Volume 10 | Issue 12 | Number 5 | Article ID 3725 | Mar 12, 2012 The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus

The Conflict Between War and Peace in Early Chinese Thought 古代中国思想における戦争対平和の葛藤

John Gittings

In an early chapter I examine a number of historical and literary texts from ancient The Conflict Between War and Peace in Greece and China, to show that a great deal Early Chinese Thought was thought and said in these cultures about peace as well as about war. We can discern in John Gittings Homer’s Iliad, alongside the more familiar themes of rage and war, an alternative vision of The challenges of nuclear proliferation, conflict the peace denied by war – expressed visually in and terrorism, poverty and inequality, climate his remarkable description of the Shield of change and the deteriorating environment, are Achilles. Modern scholarship also shows that inextricably linked in our current world, and attitudes towards peace and war in classical can only be tackled by a broad and unified Greece are much more complex than might be effort to achieve peace in its fullest sense. Yet inferred from the Thucydidean approach, while the perception of peace is much less vivid in critical attitudes on the Greek stage can be popular imagination than that of war, and the identified not only in the ‘Peace’ and other growing body of serious peace studies is less familiar works of Aristophanes, but in several accessible than it should be. Peace is often of the surviving plays of the great tragedians. written off – especially by war historians – as a The chronicles of the Spring and Autumn and difficult concept to define, as a dull subject subsequent Warring States periods of pre- compared to war, or simply as ‘the absence of imperial China, with their endless tales of war’, a mere interval between wars which are battle and intrigue, might also seem poor claimed to be the driving motor of history. In material for a peace-oriented study, yet they too reveal a wide range of thought and my new book, The Glorious Art of Peace: From argument in which rulers and their advisers the Iliad to Iraq, I argue to the contrary that seriously engaged questions of both morality from ancient times onwards there has been a and expediency in the exercise of power, rich discourse about the meaning of peace and weighing up the benefits of peace against the how to secure it, that there is a wealth of ideas advantages of war. In the extract from this and debate which continues to be relevant, and chapter which follows below, I explore the way that The Art of Peace is as complex as the Art that peace and war were discussed in the main of War. Human civilisation could not have schools of political thought from Kongzi developed without long periods of productive () onwards, in a lively debate from peace, which have allowed for the emergence which we can still learn today.This debate of stable agriculture, the growth of urban among China’s early thinkers casts interesting society, and the expansion of peaceful trade light on the Chinese government’s current and intercourse between societies. Peace, as claim to pursue a peaceful and harmonious the great humanist thinker Erasmusforeign policy based on Confucian principles. It (1466-1536) put it, is ‘the mother and nurse of may also help us in setting out some basic all that is good for man’. principles on how to move from war to peace –

1 10 | 12 | 5 APJ | JF particularly in focusing on human justice and peace, both from a moral and practical welfare -- a task which remains as important perspective, in which the plight of the common today as it was in pre-imperial China. Do the people was not forgotten. The main lines of debates over war and peace among China’s argument may be reconstructed from the texts early thinkers cast light on contemporary which survived the infamous ‘burning of the issues, in China and globally, particularly on books’ by the first emperor, and they raise the preconditions for moving from war to issues which we can interpret in terms still peace? Read on. current today.

Peace and War in the Warring States1

In wars to win land, the dead fill the fields; in wars to seize cities, the dead fill their streets. This is what we mean by ‘teaching the earth how to eat human flesh’. (Mengzi)2

