhan Zhisyan, Chairman of the Chinese Committee on Cultural Ties Abroad, in the Center for Storage of Contemporary Documentation (TsKhSD) (former Central Committee Archive of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union), Moscow, f. 5, op. 30, d. 307, LI. 18, 27. 30. See Editorial, Times of India, October 11, 1959; Maxwell, India’s China War, 107–111. 31. See United States, People’s Liberation Army Unit History, 78. 32. The Forward Policy annoyed China’s strategists, who referred to it as canshi zhengce (nibbling at another’s country and gradually consuming it). See Xu Yan, Zhong-Yin Bianjie Zhi Zhan Lishi Zhenxiang, 87. 33. See Maxwell, India’s China War, 226–227.

266

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34. See Margaret Fisher, Leo E. Rose, and Robert C. Huttenback, Himalayan Battleground: Sino-Indian Rivalry in Ladakh (London: Pall Mall, 1963), 131. 35. Chou Chun-li, “Sino-Indian Border Situation Worsens,” Peking Review, July 9–13, 1962, 11. 36. Maxwell, India’s China War, 245. 37. Translated in Xu Yan, Zhong-Yin Bianjie Zhi Zhan Lishi Zhenxiang, 87. 38. Sun Pin, The Lost Art of War, trans. Thomas Cleary, in Classics of Strategy and Counsel: The Collected Translations of Thomas Cleary, by Thomas Cleary, vol. 1, 317–421 (Boston: Shambhala, 2000), 370. 39. Zhuge Liang and Liu Ji, Mastering the Art of War, in Classics of Strategy and Counsel, by Cleary, vol. 1, 183–313; 286, 305. 40. Cleary, The Art of War: Sun Tzu, in Classics of Strategy and Counsel, by Cleary, vol. 1, 107. 41. Cleary, The Art of War: Sun Tzu, in Classics of Strategy and Counsel, by Cleary, vol. 1, 110. 42. See Jian Si-yi and Li Hui, eds., Zhong-Yin Bianjing Ziwei Fanji Zuozhan Shi (History of the Self-Defensive Counterattack Operations on the Sino-Indian Border) (Beijing: Military Science Press, 1994), 143. 43. See Maxwell, India’s China War, 205, 254. 44. “Two Systems, One Grand Rivalry,” The Economist, 21–22. 45. New York Times, November 19, 1962. 46. See Xu Yan, Zhong-Yin Bianjie Zhi Zhan Lishi Zhenxiang, 88–91. 47. See Chang Feng and Larry M. Wortzel, “PLA Operational Principles and Limited War: The Sino-Indian War of 1962,” in Chinese Warfighting: The PLA Experience since 1949, ed. Mark A. Ryan, David M. Finkelstein, and Michael A. McDevitt, 173–197 (Armonk NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2003), 182. 48. See Gurtov and Hwang, China Under Threat, 122. 49. Patrick Brogan, The Fighting Never Stopped (New York: Vintage, 1990), 177. 50. See Whiting, The Chinese Calculus of Deterrence, 107. 51. See Gurtov and Hwang, China Under Threat, 123. 52. Klaus H. Pringsheim, “China, India, and Their Himalayan Border, 1961–63,” Asian Survey 3 (October 1963): 488. 53. Peking Review, October 12, 1962, 8; October 19, 1962, 6–7. 54. See Chang Feng and Wortzel, “PLA Operational Principles and Limited War,” 182. 55. See Xu Yan, Zhong-Yin Bianjie Zhi Zhan Lishi Zhenxiang, 121–134. 56. See India, Prime Minister on Sino-Indian Relations, 110–111. 57. See Xu Yan, Zhong-Yin Bianjie Zhi Zhan Lishi Zhenxiang, 134–139; Maxwell, India’s China War, 356–359. 58. See Maxwell, India’s China War, 360–362, 366–373; People’s Republic of China, Collection of Documents on the Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China: 1962 (Beijing: World Affairs Press, 1964), 109; Rowland, A History of Sino-Indian Relations, 169; Xu Yan, Zhong-Yin Bianjie Zhi Zhan Lishi Zhenxiang, 145.

Notes

267

59. See William W. Whitson, The Chinese High Command: A History of Communist Military Politics 1927–1971 (New York: Praeger, 1973), 488–489; Xu Yan, Zhong-Yin Bianjie Zhi Zhan Lishi Zhenxiang, 148–188. 60. Maxwell, India’s China War, 397, 404. 61. Brogan, The Fighting Never Stopped, 177. 62. See Xu Yan, Zhong-Yin Bianjie Zhi Zhan Lishi Zhenxiang, 180–185. 63. See Maxwell, India’s China War, 417–418. 64. See Gurtov and Hwang, China Under Threat, 142. 65. India, Prime Minister on Sino-Indian Relations, 95. See also Gurtov and Hwang, China Under Threat, 120. 66. See Maxwell, “China’s Aggression in 1962,” 116. 67. Roger Hilsman, To Move a Nation (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1967), 310. 68. Gurtov and Hwang, China Under Threat, 118, 121, 137. 69. Chang Feng and Wortzel, “PLA Operational Principles and Limited War,” 189–190. 70. See Gurtov and Hwang, China Under Threat, 143. 71. See Jonathan R. Adelman and Shih Chih-yu, Symbolic War: The Chinese Use of Force 1840–1980 (Taipei: Institute of International Relations, National Chengchi University, 1993), 204. 72. Byung-Chon Ro, Dohae Sonja Byungbub (Sun Tzu’s Art of War) (Seoul: Hanwon Press, 1990), 218. 73. Maxwell, India’s China War, 335, 404. 74. See Xu Yan, Zhong-Yin Bianjie Zhi Zhan Lishi Zhenxiang, 102–105, 111, 149–175. 75. See Maxwell, India’s China War, 353–355. 76. Maxwell, “China’s Aggression in 1962,” 116. See also Xu Yan, Zhong-Yin Bianjie Zhi Zhan Lishi Zhenxiang, 119–121. 77. See John K. Fairbank and Frank A. Kiernan Jr., eds., Chinese Ways in Warfare (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974), 5–10, 25, 65; and Michael L. Handel, Sun Tzu and Clausewitz Compared (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute, 1991), 12–18. 78. See Xu Yan, Zhong-Yin Bianjie Zhi Zhan Lishi Zhenxiang, 164. 79. New York Times, November 20, 1962. 80. See Peter J. S. Duncan, “The Soviet-Indian Model: Continuity in a Changing Environment,” in Troubled Friendships: Moscow’s Third World Ventures, ed. Margot Light, 29–51 (London: British Academic Press, 1993), 30; Arthur Stein, “India and the U.S.S.R.: The Post-Nehru Period,” Asian Survey 7(3) (March 1967): 31; Washington Post, October 30, 1962. 81. See SIPRI. The Arms Trade With the Third World, 477. 82. Byung-Chon Ro, Dohae Sonja Byungbub, 284. See also 154. 83. See Adelman and Chih-Yu Shih, Symbolic War, 204. 84. Maxwell, “China’s Aggression in 1962,” 117. 85. See Byung-Chon Ro, Dohae Sonja Byungbub, 192. 86. K. Shankar Bajpai, “Untangling India and Pakistan,” Foreign Affairs 82(3) (May–June 2003): 116.

268 87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92.

Notes See “Two Systems, One Grand Rivalry,” The Economist, 22. Maxwell, “China’s Aggression in 1962,” 117. See “Friendly Giants,” The Economist 367(8330) (June 28, 2003): 38. “No Order on the Border,” The Economist 368 (8335) (August 2, 2003): 41. Maxwell, “China’s Aggression in 1962,” 113, quoting Nehru without source. “Too Early to Tell,” The Economist 375(8422) (April 16, 2005) 37.

7 The Sino-Soviet War 1. For details and analyses of this series of incidents, see, among others, Oleg B. Borisov and Boris T. Koloskov, Soviet-Chinese Relations, 1945–1970 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1975); Lowell Dittmer, Sino-Soviet Normalization and Its International Implications, 1945–1990 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1992); Thomas W. Robinson, “The SinoSoviet Border Conflict,” in Diplomacy of Power: Soviet Armed Forces as a Political Instrument, ed. Stephen S. Kaplan, 265–313 (Washington, DC: Brookings, 1981); Richard Wich, Sino-Soviet Crisis Politics: A Study of Political change and Communication (London: Council on East Asian Studies—Harvard University Press, 1980); Tai Sung An, The Sino-Soviet Territorial Dispute (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster, 1973); Drew Middleton, The Duel of the Giants: China and Russia in Asia (New York: Scribner, 1978); Tsui Tien-hua, The Sino-Soviet Border Dispute in the 1970s (Oakville, Ontario: Mosaic, 1984); Alfred D. Low, The Sino-Soviet Confrontation since Mao Zedong (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987); and Odd Arne Westad, ed., Brothers in Arms: The Rise and Fall of the Sino-Soviet Alliance, 1945–1963 (Stanford CA: Stanford University Press, 2000). 2. See accounts of the Gorbachev visit to Beijing in 1989 and the Joint Communiqué of May 18, 1989, The China Quarterly 119 (September 1989): 711–714 and 731–734. 3. Agence France Press, dispatch, April 28, 1999, in Foreign Broadcast Information Services (FBIS), April 28, 1999, Document ID: FTS 19990428000217. 4. See Nikita S. Khrushchev, Vospominaniya, vol. 5, “Vzaimootnosheniya s sotsialisticheskimi strabami,” part G, “Vzaimootnosheniya s Kitaem” (Moscow: typescript, 1966–1970), 25–31. 5. See Dmitri Trenin, Russia’s China Problem (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1999), 9. 6. See E. Wayne Merry, “Moscow’s Retreat and Beijing’s Rise as Regional Great Power,” Problems of Post-Communism 50(3) (May–June 2003): 22. 7. See I. F. Kurdyukov, V. N. Nikiforov, and A. S. Perevertailo, eds., Sovetskokitaiskie Otnosheniya, 1917–1957 (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Vostochnoi literatury, 1959), 221–222, 227–229, 303–306. 8. Khrushchev, Vospominaniya, vol. 5, 72–73.

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9. See Dwight D. Eisenhower, The White House Years: Waging Peace, 1956–1961 (Garden City NY: Doubleday, 1965), 293–294, 691–693. 10. See Andrei A. Gromyko, Pamyatnoe, vol. 2 (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo politicheskoi literatury, 1988), 132–133; John W. Lewis and Xue Litai, China’s Strategic Seapower: The Politics of Force Modernization in the Nuclear Age (Stanford CA: Stanford University Press, 1994), 16. 11. See Nikita S. Khrushchev, Vospominaniya, vol. 6, “Otnosheniya s kapitalisticheskimi I razvivayushchimisya stranami”, part H, “Otnosheniya s arabskimi stranami” (Moscow: typescript, 1966–1970), 57–58; “Kommyunike o vstreche N.S. Khrushcheva i Mao Tse-duna,” Pravda (Moscow), August 4, 1958, 1–2; Klaus Mehnert, Peking und Moskau (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1962), 388–392. 12. See Khrushchev, Vospominaniya, vol. 5, 73–74, Allen S. Whiting, “The SinoSoviet Split,” in The Cambridge History of China, vol. 14: The People’s Republic, part 2: “The Emergence of Revolutionary China 1949–1965”, ed. Roderick MacFarquhar and John K. Fairbank, 478–538 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 499–500. 13. See Nie Rongzhen, Inside the Red Star: The Memoirs of Marshal Nie Rongzhen (Beijing: New World Press, 1988), 572–573. 14. First published in Chinese in Hongqi 8 (April 16, 1960) and republished in English in Peking Review 3(17) (April 1960): 14–22, Long Live Leninism is available in The Sino-Soviet Dispute, ed. G. F. Hudson, Richard Lowenthal, and Roderick MacFarquhar (New York: Praeger, 1961) and in Survey of the SinoSoviet Dispute, 1963–1967, ed. John Gittings (New York: Oxford University Press, 1968), 287–394. See also Aleksandr Dolinin, “Kak nashi raketchiki kitaitsev obuchali,” Krasnaya Zvezda (Moscow), May 13, 1995, 6. 15. See Edward Crankshaw, The New Cold War: Moscow v. Peking (Baltimore: Penguin, 1963), 97–110. 16. See Mikhail A. Klochko, Soviet Scientist in Red China (Montreal: International Publishers Representatives, 1964), 164–188. 17. Lowell Dittmer, “The Sino-Russian Strategic Partnership: Ghost of the Strategic Triangle?” in Chinese Foreign Policy in Transition, ed. Guoli Liu, 211–232 (New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 2004), 213. 18. Alastair Iain Johnston, “China’s Militarized Interstate Dispute Behavior 1949–1992: A First Cut at the Data,” in Chinese Foreign Policy in Transition, ed. Guoli Liu, 259–293 (New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 2004), 278. (First published as Alastair Iain Johnston, “China’s Militarized Interstate Dispute Behavior 1949–1992: A First Cut at the Data,” The China Quarterly 153 (March 1998): 1–30.) 19. Goldstein, “Do Nascent WMD Arsenals Deter? The Sino-Soviet Crisis of 1969,” Political Science Quarterly 118(1) (Spring 2003): 67. 20. See Robert S. Norris, Andrew S. Burrows, and Richard W. Fieldhouse, Nuclear Weapons Databook, vol. 5: British, French, and Chinese Nuclear Weapons (Boulder CO: Westview, 1994), 326. 21. See John W. Lewis and Xue Litai, China Builds the Bomb (Stanford CA: Stanford University Press, 1988), 212–213.

270

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22. See Alexey Elizavetin, “Peregovory Kosygina I Chou En-lai v Pekinskom Aeroporte” (Negotiations between Kosygin and Zhou Enlai at the Beijing Airport), Problemy Dal’nego Vostoka 5 (September–October 1992): 46, continued in Alexey Elizavetin, “Peregovory Kosygina I Chou En-lai v Pekinskom Aeroporte” (Negotiations between Kosygin and Zhou Enlai at the Beijing Airport), Problemy Dal’nego Vostoka 1 (January–February 1993): 107–119. 23. Melvin Gurtov and Byong-Moo Hwang, China Under Threat: The Politics and Strategy of Diplomacy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980), 201. See also Harry Gelman, The Soviet Far East Buildup and Soviet Risk-Taking against China, R–2943–AF, August 1982 (Santa Monica CA: Rand, 1982), 43; and Charles H. Murphy, “Mainland China’s Evolving Nuclear Deterrent,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 28(1) (January–February 1972): 34. 24. See Yang Kuisong, interview with Lyle J. Goldstein, Beijing, July 19, 2000, reported in Goldstein, “Do Nascent WMD Arsenals Deter?” 71n94; Jiang Yi, (Institute of East European, Russian, and Central Asian Studies—Beijing), interview with Lyle J. Goldstein, Beijing, July 20, 2000, reported in Goldstein, “Do Nascent WMD Arsenals Deter?” 71n94. 25. “Conversation between Mao Zedong and E. F. Hill,” in All Under Heaven is Great Chaos—Beijing, the Sino-Soviet Border Clashes, and the Turn Toward SinoAmerican Rapprochement, 1968–69 at the Internet site of The Cold War International History Project at http:\www.cwihp.si.edu.cwihplib.nsf/1 . . . 712a28525677c00686a69, 8. See also “Report by Four Chinese Marshals— Chen Yi, Ye Jianying, Nie Rongzhen, and Xu Xiangqian—to the CCP Central Committee, ‘Our Views about the Current Situation,’ September 17, 1969,” in All Under Heaven is Great Chaos—Beijing, the Sino-Soviet Border Clashes, and the Turn Toward Sino-American Rapprochement, 1968–69 at the Internet site of The Cold War International History Project at http:\www.cwihp.si.edu. cwihplib.nsf/1 . . . 712a28525677c00686a69, 25; Elizavetin, “Peregovory Kosygina,” Problemy Dal’nego Vostoka 5, 55–56. 26. See Banning Garrett and Bonnie Glaser, War and Peace: The Views from Moscow and Beijing (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 28. 27. Mao Tse-tung’s Speech at the First Plenary Session of the CCP’s Ninth Central Committee, April 28, 1969, on the Internet site of The Cold War International History Project at http:\www.cwihp.si.edu.cwihplib.nsf/ 1 . . . 712a28525677c00686a69, 16. 28. Patrick Tyler, A Great Wall: Six Presidents and China: An Investigative History (New York: Public Affairs, 1999), 73. For the normal schedule of Chinese nuclear tests, see also Lewis and Xue, China Builds the Bomb, 244–245. 29. Neville Maxwell, “China’s Aggression in 1962 and the Hindu Bomb,” World Policy Journal 16(2) (Summer 1999): 112. 30. See Li Danhui, “1969 Nian Zhong-Su Bianjie Chongtu: Yuanqi He Jieguo” (The 1969 Sino-Soviet Border Incidents: Origins and Outcome), in Dangdai Zhongguo Shi Yanjiu (Contemporary China Historical Research), no. 3, [unpublished], 1995, 42, Central Chinese Archives, Beijing. 31. Sun Haichen, ed. and trans., The Wiles of War: 36 Military Strategies from Ancient China (Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 1993), 51.

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32. See Central Military Commission to Shenyang, Beijing, and military regions, in Xu Yan, “1969 Nian Zhang-Su Bianjie De Wu Zhang Chongtu” (The 1969 Sino-Soviet Armed Border Conflict), Dangshi Yanjiu, Ziliao (Party History Research Materials), 1998 (Unpublished), 5, Central Chinese Archives, Beijing. Cited in Thomas W. Robinson, “The Sino-Soviet Border Conflicts of 1969: New Evidence Three Decades Later,” in Chinese Warfighting: The PLA Experience since 1949, ed. Mark A. Ryan, David M. Finkelstein, and Michael A. McDevitt, 198–216 (Armonk NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2003), 206. 33. Jiang Yi, (Institute of East European, Russian, and Central Asian Studies— Beijing), interview with Lyle J. Goldstein, Beijing, July 16, 2000, reported in Goldstein, “Do Nascent WMD Arsenals Deter?” 59n31. Li Danhui, (Peking University), interview with Lyle J. Goldstein, Beijing, July 16, 2000, reported in Goldstein, “Do Nascent WMD Arsenals Deter?” 59n29. See also Wich, Sino-Soviet Crisis Politics, 102; and Gelman, The Soviet Far East Buildup, 32. Some accounts report the Soviets as aggressors: Barbara Barnouin and Yu Chang-gen, Chinese Foreign Policy During the Cultural Revolution (London: Kegan Paul International, 1998), 87–88; Henry A. Kissinger, Diplomacy (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994), 722; Neville Maxwell, “The Chinese Account of the 1969 Fighting at Chenpao,” The China Quarterly 56 (October–December 1973): 730–739; Yang Kuisong, (Institute of Modern History, Beijing), interview with Lyle J. Goldstein, Beijing, July 19, 2000, reported in Goldstein, “Do Nascent WMD Arsenals Deter?” 59n30. 34. See Thomas W. Robinson, “The Sino-Soviet Border Dispute: Background, Development, and the March 1969 Clashes,” The American Political Science Review 66 (December 1972): 1175–1202; Strategic Survey 1969 (London: The International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1970), 66–67. 35. See Wich, Sino-Soviet Crisis Politics, 97; Maxwell, “The Chinese Account of the 1969 Fighting at Chenpao,” 735; Nikolai Lobodyuk, “Za Tumanami Damanskogo,” Nezavisimoe Voennoe Obozrenie March 26, 1999; Vladislav Anikeev, “Bole Damanskogo: Posleslovie k Grustnoy Date,” Nezavisimaya Gazeta March 30, 1999; Robinson, “The Sino-Soviet Border Conflicts of 1969,” 209, 213; Andrei Vladimirov, “Bolshaya Voina za Malenky Ostov,” Obshchaya Gazeta, March 10, 1999, 13; Thomas W. Robinson, “China Confronts the Soviet Union: Warfare and Diplomacy in China’s Inner Asian Frontiers,” in The Cambridge History of China, vol. 15, The People’s Republic, part 2, “Revolution within the Revolution, 1966–1982,” ch. 3, ed. Roderick MacFarquhar and John K. Fairbank, 218–304 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 261. 36. See Robinson, “The Sino-Soviet Border Conflicts of 1969,” 211. 37. Victor Usov, “Tragediya na Ussuri,” Problemy Dal’nego Vostoka 3 (May–June 1994): 86, 89. 38. See Wich, Sino-Soviet Crisis Politics, 105–106. 39. See Elizavetin, “Peregovory Kosygina,” Problemy Dal’nego Vostoka 5, 50. 40. See Robinson, “The Sino-Soviet Border Conflicts of 1969,” 214. 41. See Wich, Sino-Soviet Crisis Politics, 149. 42. Goldstein, “Do Nascent WMD Arsenals Deter?” 60.