Warfare in the of Chinese history (403–221 bc) was no longer a seasonal pursuit led by the nobility and restrained to some extent by custom and ritual. The states which had survived from the previous now commanded larger populations which could be recruited for larger armies, supported by improvements in agricultural techniques as the use of iron spread. We have a vivid picture of Terracotta Warriors in the tomb of the first the everyday existence of the great majority of emperor the rural-based Chinese people two millennia ago recorded in brick reliefs from theWith the break-up of the feudalistic and subsequent dynasty. Planting rice, tending ritualized state system, a new breed of scholar- sheep, feeding the ox, hoeing, dyeing,gentry (shi) had emerged enjoying more preparing meals, holding village festivals with autonomy than the court retainers and dragon dances, and carrying produce for sale hereditary officials of the past: in an age of into town. social mobility, some were able to rise from humble origins. Some rulers became known for This was the life increasingly disturbed by their patronage of argument and debate. King chronic warfare between a diminishing number Xuan of (ruled 319–301 bc) was famous not of rival states, which would lead to the first only for his pleasure palaces and hunting great unification by the state of Qin Chin( , parks, but for setting up the hence ‘China’). The conventional history of the which hosted, it was later said by , as Warring States has been dominated bymany as a thousand scholars from all the rival incessant rivalry, by shifting alliances and schools. Traditionally, they were said to have devious statecraft, by guile and deception on gathered ‘at the gate’: we may imagine them and off the battlefield, as recorded in semi- staying at hostels and drinking in tea-houses fictional annals such as theZhanguo Ce just inside the main gate of the typical walled (Stratagems of the Warring States) and later by city. the Han historian Sima Qian. Yet it was also a time of intense and lively discussion on war and The various schools of philosophy and military

2 10 | 12 | 5 APJ | JF and political thinking which emerged in the grow where armies have camped,’ says . course of two and a half centuries became ‘After a great war there will be years of terrible known as the ‘Hundred Schools of Thought’ hardship.’5 Wars to capture cities or territory, (they are usually divided into ten or twelve says Mengzi, are a way of ‘teaching the earth schools, though they also numbered free- how to eat human flesh’.6 If the peasants are thinkers who adhered to no particular school). taken from the fields to fight and cannot till the These include the School of Strategistsland, says , ‘the common people will freeze (bingjia), with Sunzi, supposed author of the to death and die of starvation’.7 This constant Art of War, as its illustrious predecessor. Much topic of the peasants ‘freezing and starving’, a of this military thinking was incorporated into recent study of the Warring States suggests, the of the Legalists (fajia) ‘cannot be dismissed as pure propaganda: it who viewed agriculture and war underevidently reflects the real empathy of the ruling rigorously authoritarian rule as the essential elite for those they ruled’.8 basis for a successful state. Legalist advisers served the ruler of the state of Qin who in 221 bc defeated his rivals and became the first Qin emperor.3 Sunzi’s Art of War can be easily found today in translation— there are at least five or six English versions in print at any time— and is said to have influenced the military strategies of Napoleon, the Japanese naval command in the Russo-Japanese War, the German High Command in the Second World War, North Vietnamese General Giap in the Vietnam War, and senior US commanders in the Gulf War. Mao Zedong applied the principles set out by Sunzi during the anti- Japanese and Civil Wars of 1937–49; Chinese Representation of Mozi military leaders today continue to regard it as a fundamental text, which is ‘a valuable asset for The Confucian School the Chinese people and will remain so in any future war against aggression’.4 Living at the end of the previous Spring and Autumn period, Kongzi (Confucius, 551–479 bc) Yet the Strategists and Legalists were not set the model for future generations of unchallenged: our obsession with theArt of itinerant scholars, lending his services to the War can lead us to overlook the vigorous views ruler whom he judged capable of good things, on peace and war of the other main schools, but packing his bags if the task seemed the Confucians, Mohists, and Daoists, which hopeless. When asked by the ruler of to directly criticized the militarism of the time. offer advice on military matters, he declined While differing among themselves, they all and left the court, saying, ‘A bird may choose sought to blunt the rulers’ appetite for war, to its tree, but how on earth can a tree choose its counter the influence of their military advisers, bird?’9 and to redirect their attention to the primary purpose of government—to ensure the well- Kongzi was a conservative who sought to being of their own people. They also offered maintain, or revive, the values of the remote vivid descriptions of the impact of war on the founders of the by strict common people: ‘Thorns and brambles will observance of the ancient rituals. He stressed

3 10 | 12 | 5 APJ | JF the need for ‘reverence’ ( ), the concept like water flowing downwards with a traditionally applied to one’s state of mind tremendous force’. To wage an expedition when making sacrifice, but which for(zheng) for the sake of people who wished to Kongzi—as his biographer D. C. Lau has have their lives improved (zheng, literally observed—meant ‘the awareness of the‘rectified’—a play on two words with the same immensity of one’s responsibilities to promote sound) was not the same thing as war.14 the welfare of the common people’.10 Such a responsibility was especially great for the ruler, However, Mengzi was soon disappointed by and in Kongzi’s moral scheme of government, it who, having liberated the state was unlikely to be achieved through the use of of , inflicted a new oppressive regime upon force. When questioned by a disciple about the its people. Humanitarian intervention, Mengzi purpose of government, he replied, ‘Give the discovered—and as we know very well—can people enough to eat, and enough soldiers to turn out very differently in practice. Far from defend them, and they will have confidence in taking an idealistic position, Mengzi had to you.’ To the follow-up question—which of the recognize, as his modern translator W. A. C. H. two, if one is obliged to, should be given up Dobson has noted, that ‘the world of the fourth first?—he responded simply, ‘Give up the century bc . . . was a very different place from 15 soldiers.’11 On another occasion he summed up the world of his ideals’. His ultimate view the essence of good government with this remained one of extreme scepticism towards, advice: and disapproval of, war, as reflected in his judgement that ‘In the Spring and Autumn Where goods are evenly distributed no one will Annals, there are no just (, ‘righteous’) wars. be poor, where there is social harmony a small They merely show that some wars are not so population does not matter [i.e. the population bad as another.’16 will unite in resisting aggression by a larger state], and where there is stability the state will (Hsun Tzu, c. 312–? bc), the third great not be overthrown.12 early Confucian thinker, lived half a century or so after Mengzi, witnessing the final decades of Mengzi (, 372–289 bc), the second inter-state struggle leading up to the victory of founder of what would become known as the Qin. While Mengzi had believed that people , lived in the increasingly violent have an intrinsic tendency towards goodness, age of the Warring States, and made no secret Xunzi believed instead that human has of his loathing for the Strategists. ‘The so- an intrinsic tendency towards evil. As his called good ministers of today [who advise their translator Burton Watson has remarked, this prince to go to war] would have been called was not a surprising conclusion considering the robbers of the people in olden days,’ he ‘cutthroat age’ in which he lived.17 These remarked.13 Mengzi believed that the ruler had contrasting world views of Mengzi and Xunzi been installed by heaven solely for the benefit do not greatly affect their attitudes towards of his people, and that human nature tends war and peace; indeed, Xunzi’s approach to a towards goodness, just as it is the natural large extent builds on that of his predecessor. tendency for a forest to grow. Mengzi found Xunzi’s contempt for the military strategists, himself obliged more than once during the who by this time were playing an ever larger chaotic struggles of the Warring States to role, is even more pronounced than Mengzi’s. weigh up the morality of what we would now Stratagems and ruses are only useful, he says, call ‘humanitarian intervention’. The truly good against a state in which the relationship ruler would be looked up to even by the people between ruler and subjects has completely of neighbouring states, who will ‘turn to him broken down. Asked by the ruler of his native