272

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43. See Robinson, “The Sino-Soviet Border Conflicts of 1969,” 214. 44. Patrick Brogan, The Fighting Never Stopped: A Comprehensive Guide to World Conflict since 1945 (New York: Vantage, 1990), 171. 45. Goldstein, “Do Nascent WMD Arsenals Deter?” 60–61, quoting Maria S. Kapitsa, Na Raznykh Parrallelyakh—Zapisky Diplomata (Moscow: Kniga I Bizness, 1996). 86. See also Wich, Sino-Soviet Crisis Politics, 190; Henry A. Kissinger, The White House Years (Boston: Little, Brown, 1979), 183–184. 46. Goldstein, “Do Nascent WMD Arsenals Deter?” 61, citing Elizavetin, “Peregovory Kosygina,” Problemy Dal’nego Vostoka 5, 55–56 continued in Problemy Dal’nego Vostoka 1, 107–119; and citing Li Jingjie (Institute of East European, Russian, and Central Asian Studies—Beijing), interview with Lyle J. Goldstein, Beijing, July 17, 2000, reported in Goldstein, “Do Nascent WMD Arsenals Deter?” 62n44. 47. See Kapitsa, Na Raznykh Parrallelyakh, 92. 48. See Robinson, “The Sino-Soviet Border Conflicts of 1969,” 214. 49. See Yang Kuisong, “Cong Zhenbao Dao Shijian Dao Huanhe Dui Mei Guanxi” (From the Zhenbao Island Incident to the Warming of Relations with America), in Dangshi Yanjiu, Ziliao (Party History Research Materials), [Unpublished], 1998, 5–10, Central Chinese Archives, Beijing. 50. Li Danhui, “1969 Nian Zhong-Su Bianjie Chongtu,” 6–7; Niu Jan, “1969 Nian Zhong-Su Bianjie Chongtu Yu Zhongguo Waijiao Zhanlue De Tiaozheng” (The 1969 Sino-Soviet Border Clashes and the Adjustment of China’s Foreign Policy Strategy), [unpublished], 1998, Central Chinese Archives, Beijing; Xu Yan, “1969 Nian Zhang-Su Bianjie De Wu Zhang Chongtu” (The 1969 Sino-Soviet Armed Border Conflict),2–6. 51. See William R. Keylor, The Twentieth-Century World, An International History, 2d ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 396. 52. See Strategic Survey 1971 (London: The International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1972), 56. 53. Maxwell, “China’s Aggression in 1962,” 112. See also Robinson, “China Confronts the Soviet Union,” 265–291.

8 The Sino-Vietnamese War 1. Colin Legum, “Africa’s Contending Revolutionaries,” Problems of Communism 21 (March–April 1972): 8. 2. Communiqué of the 9th Session of the Central Committee of the Vietnam Workers’ Party, Hanoi, December 1967, cited in Adam Fjorde, “Economic Aspects of the Soviet-Vietnamese Relationship,” in Soviet Interests in the Third World, ed. Robert Cassen (London: Sage, 1985), 194. 3. See Patrick Brogan, The Fighting Never Stopped: A Comprehensive Guide to World Conflict since 1945 (New York: Vantage, 1990), 236; William H. Mott IV, Soviet Military Assistance: An Empirical Perspective (Westport CT: Greenwood, 2001), 242.

Notes

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4. Robert Legvold, “Soviet and Chinese Influence in Black Africa,” in Soviet and Chinese Influence in the Third World, ed. Alvin Z. Rubinstein (New York: Praeger, 1975), 156, 162. 5. President Franklin D. Roosevelt accepted Nationalist China as a great power as one of the world’s Four Policemen. The United Nations had, on U.S. insistence, recognized Nationalist China as a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council and rejected great-power status for Beijing. 6. Victor Funnell, “The Soviet Union and Vietnam: Bilateral Relations in a GreatPower Triangle,” in Troubled Friendships: Moscow’s Third World Ventures, ed. Margot Light (London: British Academic Press, 1993), 87. 7. Robert S. Ross, “Beijing as a Conservative Power,” in Chinese Foreign Policy in Transition, ed. Guoli Liu (New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 2004), 142. 8. Deng Xiaoping remarked, “Vietnam is pro-Soviet while the Soviets are our primary enemy.” See Chao Chien, “An Analysis of the Deteriorating SinoVietnamese Relations,” Fei Ching Yueh Pao, January 1, 1978: 47–52. 9. Funnell, “The Soviet Union and Vietnam,” 89. See also Nayan Chanda, “The Timetable for a Takeover,” Far Eastern Economic Review 103(8) (February 23, 1979): 33. 10. See Brogan, The Fighting Never Stopped, 237. 11. See Nayan Chanda, Brother Enemy: The War after the War (San Diego CA: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986). 12. While the Chinese and many Southeast Asian Chinese speakers refer to ethnic Chinese in Vietnam as Hua, Vietnamese speakers refer to them as Hoa. 13. See Charles McGregor, “The Sino-Vietnamese Relationship and the Soviet Union,” Adelphi Papers 232, Autumn, 1988 (London: Institute of International Strategic Studies, 1988): 71. 14. See Thai Quang Trung, Collective Leadership and Factionalism: An Essay on Ho Chi Minh’s Legacy (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1985). 15. Henry J. Kenny, “Vietnamese Perceptions of the 1979 War with China,” in Chinese Warfighting: The PLA Experience since 1949, ed. Mark A. Ryan, David M. Finkelstein, and Michael A. McDevitt (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2003), 224. See also Chanda, Brother Enemy, 231–247. 16. See Renmin Ribao (Beijing), February 18, 1979; Dong-A Ilbo (Seoul), February 19, 1979; Peking Review (Beijing), February 23, 1979, 23; March 15, 1979, 17–18. 17. See Chang Pao-min, The Sino-Vietnamese Territorial Dispute (New York: Praeger, 1986), 11–12. 18. Statement issued by the Chinese Government on February 17, 1979. See Renmin Ribao, February 18, 1979. 19. Chang Pao-min, The Sino-Vietnamese Territorial Dispute, 52. 20. See Douglas Pike, “The USSR and Vietnam: Into the Swamp,” Asian Survey, 19(12) (December 1979): 1164. 21. See Dong-A Ilbo, February 19, 1979. 22. Jonathan R. Adelman and Shih Chih-yu, Symbolic War: The Chinese Use of Force 1840–1980, (Taipei: Institute of International Relations, National Chengshi University, 1993), 228.

274

Notes

23. See “Soviet Warships Heading for Cam Ranh Bay,” The Daily Telegraph, London, February 9, 1979, Foreign Broadcast Information Service, February 9, 1979, K1; Chang Pao-min, The Sino-Vietnamese Territorial Dispute. 24. See Harlan W. Jencks, “China’s Punitive War on Vietnam: A Military Assessment,” Asian Survey, 19(8) (August 1979): 807; Russell Spurr, “Holding Back the Angry Giant,” Far Eastern Economic Review 103(10) (March 9, 1979): 14–15; “Radio Hanoi, February 14, 1979,” Foreign Broadcast Information Service, February 15, 1979, K2. 25. See “Radio Hanoi, February 1, 6, 9, and 14, 1979,” Foreign Broadcast Information Service, February 1, K1–K5; February 7, 1979, K1; February 9, 1979, K9; February 15, 1979, K1; McGregor, “The Sino-Vietnamese Relationship and the Soviet Union,” 32. 26. Radio Hanoi, “PRC Armed Intrusions Reported,” February 5, 1979, Foreign Broadcast Information Service, K1; “Beijing Authorities Are Increasingly Provoking and Threatening War,” February 13, 1979, K4.; Statement by Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, February 14, 1979, K1. 27. Kenny, “Vietnamese Perceptions of the 1979 War with China,” 228, 229. 28. At peak strength, Chinese forces in Vietnam were probably eight divisions, over 100,000 soldiers. Estimates ranged from 80,000 (Guang Jiao Jing, Hong Kong, 78 (March 16, 1979) ) to 125,000 (David Bonovia and Nayan Chanda, Far Eastern Economic Review 103(10) (March 9, 1979): 12). About 300,000 Chinese PLA, Vietnamese border troops, and militia participated in the war at various times and places. See Jencks, “China’s Punitive War on Vietnam: A Military Assessment,” Asian Survey, 19(8) (August 1979): 805–809. 29. See Vietnam News Agency Press Release, Hanoi, February 1, 1979. 30. Ralph D. Sawyer, trans. Sun Tzu: The Art of War (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1994), 191. 31. The New York Times, March 5, 1979, 13. 32. See Jencks, “China’s Punitive War on Vietnam,” 813. 33. See Sawyer, Sun Tzu: The Art of War, 187. 34. Jencks, “China’s Punitive War on Vietnam,” 810. 35. See Byung-Chon Ro, Dohae Sonja Byungbub (Sun Tzu’s Art of War) (Seoul: Hanwon Press, 1990), 178. 36. Kyoto, February 23, 1979, trans. in Foreign Broadcast Information Services, No. 38: A13ff. 37. Kenny, “Vietnamese Perceptions of the 1979 War with China,” 230. 38. See Jencks, “China’s Punitive War on Vietnam,” 802. 39. See Russell Spurr, “The New Vietnam War: Changing the Course of History,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 103(9) (March 2, 1979): 8–10; King C. Chen, China’s War with Vietnam, 1979: Issues, Decisions, and Implications (Stanford CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1987). 40. New York Times, February 23, 1979, 8. 41. See The New York Times, March 9, 1979, 13; Jencks, “China’s Punitive War on Vietnam,” 811. 42. See Spurr, “The New Vietnam War,”10; Agence France Presse, Hong Kong, February 23, 1979.

Notes

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43. Peking Review, March 9, 10, 1979, 12. 44. The Wiles of War: 36 Military Strategies from Ancient China, trans. Sun Haichen (Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 1993), 51. 45. The Military Balance 1978–1979 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1978): 35–51. 46. See Xinhua News Agency, March 14, 1979, in Foreign Broadcast Information Services, no. 52: 47. 47. See Kenny, “Vietnamese Perceptions of the 1979 War with China,” 231. 48. Cao Bang and Lang Son provinces were home to many ethnic Chinese Nung people who had fought against the Viet Minh. After the 1954 Viet Minh victory at Dien Bien Phu, many Nung fled to South Vietnam to serve with U.S. Army Special Forces. After U.S. withdrawal and the fall of Saigon, the Nung returned to their home provinces and China’s Guangxi province. 49. Kenny, “Vietnamese Perceptions of the 1979 War with China,” 232–233. 50. See Yang Zouzhou, Nanhai Fengyun (The International Conflicts in the South China Sea) (Taipei: Zhengzhong Shuju, 1993). 51. Chen Jie, “China’s Spratley Policy: With Special Reference to the Philippines and Malaysia,” Asian Survey 34(4) (October 1994): 893–903. See also Rodney Tasker, “A Line in the Sand,” Far Eastern Economic Review 115 (April 6, 1995): 14–16; Zhongfei Nansha Zhengyi You Zhuanji (An Optimistic Change for the Sino-Philippines Dispute over the Nansha Islands), Yazhou Zhoukan, August 27, 1995, 42–43.

9 Chinese Strategy: Shih-Strategy 1. See Roger T. Ames, The Art of Rulership: A Study of Ancient Chinese Political Thought (New York: State University of New York Press, 1994), ch. 3, Shih. 2. See Michael D. Swaine and Ashley J. Tellis, Interpreting China’s Grand Strategy: Past, Present, and Future (Santa Monica, CA: The RAND Corporation, 2000). 3. Li Jijun, Traditional Military Thinking and the Defense Strategy of China (Carlisle Barracks, PA: U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, 1997), 4. 4. Thomas Kane, “China’s Foundations: Guiding Principles of Chinese Foreign Policy,” in Chinese Foreign Policy in Transition, ed. Guoli Liu (New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 2004), 103. 5. Samuel S. Kim, “China’s Path to Great Power Status in the Globalization Era,” in Chinese Foreign Policy in Transition, 364. See also Christopher Hughes, “Globalization and Nationalism: Squaring the Circle in Chinese International Relations,” Millennium: Journal of International Studies 26(1) ( January 1997): 103–124. 6. Yuan Shibing, trans., Sun Tzu’s Art of War: The Modern Chinese Interpretation (New York: Sterling, 1987), 105–106.