4 10 | 12 | 5 APJ | JF state what was the best way for a king to internationalist policy, arguing that the rulers manage his army, Xunzi replied dismissively of all states had a common interest in peace that ‘such detailed matters are of minor and stability and should practice, in effect, importance to Your Majesty, and may be left to peaceful coexistence. the generals’.18 Xunzi shared Mengzi’s insistence that what was of real importance Mozi’s argument is based on the concept of jian was to rule with humanity and justice, and that ai— usually translated as ‘universal unity between the ruler and the people was the love’—though in the fuller phrase jian xiang ai, best way to resist aggression. ‘For a tyrant to also used by Mozi, this conveys the wider sense try to overthrow a good ruler by force would be of ‘mutual’ (xiang) responsibility. No one will like throwing eggs at a rock or stirring boiling attack anyone else if all regard themselves as water with your finger.’19 Again following part of the same big (international) family. If Mengzi, Xunzi approved of humanitarian the rulers love the states of others as if they intervention, but added the importantwere their own, no one will commit 22 requirement that if there is strong resistance aggression. Mozi also appeals for a state ruler then the ruler should not persist in attack. to take the initiative (as we might say, to act unilaterally) to break the cycle of violence. A true king may be compelled to intervene, but he does not go to war. When a city is well The world has been beset by aggression and guarded, he does not lay siege; when the war for too long, and it is as weary of it as a opposing soldiers are in good shape, he does school boy who is tired of playing horse. If only not attack them. When the ruler and his people one of the feudal rulers could convince the in another state have a happy relationship, he others of his sincerity by an act of unilateral congratulates them.20 benefit to them! When a large state behaved improperly, he would share the sorrow of those The Mohist School who suffered; when another large state attacked a small one he would join in its Mozi (Mo Tzu, c. 460–390 bc) was born in the rescue; when the defensive walls of the city of a early years of the Warring States period, at small state were defective he would help to about at the same time as the death of Kongzi, repair them; to those who ran out of food and with whom he ranks as equal in influence clothing he would supply them; when they were among the ancient political thinkers. While short of money and silk he would share his Kongzi and his followers are described as ru (a own.23 word conventionally translated as ‘scholar’) the Mohists were known after the name of their Although Mozi would be fiercely criticized by founder and had more humble origins.21 Mengzi and Xunzi, the universalizing aspect of Collectively, the Ru-Mo came to represent a was incorporated by the later humanist, nonmilitary strand of ChineseConfucians into their core principle of humane political thought which was denounced by the behaviour (, ‘benevolence’).24 Conversely, Legalists and banned by the first Qin emperor, Mohist contemporaries of Mengzi and Xunzi but while both tendencies deplored war and its shared their view that punitive action was consequences, they disagreed sharply on how acceptable if undertaken to punish an evil ruler to achieve peace. The Confucians believed in and to rescue his people. Some became adept what might now be called ‘peace in one state’: in the art of military defence against armed a ruler could ensure the survival of his state by attack, particularly in devising techniques to practising humane policies which won the resist a siege. Itinerant Mohist siege experts support of his people. Mozi advocated a more offered their services to the rulers of states

5 10 | 12 | 5 APJ | JF under threat—as portrayed today in popular possible. ‘He who is skilful in martial arts, will Chinese films such as Battle of Wits(2006), with not be aggressive; he who does fight well, will the martial arts star Andy Lau in the leading never do so in anger; he who can conquer the role. This aspect of later Mohism would enemy, will avoid giving battle; he who can obscure the original thrust of Mozi’s doctrine, command men, will put himself beneath and his skill in translating pacifist principle into them.’27 The ideal relationship between states is coherent political thought. one in which they are so close that they can hear their neighbour’s chickens squawk and The Daoist School dogs bark, and yet they leave each other alone.28 Laozi lived, according to the traditional view, at the time of Kongzi: however, the ‘Sayings’ In addition to the Daoists, there are individual attributed to him in the book known as the pacifist thinkers of considerable interest but Classic of the Way and Virtue (Daodejing) are a only known to us indirectly, such as Song Xing composite work probably put together in the and Yin Wen (both active in the late fourth fourth century bc, reflecting a deep distaste for century bc) who are loosely associated with the conflict-ridden world of Warring States, and Mohism and appear to have advocated total a desire to rediscover the roots of harmonious pacifism. The final chapter of the Daoist work existence. Only by following the Way Dao( ) attributed to Zhuangzi (c. 300 bc )—probably would conflict be avoided—as put in a vivid added during the early —describes phrase from the Daodejing: ‘When the Way them as peripatetic scholars seeking to prevails, horses are used to pull dung-carts. persuade all who would listen (and some who When the Way is absent, they breed war-horses would not) of the benefits of peace. at the frontier.’25 The early Daoists did not reject the society in which they lived, although They were not ashamed to suffer insult in their Daoism would develop in later times in a more efforts to save the people from conflict; they mystical and reclusive direction. Their famous sought to deter aggression and to stop fighting, concept of , ‘doing nothing’ or ‘inaction’, in their efforts to save the world from war. was not an injunction to withdraw from society Roaming over the whole land with this purpose, but rather to ‘do nothing’ which did not they argued with rulers and preached to the conform with what was spontaneous and people, and even though their ideas were not harmonious in life. They were interested, writes taken up, they pressed the case loudly and one modern scholar, ‘in convincing the ruler in would not be silent. It was said of them that power that policies which are aggressive, ‘High and low were tired of seeing them but authoritarian, rigid, and violent will notthey insisted on showing up.’29 succeed in achieving the goal they have set themselves—namely, political control’.26 In this The Strategists context Daoism disapproved deeply of war but, recognizing its reality, did not condemn it We come finally to , a text which solely from a pacifist perspective. has attracted many commentaries—unlike those examined above—in relation to issues of The Daodejing warns against the unforeseen peace and war. Sunzi’s text summed up the consequences of war and cautions those who military tactics and strategy of the Warring give advice to the ruler not to ‘encourage him States which built in turn on ideas already to use force to dominate the world’. Doing so formulated in the preceding Spring and will only result in ‘retribution’ huan( ). It is Autumn period. (Whether Sunzi was a historical better to keep a low profile and avoid war if person is no clearer than in the case of Laozi.)