276

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7. Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, vol 2 (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1954), 201. 8. See Samuel Griffith II, Peking and People’s Wars: An Analysis of Statements by Official Spokesmen of the Chinese Communist Party on the Subject of Revolutionary Strategy (London: Pall Mall, 1966), 68. 9. See Stuart Schram, Mao Tse-tung (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1966), 186, 217. 10. See Robert Heuser, “Chinese Law and Foreign Trade: An Interview,” The China Quarterly 73 (March 1978): 159–165. 11. One of the earliest formulations of Euro-American justice was that of Roman Emperor Justinian the Great (483–565; emperor 527–565): “Justice is the constant and perpetual will to render to each his due.” Justinian’s idea contains four powerful implications: importance of treatment of individuals, consistent treatment over time and among all people, equal treatment of equal behaviors, and treatment proportionate to behaviors. Most Euro-American jurors simply equate Justinian’s individual with the sovereign state in international law. 12. From 1949 through 1992, China’s propensity for militarized interstate disputes reflected the gap in relative power between China and the other great powers. As the gap closed from the 1970s, the frequency of Chinese use of force declined. Although other factors were relevant, this correlation suggests that China chose “not to exploit its growing share of world power to pursue interests coercively.” Alastair Iain Johnston, “China’s Militarized Interstate Dispute Behavior 1949–1992: A First Cut at the Data,” in Chinese Foreign Policy in Transition, 283. 13. Mark A. Ryan, David M. Finkelstein, and Michael A. McDevitt, “Introduction: Patterns of PLA Warfighting,” in Chinese Warfighting: The PLA Experience since 1949, ed. Mark A. Ryan, David M. Finkelstein, and Michael A. McDevitt (Armonk NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2003), 7. 14. Ryan, Finkelstein, and McDevitt, “Introduction: Patterns of PLA Warfighting,” 12. 15. See Chen Jian, China’s Road to the Korean War (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 146, 153. 16. The first victim of the Mao’s Shih-strategy was British diplomacy in the United Nations. Sir Gladwyn Jebb, the British ambassador to the United Nations, said that they [European diplomats] did not want to let the “Asiatic octopus squeeze out all our common strength” and opposed the war against China. See Joseph C. Goulden, Korea: The Untold Story of the War (New York: McGraw-Hill Times Book, 1982), 398. 17. India, Ministry of External Affairs, Prime Minister on Sino-Indian Relations, vol. 1. “Indian Parliament” part 2 (New Delhi: External Publicity Division, Government of India, 1961–1962), 200, 207. 18. On October 27, 1962, when Nehru declared the national emergency, B. N. Chakravarty, India’s chief delegate to the United Nations, asked U.N. members to accept Red China. He reasoned that only by being a member of the world body could China be subjected to its “views and disciplines.” See John

Notes

19.

20.

21.

22.

277

Rowland, A History of Sino-Indian Relations: Hostile Co-existence (Princeton NJ: D. Van Nostrand, 1967), 169. See James C. Mulvenon and Andrew N.D. Yang, eds., A Retrospective on Chinese Military Studies in the Post-Mao Era (Santa Monica CA: The RAND Corporation, 2001), 129–130. Kim, “China’s Path to Great Power Status in the Globalization Era,” 369–372. See also You Ji, “The PLA, the CCP, and the Formulation of Chinese Defense and Foreign Policy,” in Power and Responsibility in Chinese Foreign Policy, ed. by Younjin Zhang and Greg Austin (Canberra: Asia Pacific Press, 2001), 119–120. See Wang Yizhou, ed., Quanqiuihua Shidai, de Guoji Anquan (International Security in an Era of Globalization) (Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Press, 1998); Wang Yizhou, Dangdai Guoji Zhengzhi Xilun (Analysis of Contemporary International Politics) (Shanghai: Renmin Chubanshe, 1995), 19–46; Hu Angang, Yang Fan, and Zhu Ning, Daguo Zhanlue: Zhongguo de Liyi yu Shimin (China’s Grand Strategy: Missions and Interests) (Shengyang: Liaoning People’s Press, 2000); and Pang Zhongyin, ed., Quanqiuihua, Fanquanqiuhua, yu Zhongguo: Lijie Quanqiuhua de Fuzaxing yu Duoyangxing (Globalization, Antiglobalization, and China: Understanding the Complexity and Diversity of Globalization) (Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Press, 2002). Alastair Iain Johnston, “China’s Militarized Interstate Dispute Behavior 1949–1992: A First Cut at the Data,” The China Quarterly 153 (March 1998): 29.


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Index

advance, 5, 46, 52, 53, 56, 62, 67, 68, 71, 82–4, 89, 95, 97, 110, 114, 115, 118–21, 151, 197, 200, 202–4, 210, 212, 225 advantage, 3, 15, 19, 22, 24, 26, 27, 30, 33, 39, 43, 54–6, 63, 64, 77, 82, 91, 94, 101, 108, 109, 111, 120, 127, 128, 143, 149, 151, 157, 167, 173, 182, 205, 209, 211 aid, 10, 91, 104, 106, 107, 110, 116–23, 125, 128, 134–7, 139, 141, 154, 165, 181, 185–8, 190, 191, 199, 225, 228 aircraft, 90, 92, 98, 104, 112, 127, 139, 158, 164, 167, 172, 174, 182, 199, 201 airpower, 10, 23, 39, 43, 87–92, 97, 102, 107, 109, 119, 120, 122, 126, 127, 149, 223, 229 all under heaven, 8, 9, 20, 29, 50, 78, 167, 190 alliance, 37, 46, 47, 50–2, 58, 60, 63–8, 87, 103, 104, 133, 137, 149, 161, 198 ambush, 66, 81, 82, 101, 117, 124, 127, 147, 122, 171–3, 176, 179, 181, 203, 205, 226, 222 ammunition, 84, 113, 119, 122, 153, 172, 176, 193, 210 annihilation, 3, 10, 28, 38, 40, 42–4, 47, 48, 50, 55, 61, 63, 78, 80,

82–4, 86, 91–8, 100, 101, 109, 110, 115–20, 122–7, 146–8, 151, 154, 155, 158, 171, 173, 179, 204, 205, 210, 211, 213, 222, 223, 225, 228 armistice, 103, 106, 113, 114, 124–6 armor, 91, 92, 97, 128, 174, 175, 209, 223 army, 3, 4, 9–11, 15, 18, 22, 24–6, 29, 32–4, 37, 41, 47–50, 52–4, 56–67, 73, 75–8, 80–91, 93–9, 103–6, 108–15, 118, 123–5, 128, 131, 138–42, 144, 145, 147, 151, 153–6, 158, 169, 170, 174, 176, 180, 185, 200, 201, 203, 212, 216, 218, 223, 225, 226, 229 border troops, 4, 131, 151, 201, 202 irregular, 88, 90 militias, 78, 80, 201–5, 208, 209 peasant army, 4, 73, 91, 103, 108 regular army, 78, 88, 90, 99, 174, 201 guerrilla, 52–55, 78, 79, 81, 85, 86, 88, 90–3, 100, 101, 120, 179, 185, 192, 203, 204, 212 arrogance, 50, 113, 118, 119, 122, 124, 142, 145, 151, 154, 166, 193, 197, 198, 220, 225, 226 artillery, 5, 92, 94, 95, 97, 105, 119, 128, 140, 142, 144–7, 151, 155, 156, 164, 174, 175, 200–3, 205, 208–10, 213, 222–4

296

Index

assault, 46, 54, 94, 97, 109, 118, 152, 174, 175, 199, 201, 202, 205, 211–13 asymmetry, 78, 79, 133 attack, 5, 13, 24, 26, 29, 30, 37, 38, 41, 42, 52, 55, 57, 63, 64, 67–9, 72, 78–83, 92, 94, 96, 97, 101, 104, 106, 112, 114–16, 118, 120, 123, 124, 143–7, 150, 152, 165, 167, 169, 171, 173, 174, 176, 177, 179, 190, 194, 195, 199–203, 206–8, 210, 212, 217, 222, 227–9 attrition, 40, 45, 48, 80–2, 89, 101, 122, 124, 125, 131, 181, 204, 210, 227 autonomy, 2, 148, 181, 188, 189, 216–19, 221 balance of power, 3, 137, 198, 219 Bandung, 137, 138, 140, 141, 143, 149, 155, 157, 163, 165, 186, 193, 196, 213, 216 Bandung initiative, 157, 163, 165, 193, 213, 216 Bandung spirit, 140, 155, 186 baojia, 16, 19–21, 48, 73, 74, 76, 90, 134 barbarians, 13, 47, 49, 58, 162 battle, 1, 3, 10–13, 15, 26, 28, 30, 32–4, 37–43, 46, 50, 52, 57, 61, 66, 72, 81–3, 86, 87, 89, 90, 92, 94, 95, 97, 101, 102, 109, 116, 118, 119, 125, 128, 143, 151–3, 156, 157, 164, 170–4, 179–82, 199, 201, 204, 206, 212, 217, 219–26, 230 battlefield, 4, 12, 13, 22, 27, 28, 30, 32, 33, 36, 39, 41, 43, 49, 65, 70, 72, 93–5, 101, 103, 107, 116, 121, 122, 124–7, 129, 155–8, 199, 201, 205, 210–13, 224–6 border, 4, 5, 13, 14, 106, 109, 112, 113, 115, 129, 131–3, 135–49,

151, 153, 155, 156, 158, 159, 161–3, 166–77, 179–83, 187, 190, 191, 193–7, 199–205, 207–10, 213, 216, 219, 224, 226, 229, 231 campaigns, 1–4, 7, 9, 10, 13, 18 25, 30, 33, 38–40, 42, 43, 50–4, 59–66, 71, 72, 75–7, 80–7, 89, 93–7, 99, 100, 102, 106, 108, 110–12, 114–25, 127–9, 144, 150, 152, 164, 165, 177, 186, 197, 202, 203, 205, 206, 210, 213, 221–3, 226, 228, 229 annihilation and attrition campaigns, 80, 81 anti-Japanese campaign, 85, 86, 88 deception campaigns, 42 exhaustion campaigns, 40, 88, 227 Huai River–Lunghai Railroad, 93–6, 206 integration campaigns, 40 Jiangxi, 43, 62, 76, 77, 80–9, 91, 92, 180, 206, 211, 221 Korean campaigns, 106, 114–19, 121–5, 127–9, 131, 180, 209 Liaoxi-Shenyang, 42, 93, 94 180, 206 Long March, 62, 76, 77, 82, 84, 85, 90, 227 manipulation campaigns, 41 northern expedition, 75, 77, 81 Peiping-Tianjin, 93, 96–8, 180, 206 Red Cliffs campaign, 65–6 Taiwan campaign, 98, 99, 108, 111, 112 Yanan campaign, 86 Yangzi campaign, 98 Cao Cao, 45, 58–71, 98 Cao Pi, 68–70 casualties, 3, 5, 13, 82, 103, 107, 108, 118, 122, 124–6, 167, 170, 173, 202, 204, 205, 208, 212, 221–3, 225, 227