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The text is not a political treatise but starts at of warfare during this time has concluded, the point where the necessity of conflict is China produced ‘both moralists and assumed,without considering the alternatives Machiavellians. If the moralists never to war. However, the exercise of force is persuaded rulers to follow their teachings, the predicated on the assumption that the ruler Machiavellians never extinguished peoples’ who is making war benefits from a ‘moral law’ drive to place kindness or, at least, which ‘causes the people to be in complete utilitarianism above the wild brutality of war.’32 accord with their ruler, so that they will follow The legacy of this for future history was that him regardless of their lives, undismayed by unity of the Chinese nation became prized any danger’. An immoral ruler who does not above all because it ensured domestic peace. satisfy his people’s interests will fail regardless Warfare, in the judgement of the great 30 of his skill in the art of war historian of China, John King Fairbank, was ‘disesteemed’ and the values of the civil (wen) triumphed over the military wu( )—those of ‘literate culture over brute force’. For the emperor to resort to war was an admission that he had failed to deliver good government.33

Conclusion

The early , as in the case of the Greek classics considered elsewhere in this volume, suggest an evolution towards a more considered view of whether war is inevitable or indeed desirable. There is a shift over time from a single-minded focus on the martial Sunzi and the art of war virtues—wu—under the Shang dynasty to viewing these as complementary to the civil It has been argued that underlying Sunzi’s virtues—wen—as the rulers of the Zhou work is the recognition that ‘warfare is an evil’, kingdoms wrestle with problems of statehood. and that ‘the resort to military means is a This duality of wen and wu would become political failure’, but this may be reading too central to later Chinese philosophical thinking much into the text.31 It remains true that the on peace and war.34 We may also detect a military classics attributed to Sunzi and to corresponding shift in the Greek experience , another leading strategist of the Warring from an uncomplicated emphasis on the States period, generally prefer a non-violent achievement of fame (kleos) by feats of arms in alternative where possible and attach more the Mycenaean age, which probably survives in importance to defence than offence. Tosome of the battle scenes of theIliad , to a conclude, none of the major schools of thinking greater appreciation of the dire effects of war, in the Hundred Schools, except for theas conveyed in Homer’s more nuanced Legalists, endorsed war unequivocally as an elaboration of the Troy myth. instrument of state or approved of militarism; they believed rather that victory through The Chinese and the Greek texts also suggest a violent means was more likely than not to growth of scepticism towards the operational destroy the order it sought to impose. Overall, reality of the gods, whose intervention comes war was a contested issue during the period of to be seen as of less consequence than human the Warring States. As one study on the activity. By the middle of the Spring and