Index cavalry, 19, 49, 62, 63, 72, 105, 115 ceasefire, 106, 124, 125, 128, 146, 148, 150, 154, 155, 225 Chiang Kai-shek, 46, 76–8, 81, 84, 85, 87, 132, 164, 192, 196, 218 Chungking, 88, 89, 152 general staff, 78, 128, 143, 147 generalissimo, 75, 78 nationalist, 74–8, 80, 85–90, 92, 94–8, 100, 108, 132, 136, 140, 168, 185–7, 191, 210, 217 white army, 81–4, 86, 87 Yang Hucheng, 86 Zhang Xueliang, 86 Chinese civil war, 4, 5, 7, 73, 76, 91, 98, 126, 132, 212, 219, 224, 232 Yanan, 76, 78, 84–6, 88, 92 Chinese Communist Party (CCP), 74, 75, 83, 85, 86, 88–90, 99, 113, 150, 167, 185, 219, 231 leaders, 3, 8, 9, 13, 23, 25, 66, 83, 109, 111, 117, 127, 133, 150, 154, 156, 161, 163, 165, 166, 169, 171, 175, 177–9, 194, 198, 207, 210, 219, 225, 231 nationalism, 7, 24, 75, 100, 105, 111, 126, 127, 134, 135, 139, 140, 157, 178, 217, 228 Politburo, 113, 122 Chinese foreign policy, 2, 10, 48, 76–8, 107, 108, 112, 114, 129, 137, 143, 144, 149, 150, 163, 166, 168, 169, 171, 181, 189, 192–6, 210, 213, 215–22, 231, 232 Cold War, 4, 93, 103, 104, 134–6, 163, 165, 167, 168, 182, 187, 232 détente, 188 economic growth, 2, 129, 194, 231, 232 engagement, 40, 55, 61–63, 66, 94, 101, 102, 131, 141, 143, 150, 153, 154, 170, 171, 173, 174, 179, 180, 208, 211, 220, 232

297

focus of, 7, 8, 13, 14, 21–5, 34, 37–40, 44, 49, 53, 59, 84, 86, 96, 118, 120, 127, 136, 157, 163, 169, 180, 182, 190, 193, 194, 196, 211, 216, 218, 229, 230 great-power status, 105, 108, 111, 126, 164, 166, 167, 177, 180, 181, 187, 189, 193–5, 198, 199, 217, 220, 231, 232 modernization, 107, 129, 165, 194, 230, 231 trade, 2, 73, 74, 129, 138, 139, 155, 158, 162, 166, 182, 218 Clausewitz, Carl von, 1–5, 9, 14, 28, 80, 102, 116, 129, 131, 146, 148, 156, 161, 177, 181, 182, 196–8, 210, 211, 216, 217, 223, 231 Central Military Commission (CMC), 107, 112, 145, 147, 150, 153, 170, 171, 174 coercion, 3, 15, 38 combat, 18, 19, 25, 28, 29, 32, 33, 37–41, 44, 55, 62, 63, 76–9, 87, 90–3, 95–8, 100–2, 108, 109, 112, 115–18, 120–3, 128, 147, 152, 156, 158, 164, 175, 182, 203, 205, 212, 221, 223, 225 Comintern, 74, 75 command, 24, 28, 38, 50, 62, 75, 77, 82, 84, 87, 90, 93, 95, 96, 103, 106, 107, 112, 114, 147, 150, 152, 154, 167, 171–5, 179, 186, 191, 210, 218, 221, 230 commander, 22, 26–8, 30, 39–41, 43, 44, 49, 54, 56, 58, 59, 83, 86, 89, 94, 95, 99, 106, 112, 118, 120, 121, 125, 146, 152, 171, 173, 174, 203, 221 communism, 104, 105, 134, 136, 139, 157, 161, 162, 166, 186, 217, 231 Communists, 75, 76, 84, 85, 87–89, 94, 96, 100, 103, 163, 185

298

Index

Confucian, 2, 9, 10, 12, 16, 19, 20–22, 31, 38, 39, 47, 48, 53, 54, 59, 64, 65, 69, 74, 85, 107, 127, 134, 185, 215, 218, 228, 231, 232 Confucius, 9, 16, 17, 22, 30–2, 54 confusion, 3, 5, 12, 23, 49, 117, 118, 190, 212 deception, 2, 12, 17, 23–25, 29, 30, 33, 34, 38, 39, 41–4, 47, 50, 53, 78, 80, 96, 101, 107, 110, 114, 115, 117, 118, 124, 126, 128, 135, 141, 149, 151, 152, 165, 179, 200–2, 210–12, 222, 223, 225–30 defeat, 3–5, 7, 13, 15, 17, 24, 25, 27, 33, 37–41, 46–9, 55, 59, 66, 77, 78, 82, 83, 86, 87, 90, 93, 100–2, 10–9, 111, 116, 117, 119, 122, 125, 129, 173, 181, 211, 217, 224, 225 defense, 2, 4, 15, 25, 29, 41, 53, 64, 80, 83, 87, 90, 92, 98, 101, 104, 109, 110, 112, 113, 120, 124, 128, 131, 139, 143, 144, 149, 151–3, 170, 171, 173, 174, 177, 179, 180, 183, 195, 198, 202, 204, 205, 207, 208, 211, 216, 217, 231 active, 80, 101 offensive, 80 positional, 80, 87, 124, 128, 174, 208 Deng Xiaoping, 183, 190, 196 denial, 2, 3, 9, 10 deployment, 25, 169 despair, 71, 98 diplomacy, 2, 3, 25, 27, 42, 49, 68, 72, 109, 121, 137–9, 161, 167, 171, 173, 177, 193, 196, 201, 211, 216, 225, 229, 231 discipline, 23, 24, 74, 77, 78, 90, 96, 107, 110

disposition, 28, 41 domestic order, 1, 22 economy, 2, 7, 94, 109, 158 elder brother, 185, 187–9, 193–5, 197, 231 employment, 12, 25, 217, 230 encirclement, 48, 77, 81, 86, 87, 92, 95, 96, 101, 118, 123, 124, 143, 153, 154, 158, 166, 168, 189, 198 enemy, 3, 9–15, 22–4, 26–30, 35–44, 47, 48, 56, 57, 61, 62, 64, 69–71, 78–84, 87, 92, 94, 98–102, 107–11, 113, 114, 116–20, 122–5, 127–9, 133, 150, 151, 153, 154, 156, 165, 166, 168, 173, 176, 178, 181, 182, 190, 191, 195, 201, 203, 204, 206, 208, 209, 211–13, 215, 217, 218, 222–30 enticement, 41, 79, 117, 181, 182, 226, 231 estimate, 37, 63, 65, 66, 98, 109, 124, 134, 149, 152, 201, 230 Euro-American perspectives, 1, 2, 6–8, 10, 12, 19, 20, 30, 113, 133, 134, 137, 154, 161, 192, 197, 206, 211, 216, 218, 219, 221, 232 Euro-Americans, 1, 2, 4–6, 13, 23, 134, 154, 157, 170, 181, 185, 197, 198, 216, 223, 232 Euro-American analyses, 2, 5, 13, 195, 210, 226, 231, 232 Euro-American doctrine, 13, 38, 77, 103, 148, 195, 212, 217–19 fear, 2, 5, 18, 22, 28, 43, 84, 92, 98, 111, 113, 149, 154, 155, 165, 166, 189, 190, 194 firepower, 2, 77, 83, 87, 89, 91, 102, 107–9, 119, 120, 122–4, 126–8, 131, 209, 210, 222, 225, 229 first battle, 41–3, 87, 94, 101, 116, 151, 153, 173, 201, 204, 230

Index flanks, 89, 97, 120, 147, 148 flexibility, 29, 80, 102, 120, 122, 151, 154, 171, 179, 191, 210, 218, 221, 226 force, 1–15, 17–19, 21, 25–8, 37–9, 41, 45, 48, 52–5, 57, 58, 60, 61, 63–8, 73, 76–8, 81, 82, 84, 86, 87, 89, 92, 94, 97, 99, 102, 103, 106–9, 112, 114, 118, 119, 121, 125, 128, 129, 131, 137, 138, 143, 145, 147–9, 151, 152, 154–7, 163, 165, 170, 171, 173, 174, 176, 177, 179, 182, 184, 185, 187, 189, 191–203, 205, 206, 209–13, 215–24, 226–8, 230–2 China’s use of force, 2, 6–8, 12, 14, 114, 151, 193, 197, 198, 206, 209–11, 218, 220, 221, 227, 231 use of force, 1–3, 5–9, 12–14, 25, 68, 81, 82, 114, 129, 131, 237, 151, 155, 163, 170, 171, 179, 192–8, 206, 209–11, 215, 218–22, 224, 226–32 formation, 48, 143, 173, 177, 202, 203 formless, 29, 30, 33, 41, 42, 47, 48, 81, 82, 88, 117, 118, 121–3, 127–9, 152, 180, 212, 222, 229 France, 104, 154, 161, 191, 194, 196, 205 French, 2, 73, 104, 167, 185, 189, 191, 193, 194, 196 front, 9, 46, 74–7, 85–8, 90, 94, 95, 101, 108, 110, 122–4, 127, 128, 143, 152, 153, 171, 186, 191, 202, 207, 212, 218, 225 Great Leap Forward, 156, 163 Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, 129, 162, 166, 169, 171, 178, 179, 181–3, 186, 188, 191, 194 Gulf of Tonkin, 195, 199, 202

299

harmony, 1, 8, 9, 11, 12, 16–18, 20, 22–4, 27, 28, 30–3, 38, 39, 47, 49, 55, 69, 75, 78, 88–90, 92, 157, 216, 219, 221, 228, 232 Hong Kong, 111, 138, 154, 185, 201, 205 Huai Nan Tzu, 17, 25–8, 93 ideology, 4, 5, 78, 99, 105, 163, 166, 211, 219, 223 India, 5–7, 14, 46, 104, 131–42, 144–6, 148–55, 157–9, 164, 166, 171, 173, 177, 182, 192–4, 197, 206, 209, 211, 212, 219, 220, 222, 225, 226, 229 Indians, 133, 134, 137, 140, 142–5, 150, 152, 155, 156, 158, 171, 225, 226 New Delhi, 105, 106, 112, 131, 134, 136–9, 142, 144, 145, 147, 148, 150, 156–9, 176, 209, 212, 226 Indochina, 6, 43, 104, 132, 137, 166, 187–90, 194, 195, 198, 204, 207, 220, 227 Indonesia, 137, 177, 213 infantry, 19, 49, 62, 63, 65, 66, 80, 91, 95, 97, 105, 107, 109, 115, 119, 122, 123, 140, 142, 146, 147, 153, 155, 174, 175, 201–5, 208 initiative, 41, 43, 59, 67, 80, 81, 89, 91, 95, 101, 102, 105, 122, 123, 151, 157, 163, 165, 171, 173, 180, 182, 187, 193, 194, 213, 216, 217, 221, 222, 226 intelligence, 19, 42, 80, 84, 101, 106, 109, 134, 200, 230 interdependence, 2, 23, 28, 217, 232 intervention, 5, 93, 98, 103, 104, 106, 107, 109–14, 117, 126, 136, 150, 155, 164, 166, 170, 186, 189, 211, 220

300

Index

invasion, 47, 49, 60, 68, 70, 73, 76, 77, 85, 90, 105, 106, 112, 131, 137, 144, 145, 147, 165, 176, 192, 197–9, 201, 207–9, 212, 216, 223, 228 Japan, 75, 76, 83, 85–9, 100, 103, 111, 121, 132, 133, 163, 167, 189, 196 Tokyo, 75, 112, 199 Korea, 4, 5, 14, 103–26, 128, 129, 132, 133, 136, 139, 150, 154, 156, 163, 164, 167, 170, 171, 179, 183, 185, 186, 189, 191, 192, 196, 206, 209–13, 220–3, 225, 227–9 38th parallel, 105, 109, 118–20, 122, 124, 125 Koreans, 104 Korean War, 4–7, 14, 43, 100, 103–29, 132, 133, 136, 139, 150, 154, 156, 163, 164, 167, 169–71, 179, 183, 185, 186, 189, 191, 192, 196, 206, 207, 209–13, 220–9 Chong Chon, 116, 117, 123 Guam, 121 Han River, 120, 122 Kum River, 120, 121, 128 MacArthur, Douglas A., General, 105, 106, 109, 112, 115, 118, 121, 127, 129, 131, 176, 201 Peng Dehuai, Marshal, 54, 55, 107, 110, 112–25, 128, 129, 158, 170, 221, 225, 229 Pusan, 106, 107 Seventh Fleet, 93, 104, 112 Kuomintang, 74, 93, 104, 132, 138, 150, 164 Lao Tzu, 8, 17, 18 Laos, 14, 137, 183, 190, 196, 202, 204, 205, 207, 209

law, 17, 19–21, 45, 73, 74, 136, 137, 151, 218 legalists, 18–21, 48, 73, 77 legitimacy, 2, 9, 19, 21, 28, 42, 51, 53–5, 57, 59, 74, 77, 108, 113, 116, 121, 132, 133, 135, 137, 140, 150, 151, 155, 157, 164, 166, 178, 180, 182, 183, 187, 189, 192, 216, 219, 221, 226, 227, 231 Li, 2, 10, 11, 18, 21, 30–47, 49–57, 59–65, 67–71, 73, 77, 81–3, 85–94, 96, 100, 102, 110, 111, 114, 118, 120–2, 129, 131, 133, 136, 137, 140–3, 148–50, 154, 155, 158, 164, 169–71, 178, 180, 181, 183, 187, 191, 192, 195, 196, 198, 205, 206, 210–12, 216, 220, 221, 226–8, 231 grand Li, 31–4, 38, 88, 89 great Li, 32, 68, 96, 111, 136, 148, 150, 187 intermediate Li, 88, 164 local Li, 34, 133, 136, 137, 148, 149, 155, 170, 171, 180, 181, 183, 191, 192, 212, 226, 227 minor Li, 150, 154 territorial Li, 63, 67, 192, 198 Li Si, 21, 49 Liddell Hart, Sir Basil, 4, 5, 8, 12 Lin Biao, 93–5, 97, 107, 112, 209, 217 Lin Wu, 15 Liu Bang, 45, 51–7, 61, 85 Liu Bei, 45, 60–72 logistics, 11, 19, 23, 48, 62, 65, 67, 71, 72, 78, 83, 90, 92, 94, 102, 106–8, 112, 116, 120, 122, 126–8, 139, 143, 144, 151–3, 156, 158, 164, 169, 176, 203, 205, 210, 211, 220, 222, 229 supply, 9, 52, 55, 63, 80, 81, 91–4, 101, 106, 108, 119, 127, 143, 152, 153, 164, 186, 192, 205, 211

Index London, 2, 19, 25, 104, 109, 136, 138, 140, 142, 148, 155, 161, 171, 172, 182, 186, 188, 193, 199, 207, 217 Lord Guan, 59, 60, 68 Mao Tse-tung, 5, 43, 46, 48, 78–82, 84, 87, 92, 94, 96, 98–100, 108, 110–13, 124, 125, 127, 132, 150, 215, 217, 218 eight rules, 90, 91 Maoism, 133, 165, 166 objective conditions, 107, 108 people’s war, 7, 78, 80–2, 91–3, 99, 100, 102, 122, 125, 126, 165, 167, 179, 191, 192, 204, 206–9, 211, 215, 217, 221, 228 protracted war, 7, 78–81, 91, 92, 99, 100, 128, 192, 208, 230 Manchuria, 42, 46, 83, 93, 108, 109, 112, 113, 168 maneuver, 42, 86, 89, 97, 101, 123, 127, 143, 147, 151, 153, 170, 203, 222 manipulate, 15, 25, 40, 41, 118, 119, 228 masses, 99, 108, 217, 232 Mencius, 8, 22, 31 Middle East, 104, 136, 163, 164 military assistance, 89, 90, 135, 136, 139, 186, 189, 191, 207 military forces, 4, 12, 25, 32, 36, 37, 41, 55, 58, 61, 64, 75, 77, 125, 129, 179, 231 missile, 6, 155, 156, 164, 165, 167, 172, 211, 225 mobility, 67, 79, 80, 83, 87, 95, 97, 107, 126, 139, 151–3 mobilize, 11, 20, 37, 58, 65, 75, 127, 210 Mongolia, 168–70, 172, 176, 177, 183, 196, 231 morale, 10–12, 25, 26, 30, 40, 43, 62, 65, 83, 87, 92, 94, 96, 98, 101,

301

107, 116, 117, 119, 120, 151, 156, 225 mountains, 26, 41, 56, 57, 81, 83, 84, 91, 92, 96, 116, 118–120, 122, 123, 153, 155, 190, 192, 202, 203 movement, 9, 12, 16, 30, 37, 73–5, 81, 90, 104, 110, 113, 118, 123, 127, 155, 157, 165, 186, 187, 191, 209, 222, 228, 229 national interest, 20, 31–3, 37, 38, 111, 135, 149, 150, 166, 232 navy, 19, 62, 63, 66, 93, 112, 155, 213, 223 night, 17, 23, 27, 102, 115, 127, 128, 131, 152, 205, 222 North Korea (People’s Democratic Republic of Korea, DPRK), 105, 106, 108, 109, 191, 225 North Korean People’s Army (NKPA), 105–7, 115, 120, 127 North Koreans, 106, 115, 129 Pyongyang, 109, 117, 118, 121, 122, 129 nuclear, 2, 109, 114, 121, 129, 164, 165, 167, 168, 170–2, 175–183, 222, 226, 228, 230 Guam, 121, 182 offense, 29, 80, 151–3, 222 officers, 52, 65, 77, 78, 95, 128, 156, 221 official, 65, 104, 110, 178, 200, 217 opportunity, 11, 25–7, 30, 39, 42, 43, 50, 53, 59, 63, 67, 69, 80, 83, 87, 93, 98, 114, 115, 120, 121, 125, 126, 140, 141, 145, 151, 152, 155, 156, 162, 169, 170, 177, 197, 225 Pakistan, 132, 133, 135–7, 139, 157, 158, 164, 182, 183 panchasheel, 137, 193

302

Index

patron (-age), 104, 106, 149, 151, 154, 175, 180, 186–90, 192, 194, 198, 207, 208 patterns, 5–7, 11, 17, 22, 29, 31, 33, 48, 58, 81, 82, 87, 89, 94, 101, 143, 144, 155, 171, 179–81, 195, 202, 203, 206, 207, 210, 211, 218, 221, 223, 226, 231 peace, 6, 8, 17, 24, 46, 48, 49, 58, 67, 103, 125, 127, 134, 135, 137, 138, 158, 162, 164, 167, 176, 188, 198, 208, 213 peaceful coexistence, 137, 139, 142, 163, 165, 176, 186, 211 people, common, 3, 4, 6, 8–13, 15–25, 27, 28, 31–4, 36, 38, 39, 47–59, 61, 62, 65–7, 69–71, 74–9, 81, 83–5, 88–90, 92, 93, 99, 100, 107–11, 113, 117, 126, 127, 132–4, 139, 142, 154, 157, 163, 168, 170, 174, 182, 187, 191, 192, 195, 196, 201, 207–9, 212, 215–19, 224, 228, 230, 232 People’s Liberation Army (PLA), 78, 91, 94, 97–101, 107, 110, 112, 113, 115, 128, 138–40, 144, 145, 148, 150, 153–7, 170, 191, 195, 201, 202, 204, 213, 218, 221, 223, 226, 231 Philippines, 133, 194, 213, 214 plans, 13, 37, 41, 42, 115, 120, 125, 150, 164, 174, 177, 194, 221 politics, 1, 2, 7, 9, 23, 25, 48, 49, 64, 76, 93, 122, 125, 126, 134, 135, 138–40, 147, 161, 162, 165, 167, 171, 173, 175–7, 179, 180, 183, 187, 189, 190, 223, 224, 231 power, 1–4, 6, 7, 9–13, 15, 16, 18–24, 26–9, 31–3, 36–8, 40, 41, 43, 44, 46, 47, 49–51, 53, 54, 56, 57, 59, 61, 68–71, 74–9, 82, 84–8, 90, 96, 98–100, 102–5, 107–9, 111, 114, 116, 121, 122, 126, 127,

129, 132, 134, 135, 137, 150, 151, 161–4, 166, 167, 170, 171, 175, 177–83, 187–90, 192–5, 198, 199, 204, 205, 211, 213–17, 219, 220, 224–8, 230–2 dynamic, 11, 18, 26, 28, 36, 37 military, 6, 32, 50, 51, 56, 57, 61, 74, 75, 220 people’s, 7, 24, 32, 36, 71, 75, 77, 78, 84, 86, 90, 100, 102, 127, 167, 215, 230–2 revolutionary, 75, 78 static, 18, 26, 27, 36, 37, 78 People’s Republic of China (PRC), 4, 131, 167, 185, 200 Beijing (Peking), 4, 5, 13, 14, 19, 41, 74, 76, 78, 49, 93–96, 98, 99, 104–12, 114–16, 118, 119, 121, 122, 124, 126, 127, 129, 131–4, 136–45, 147–50, 152, 154–9, 161, 163–72, 175–84, 186–201, 204–15, 217, 219–21, 225, 226, 229, 231, 232 preparation, 80, 101, 105, 131, 144, 145, 164, 170, 179, 200, 205, 218, 220, 221, 226 principles, 4, 7, 8, 13, 14, 19, 20, 24, 25, 31, 38, 45, 48, 70, 71, 75, 78–80, 86, 94, 99–102, 115, 120, 122, 132, 137, 141, 145, 150, 152, 156, 166, 170, 191, 216, 218, 219, 222, 224, 232 Clausewitzian principles, 80 Euro-American principles of war, 4, 8, 24, 38, 79, 94, 98, 152 Mao’s ten principles for the PLA, 101, 102, 222 Marxist principles, 166 Sun Tzu’s fourteen principles, 78, 79, 101 prosperity, 47, 53, 134, 217, 221