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Autumn period, heaven is still invoked, but on a described above may be phrased in a remote pragmatic basis. Yuri Pines has noted that ‘if a Greek or Chinese idiom, but they address leader succeeds, then that must mean he is issues which ring true today. As we have seen, backed by heaven, not that he will only succeed many modern scholars now take a less if he is backed by heaven’. Rulers are seen as simplistic view of the role of war in ancient needing to ‘concentrate on human affairs Greek culture. One striking development has rather than seeking deities’ support’.35 The role been the reappraisal of the Iliad and of many of the gods in the Homeric epics is also Greek plays in the light of our experience of problematic: when Athena and Apollo agree to modern combat—particularly that of the halt the bloodshed temporarily by suggesting a Vietnam War which, through the new medium duel (Iliad, Book 7), Hector issues a challenge of television, played so vividly on our which is accepted by Ajax. Yet the two gods consciousness. Works such as Jonathan Shay’s have not told anyone to organize the duel! Achilles in Vietnam, a study of the Homer merely says that one of Priam’s sons psychological devastation of war which was able to ‘divine what the gods have agreed’ compares the soldiers of the Iliad with Vietnam and hence encouraged Hector to issue his veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress challenge. We need to ask, it has beendisorder, have opened up this new ground.37 suggested, ‘at what level of seriousness or acceptance the Homeric deities wereThe view that there was a ‘pacifist bias’ in the understood. Did the Greeks believe in the Gods Chinese tradition of government, as suggested of their myths?’36 If war can no longer be by Fairbank and , is a matter simply attributed to, or blamed upon, the gods, of academic controversy today with a 38 this will require a higher degree of human contemporary political edge. Although Mao responsibility for the choice between war and Zedong in his later years extolled the Legalist peace. approach and condemned the Confucians, China’s rulers in the twenty-first century By the time of the Chinese Warring States and advocate building a ‘harmonious’ society at the Greek city-states, the decision to go to war home, and a peaceful world abroad, in terms had been to some extent democratized or at which appeal explicitly to this presumed least opened up to a degree of debate. The so- tradition of ‘peace and harmony’ in Chinese called philosophers of the Hundred Schools history. Chinese Buddhism has also regained function more as political advisers, ready to sway in many parts of China—although in give an opinion (and presumably rewarded for Tibetan areas it still suffers from restriction it) when consulted by the contending rulers. because of its association with the exiled Dalai Today we might regard their schools as Lama. In many areas, Temples have been political think-tanks. In Greece we know that rebuilt and images and posters of bodhisattvas there were both peace and war parties in the (‘enlightened beings’) are often seen. These assemblies of the city-states, though the include the widely venerated Guan Yin, who surviving records (principally Thucydides) conveys the spirit of compassion, and Tara, ‘the obscure the record of debate by givingone who saves’, who offers peace and preference to the argument for war. The debate prosperity. Official pronouncements have was also carried on, less directly but often invoked both Buddhism and Confucianism as more powerfully, on the stage of comedy and evidence of China’s commitment since ancient 39 tragedy, as we can tell even from the very small times to a ‘harmonious world’. How far this is number of surviving plays. true, or relevant today, is a matter for debate between China’s friends and critics in assessing The discussions on war and peace which I have the current and future trajectory of Chinese

8 10 | 12 | 5 APJ | JF foreign policy. 5 Laozi, Daodejing, ch. 30.