Index Qin, 47, 50, 215 Qin Shi Huangdi, 21, 49, 58 Qing, 73, 74, 162, 168 realpolitik, 2, 6, 14, 56, 131, 144, 148, 181, 195, 196, 198, 217, 220 rear, 49, 54–6, 63, 65, 67, 90, 117, 120, 123, 128, 148, 152, 154, 175, 193, 203, 208, 216 red army, 76, 80–7, 90, 91, 99, 109, 169, 170, 176, 180, 185, 223, 226 Red Cliffs, 60, 65–71 rested, 9, 18, 71, 102, 129, 223 retreat, 28, 55, 66, 71, 79, 80, 92, 96, 97, 115, 116, 118, 145, 154, 159, 162, 171, 174, 207, 213 revolution, 9, 57, 58, 74, 75, 77, 78, 83, 85, 87, 90, 99, 102, 104, 107, 110, 113, 127, 129, 161, 162, 166, 168, 169, 171, 173, 178, 179, 181–3, 185, 186, 188, 191, 193, 194, 217, 228, 232 Rommel, Field Marshal Erwin, 78, 128, 154, 202 ruler, 8, 9, 11–13, 16–18, 20–5, 27, 28, 30–4, 38, 39, 45, 47–9, 51, 53, 54, 56, 59, 64, 68–70, 75, 78, 88–90, 92, 99, 154, 157, 216, 219, 221 Russia, 75, 84–7, 161, 162, 168, 231 Russian far east, 162, 166, 168 Russians, 161, 162, 166, 168 security, 2, 5–7, 9, 17, 59, 63–5, 67, 74, 104–6, 110, 116, 118, 121, 127, 166, 176, 182, 187, 194, 196, 199, 211, 216, 217, 219, 231 seize, 4, 32, 41, 47, 54, 59, 68, 94, 96, 102, 111, 123, 142, 173, 202, 206, 212 Shandong Peninsula, 52, 54, 55, 95 Shanghai, 75, 76, 93, 98, 112, 183, 231

303

Shanxi, 76, 86, 88, 93, 96 Shih, 2, 7, 10–16, 18–62, 64–90, 92–102, 105, 107–14, 116–29, 131–8, 140, 143, 144, 147–58, 163, 166–71, 177–99, 201–32 battlefield Shih, 28, 49, 65, 70, 93, 157, 199, 224, 226 desperation Shih, 28, 49, 97, 126, 127, 167, 203, 204, 207–11, 227, 228 endogenous Shih, 16, 19, 21, 24–28, 41, 43, 51, 53, 56–8, 60–2, 64–7, 69–71, 99, 107 exogenous Shih, 16, 22, 23, 25, 27, 29, 30, 32, 33, 39, 62, 66, 70, 80 grand Shih, 36, 129, 136, 225, 226 great, 33, 51, 54, 71, 90, 111, 112, 114, 132, 133, 137, 149, 163, 171, 193, 194, 212, 231 morale Shih, 26, 30, 40, 43, 92, 94, 96, 98, 117, 119, 120, 156, 225 opportunity Shih, 26, 27, 30, 39, 93, 152, 155, 156, 225 people’s Shih, 79 solidarity as Shih, 22, 23, 27, 74, 90, 99, 105, 107, 108, 110, 111, 114, 117, 126, 127, 129, 132–5, 137, 145, 146, 151, 154, 155, 157, 158, 163–7, 171, 178, 180, 189, 192, 194, 201, 216–19, 221, 223, 228, 231, 232 terrain Shih, 26, 27, 28, 30, 93, 119, 120, 151, 156, 158, 202, 209 Singapore, 194, 213 Sino-Indian War Aksai Chin, 131, 136, 138–42, 144, 148, 150–2, 155, 179, 180, 192, 193, 220 anti-nibbling campaign, 142, 144, 150–2 Arunachal Pradesh, 132, 138, 144, 159

304

Index

Sino-Indian War—continued Bhutan, 132, 142, 147 Burma, 89, 108, 132, 135, 147, 164, 183 Che Dong, 144 forward policy, 139–44, 148–50, 152–4, 156, 181, 190, 192, 195 Line of Actual Contact (LAC), 139, 141, 142, 144, 148, 158 Ladakh, 131, 138, 139, 142, 153, 159 McMahon Line, 138, 139, 141, 142, 144–8, 151, 153, 158 Nagaland, 157 Northeast Frontier Agency (NEFA), 131, 132, 138, 140, 142, 145, 148, 151, 157 Nehru, Jawaharlal, 104, 106, 133–8, 140–5, 147–51, 154, 156, 158, 159, 181, 187, 190, 195, 225 Nepal, 132, 135, 138, 140, 183 neutrality, 54, 134, 135, 150, 155, 226 nonalignment, 134, 135, 149, 187, 195 Thag La, 142, 144, 158, 212 Tibet Military Region, 152 Xinjiang Military Region, 138, 176 Xinjiang–Tibet road, 138, 152 Sino-Soviet War, 5, 7, 161, 171, 172, 180–2, 187, 201, 211, 220, 226, 228 Amur River, 172, 175, 176 Brezhnev doctrine, 165, 166, 169, 171, 190 Shenyang Military Region, 170, 171, 174 Siberia, 132, 168, 169, 172, 176, 177 strategic blunders, 193, 209, 210 Ussuri River, 150, 168, 169, 171, 174, 175, 179, 193 Zhilixin, 170, 172, 174

Sino-Vietnamese War, 5, 179, 189, 195, 199–201, 203, 206, 207, 212, 226, 228 Cam Ranh Bay, 189, 199 Cambodia, 137, 187, 189–92, 196–8, 200, 201, 204, 205, 207–9, 213, 227 Ho Chi Minh, 178, 185, 186, 189, 190, 194, 201, 204, 205, 207–10, 227 Hua people, 161, 191, 195, 212 Kampuchea, 190–2 Khmer Rouge, 191, 192, 212, 213 Lang Son campaign, 5, 195, 198, 200, 202–6, 208–10, 212, 220, 221 Paracel Islands, 192 People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN), 185 Phnom Penh, 190, 191, 197 Pol Pot, 190–2, 213 Red River delta, 200, 201, 205, 206, 208, 209, 213 Red River valley, 204 Spratly Islands, 192 Viet Minh, 104, 185, 186, 191, 193, 212 Vietnamese Communist Party, 185 soldiers, 4, 5, 11, 19, 27, 28, 40, 42, 48, 53, 54, 62, 65–8, 77, 83, 90–100, 105–8, 114–17, 126, 128, 141, 142, 145, 147, 153, 155, 171–4, 177, 201–4, 210, 222, 223 South China Sea, 187, 192, 199, 213 South Korea (Republic of Korea, ROK), 4, 105, 106, 133, 189, 213 Seoul, 8, 15, 22, 24, 50, 51, 57, 61, 63, 83, 90, 108, 109, 116, 119–23, 129, 151, 196, 204 South Koreans, 116 Southeast Asia, 104, 132, 136, 137, 163, 188, 194, 197–9, 209, 213, 227 Soviet Union, 4, 5, 14, 46, 103, 113, 114, 121, 132, 134, 137, 141,

Index 150, 154, 155, 157, 161, 162, 164–7, 169, 172, 173, 175–7, 180, 182, 183, 186, 188, 190, 191, 193, 198–200, 219, 225–8 Kremlin, 77, 165, 176, 188 Moscow, 93, 104, 106, 108, 109, 111–13, 121, 135–7, 139, 141, 142, 148–51, 155, 157, 158, 161–7, 169, 170, 172, 174–8, 180–3, 186–91, 194, 195, 198, 199, 207, 218, 220, 226–8 Soviet far east, 162, 166, 167, 169, 171–3, 175–7, 182 Soviets, 104, 162, 166, 167, 169–71, 173–6, 178, 181, 190, 226 Spring and Autumn period, 45, 46, 101 state, role of, 2, 8, 9, 11, 15, 18–24, 31, 54, 56, 63, 64, 66, 70, 78, 85, 95, 98, 99, 104–6, 109–13, 121, 132, 134, 136, 138, 144, 155, 159, 163, 196, 215, 218 strategic approach circuitous, 12, 54 direct, 3, 4, 12, 32, 36, 37, 44, 90, 97, 116, 154, 227 indirect, 4, 17, 23, 33, 36, 37, 44, 85, 116, 124, 126, 127, 169, 227, 230 the orthodox, 2, 3, 5, 7, 13, 25, 29, 30, 37, 42, 44, 52, 53, 56, 94, 103, 118, 121, 123, 156, 170, 179, 203, 204, 206, 210, 219, 220, 230 the unorthodox, 4, 24, 25, 29, 30, 37, 39, 42, 44, 52, 53, 57, 94, 98, 118, 120, 151–3, 156, 180, 203, 204, 223, 230; Euro-American orthodoxy, 3, 5, 94, 181, 206 strategic culture, 1, 2, 6–10, 12–14, 19, 25, 31, 32, 39, 42, 45, 51, 70, 73, 77, 78, 99, 100, 102, 110,

305

127, 133, 135, 150, 156, 181, 195, 210, 215, 217–19, 221–3, 230–2 strategic response, 5, 170, 197 strategic triangle, 166, 180, 181, 187, 199 strategists, 1, 4–6, 10–15, 18, 22, 23, 25, 29, 31–4, 37–43, 45, 51, 56, 57, 70, 71, 77, 108, 128, 142, 144, 156, 161, 167, 171, 176, 177, 181, 183, 197, 198, 207, 215, 216, 224, 228, 230 ancient, 13, 156, 224 Chinese, 13, 14, 70, 167, 224 Clausewitzian, 5, 161, 197 Euro–American, 4, 25, 31, 42, 144, 161, 167, 177, 183, 216 strategy, 1–7, 10–13, 15, 18, 19, 23–5, 30–57, 60–5, 68–72, 77–84, 86–9, 91–4, 96, 97, 99–102, 104, 107, 109, 111, 113, 114, 116–29, 131, 133, 135, 137, 138, 140, 143, 144, 146, 147, 149–52, 154, 155, 157, 158, 166–8, 170, 171, 176–9, 181, 183, 186–9, 191, 193–5, 197–9, 204, 206, 207, 209–13, 215–19, 221–32 Euro-American strategy, 7, 13, 23, 25, 102, 132, 196, 218 forces-based strategy, 38, 44, 81, 120, 121, 204 intent-based strategy, 4, 39, 44, 129, 222, 232 Li-strategy, 32–40, 42–7, 49, 50, 52, 53–6, 60–5, 68, 69, 71, 77, 81–3, 86, 87, 89–93, 96, 102, 121, 129, 131, 149 Shih-strategy, 10–14, 18, 23–5, 31, 33–54, 57, 61, 64, 65, 68, 70–2, 77, 78, 81–4, 86–8, 92, 94, 96, 97, 99, 100, 102, 109, 110, 113, 116–22, 124–9, 131–7, 138, 140, 143, 144, 147, 149–52, 154, 155, 157,

306

Index

strategy—continued 158, 166–8, 170, 171, 177–9, 181, 183, 184, 186–9, 191, 193, 194–9, 204, 206–13, 215, 217–19, 221, 223–32 Te-strategy, 71 strength, 4, 9–13, 15, 18, 20, 26, 28, 29, 39–41, 43, 50, 52, 57–9, 61, 66, 68, 79, 80, 83–5, 90, 92, 94, 96, 100, 102, 107, 110, 116–18, 120, 122, 125, 128, 147, 169, 176, 181, 182, 185, 201, 225, 226, 231 Sun Quan, 58–72, 98 Sun Tzu, 2, 8–11, 13, 15, 18, 23, 24, 27, 29, 42, 66, 78–80, 82, 96, 99, 101, 107–9, 122, 126, 135, 151, 153, 156, 158, 169, 201, 204, 207, 210, 217, 222, 224 earth, 17, 23, 27, 107 fourteen principles, 78, 79, 101 general, 8, 12, 15, 18, 22–7, 29, 32–4, 38–40, 50, 54, 55, 58, 59, 63, 64, 68, 71, 74, 77, 78, 89, 91, 96, 97, 105–9, 112, 118, 128, 131, 143, 145, 147, 149, 154, 167, 176, 180–2, 201, 226 heaven, 8, 9, 17, 20, 21, 23, 24, 27, 29, 50, 51, 56, 59, 78, 107, 167, 190 Marxian objective conditions, 107, 108 Sun Tzu’s orthodox, 2, 3, 5, 7, 13, 25, 29, 30, 37, 42, 44, 52, 53, 56, 94, 103, 118, 121, 123, 156, 170, 179, 203, 204, 206, 210, 219, 220, 230 organization and discipline, 23 Sun Yatsen, 74, 75, 132 superiority, 5, 19, 29, 32, 33, 37–9, 41, 43, 44, 56, 58, 63, 66–8, 80–4, 94, 97, 98, 101, 102, 107, 108, 110, 112, 113, 117, 119, 123–6,

128, 145, 153, 156, 158, 170, 173, 174, 179, 180, 195, 201, 205, 207, 208, 210–12, 222, 226 surprise, 5, 24, 42–4, 69, 78, 94, 96, 107, 114–16, 120, 124, 151, 171, 173, 179, 181, 200–2, 204, 210–12, 222, 225, 226, 228, 230 tactics, 29, 40–2, 61, 66, 80, 81, 83, 84, 87, 99, 102, 108, 119, 122–4, 127, 128, 144, 152, 176, 179, 203, 204, 207, 222 Tai Kung, 11, 24, 57 Taiwan (Republic of China, ROC), 98, 99, 103–5, 108, 111–14, 133, 136, 137, 140, 141, 150, 154, 155, 163–5, 179, 183, 189, 192, 213, 220, 223 Taipei, 2, 47, 48, 81, 111, 112, 151, 182, 183, 198, 213 Taiwan Straits, 98, 99, 103–5, 108, 111–14, 133, 136, 137, 140, 141, 150, 154, 155, 163–5, 179, 183, 189, 192, 213, 220, 223 tanks, 95, 105, 151, 177, 201, 203, 204, 224 Tao, 8–14, 16–25, 27–34, 36–9, 43, 48, 51, 53–5, 57–9, 61, 62, 64–6, 68–71, 73, 75, 78–80, 83, 85, 88, 90, 93, 96–100, 105, 107, 109–11, 114, 116, 117, 121, 125–7, 129, 132–5, 137, 138, 140, 149–51, 154–8, 163, 166, 167, 169, 171, 180, 182, 183, 187–90, 192–8, 205, 206, 211, 214–32 Taoist, 8–10, 16, 17, 20, 22, 47, 232 Te, 8, 16, 18, 59, 68–71 terrain, 5, 16, 23, 25–28, 30, 39, 44, 53, 61, 62, 65, 66, 80, 82, 83, 89, 93, 96, 98, 113, 119, 120, 128, 139, 143, 149, 151, 153, 156, 158, 200, 202, 203, 205, 206, 208–10, 212, 216, 220, 222

Index

307

critical, 5, 26, 27, 39, 66, 83, 89, 93, 98, 119, 139, 143, 156, 200, 202, 203, 212 Thailand, 133, 177, 188, 189, 194 the few can defeat the many, 27, 78, 87 Tibet, 7, 111, 112, 114, 132, 133, 137–41, 143, 146, 147, 149, 150, 152, 153, 158, 163, 164, 170, 193, 196, 210, 211, 220 Lhasa, 132, 140 Tibet Military Region, 152 training, 21, 62, 66, 74, 78, 81, 104, 113, 115, 132, 156, 177, 208, 220, 229 troops, 4, 5, 11, 12, 15, 18, 26–8, 39, 40, 43, 44, 49, 52–56, 58, 60, 62, 63, 65, 71, 78, 80–3, 87–9, 91–100, 104–6, 108–10, 112, 113, 115, 116, 118–25, 127–9, 131, 132, 141–7, 151–3, 156, 158, 161, 168–75, 178, 189, 191, 193, 200–9, 211–13, 221, 223–6

108–18, 121, 124, 125, 127, 129, 132–4, 136, 137, 139–42, 150, 154, 155, 157, 162, 163, 165, 167, 175, 181–3, 185–9, 191, 193, 194, 196, 216, 224–8, 232 containment, 104, 114, 133, 139, 155, 157, 163 Cuba, 155, 156, 165, 196, 225 Guam, 121, 182 U.S. Army, 25, 103, 105, 113, 114, 154, 156, 212, 216, 225 Washington, 7, 25, 48, 78, 89, 103, 104, 106, 109, 111, 112, 114, 116, 121, 135, 136, 140, 148–51, 154, 155, 157, 158, 161, 162, 164, 165, 176, 180–3, 187–90, 194, 198, 199, 201, 207, 218, 219, 225, 226 unity, 22–4, 27, 47, 62, 85, 88–90, 99, 108, 133, 163, 216, 223, 228

the unexpected, 4, 5, 24, 102, 118, 153, 179, 220, 225 United Nations (U.N.), 4, 5, 103–7, 109, 112, 114, 115, 117–25, 127, 131, 182, 187, 189, 191, 213, 214, 225, 226, 228, 231 Security Council, 105, 106, 118, 182, 187, 231 United Nations Command (UNC), 103, 106, 191 United States (U.S.), 2, 4, 6, 25, 73, 78, 88–91, 93, 98, 100, 103–16, 118–29, 133–7, 139, 140, 149–51, 154–7, 163–5, 167, 170, 175–7, 180–3, 186–91, 194, 198, 208, 209, 211, 212, 216, 220, 223, 225–9 Acheson, Dean, 105, 109, 118–20, 122, 124, 125 Americans, 2, 4, 8, 12–14, 22, 25, 75, 76, 78, 88, 91, 103–6,

victory, 1, 2, 10, 12, 13, 15, 17, 22, 25–8, 30, 33, 35, 37–40, 42, 43, 46, 49–51, 53, 55, 56, 59, 67, 69, 79, 81, 82, 88, 89, 92, 94, 96, 98, 101, 102, 110, 113, 116–22, 126, 129, 131, 148, 152, 153, 156, 163, 168, 171, 175, 183, 189, 197, 200, 205, 210, 212, 221, 224, 231 Vietnam, 5–7, 14, 46, 113, 132, 157, 164, 170, 176, 182, 185–201, 203–13, 219–23, 226, 227, 229, 231 Hanoi, 176, 178, 185–92, 195–209, 212, 213, 227 Vietnamese, 3, 5, 157, 179, 185–7, 189–213, 220, 226, 228, 229 virtue, 8, 30, 50 war, 1–9, 11–15, 17–19, 22–5, 27, 28, 30, 31, 33, 36–41, 43, 46, 48, 50–8, 60, 61, 63–73, 75–82,

308

Index

war—continued 84–6, 88–96, 98–111, 113–29, 131, 132, 134–6, 138–58, 161–5, 167–73, 175, 177–82, 185–9, 191–213, 215–32 forces-based war, 4, 122, 227 wars of annihilation, 3, 78, 91 warlords, 58, 67, 70, 73–5, 85, 88 Warring States period, 9, 31, 45–48, 54, 58, 215 water, 18, 29, 41, 210 weak, 5, 25, 29, 30, 33, 39, 41, 42, 61, 63, 65, 78–80, 87, 92, 101, 108, 109, 111, 125, 129, 137, 149, 156, 171, 210, 226, 228, 230 weakness, 6, 13, 26, 39, 47, 56, 66, 78, 92, 94, 118, 120–2, 125, 143, 149–51, 171, 174, 178, 217 weapons, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10–12, 15–19, 27, 32, 40, 43, 65–7, 72, 77, 89–91, 97, 100, 102, 107–10, 121, 143, 152, 153, 155, 165, 167, 170–2, 175–80, 186, 188, 193, 203, 208, 224–6, 230 Whampoa, 75, 77 will to fight, 12, 82, 83, 92, 94, 96 winning without fighting, 12, 15, 25, 38, 81, 94, 125, 126, 183, 191, 204 withdrawal, 5, 10, 15, 62, 69, 82, 84, 87, 96, 116, 117, 120, 121, 122, 125, 142, 143, 148, 150, 154,

158, 162, 165, 168, 173, 180, 185, 187–9, 194, 197, 198, 200, 205, 206, 208, 209, 211–13, 219, 225 World War II, 23, 76, 77, 91, 100, 105, 111, 154, 215 Wu Tzu, 11, 12, 25, 78, 143 Xian, city in northwest China, 76, 86, 88 Xian, Emperor (r. 189–220), 59, 66, 69 Xiang Yu, 45, 50–8, 87, 110, 111 Yakub Beg Rebellion, 168 Yalu, 106, 113, 115, 129 Yan Xishan, 76, 88, 93 yang, 17, 18, 20, 22, 25, 29, 31, 47, 86, 107, 109, 111, 112, 118, 119, 123, 167, 171, 181, 213, 229, 231 Yellow River, 49, 52, 55, 58, 59, 86, 89 Yi Di, 50, 53 yin, 17, 26, 27, 29, 31, 54, 93, 138, 142–4, 146–8, 151, 153, 154, 156 Yuan Shao, 58, 59, 63 Yuan Shikai, 74, 138 Zhang Fei, 59, 67–9 Zhang Liang, 51, 57

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