John Gittings was for many years chief foreign 6 Mengzi, 4a. 14. leader-writer and East Asia Editor atThe 7 Guardian, and is now on the editorial board of Mozi, Book 5, 2. 2. the Oxford International Encyclopedia of Peace 8 and a research associate of theCentre of Yuri Pines,Envisioning Eternal Empire: Chinese Studies at the School of Oriental & Chinese Political Thought of the Warring States African Studies. After working at the Royal Era (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2009), 201. Institute of International Affairs, he began reporting on China during the Cultural9 Zuo Qiuming, Chronicle of Zuo (henceforth Revolution, and later covered major events cited as Chronicle), ‘Duke Ai’, 11th Year. such as the Beijing massacre and the Hong Kong handover. He has also written extensively 10 Confucius, The , trans. D. C. Lau on the politics of the cold war and was active in (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1979), 26. the International Confederation for Disarmament and Peace. His last book was The 11 Kongzi [Confucius], Lunyu (Analects), 12. 7 Changing Face of China: From Mao to Market 12 (2005), also published by Oxford University Ibid ., 16. 1. Press. His latest book, from which this material 13 is excerpted, is The Glorious Art of Peace: From Mengzi, 6B. 9. the Iliad to Iraq (Oxford: Oxford University 14 Ibid., 1B. 11, 7B. 4. Press, 2012). 15 W. A. C. H. Dobson,Mencius: A New Recommended citation: John Gittings, 'The Translation (London: Oxford University Press, Conflict Between War and Peace in Early 1963), 124. Chinese Thought,' The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol 10, Issue 12, No 5, March 19, 2012. 16 Mengzi, 7B. 2. Inconsistencies in Mengzi’s position would probably be clarified if we had Notes his own writings rather than a collection of episodes, anecdotes, and sayings recorded by 1 This is an edited extract from chapter 2 of his disciples and compiled later. John Gittings, The Glorious Art of Peace: From the Iliad to Iraq (Oxford: Oxford University 17 Burton Watson, Hsun Tzu: Basic Writings Press, 2012), 62-72. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1963), 4–5. 2 Mengzi, 4A. 14 (Harvard-Yenching concordance number). [All translations are by 18 Xunzi, 15. 5, 7. I have amended Xunzi’s John Gittings unless attributed to another comment on military matters to follow the same source]. wording as when he refers back to it in 15. 21, i.e. fanzai yu jun(everything to do with the 3 , ‘’, trans. army), instead of fan zai da wang (everything to in Robert Wilkinson, ed., The Art of War (Ware: do with the ruler). Wordsworth, 1998), 214. 19 Xunzi, 15. 5. 4 Hanzhang, ‘Commentary on The Art of War’, in Wilkinson, ibid. , 130. 20 Ibid., 15. 16. I have translated this more than

9 10 | 12 | 5 APJ | JF usually terse passage quite loosely. 30 See further Paul Gregor, ‘War and Peace in Classical Chinese Thought, with Particular 21 The word ru may originally have had the Regard to Chinese Religions’, in Perry Schmidt- derogatory meaning of a ‘weakling’ who did not Leukel, ed., War and Peace in World Religions take up arms: Needham, Joseph, Science and (London: SCM Press, 2004), 72–5. Civilisation in China, vol. ii (Cambridge: 31 Cambridge University Press, 1956), 31. The James Stroble, ‘Justification of War in Ancient Confucians belonged mainly to the class of China’, Asian Philosophy, 8: 3 (1998), 165–90. functionaries and specialists whose positions 32 became less secure during the break-up of the Thomas Kane, ‘Inauspicious Tools: Chinese feudal courts. Mozi may have begun life as a Thought on the Morality of Warfare’, in Paul wheelwright, and the original meaning of mo Robinson, ed., Just War in Comparative Perspective (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), ch. 9, was a captive engaged in hard labour. 151–2. 22 Mozi, 4, 1. 4. 33 John King Fairbank, ‘Introduction: Varieties 23 Ibid., 5, 3. 6. of the Chinese Military Experience’, in Fairbank and Frank A. Kierman, eds., Chinese 24 The Confucian Gongsun Hong in the Han Ways in Warfare (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard dynasty would define ren as ‘extending benefit University Press, 1974), 4, 25. Fairbank’s and eliminating harm, inclusively caringapproach is shared by Joseph Needham in his without partiality’: Chris Fraser, ‘Mohism’, introduction to Science and Civilisation in China, vol. v, pt 6 (Cambridge: Cambridge section 9 (revised March 2010) in the online University Press, 1995). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 34 Christopher Rand, ‘The Role of Military 25 Laozi, op. cit. n. 5 above, ch. 46. Thought in Early Chinese Intellectual History’

26 (Harvard University, unpublished PhD, 1977), Roger Ames, The Art of Rulership: A Study in 23. Ancient Chinese Political Thought (Honolulu:

University of Hawaii Press, 1983), 39. 35 Pines, op. cit. n. 8 above, 65–6, 78.

27 Laozi, op. cit. n. 5 above, ch. 31, ch. 68. 36 Emily Kearns, ‘The Gods in the Homeric Epics’, in Robert Fowler, ed., The Cambridge 28 Ibid., ch. 80. Companion to Homer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 59–73 at 70. 29 Zhuangzi, 33. Fragments of both scholars have been collected by John Knoblock at 37 Jonathan Shay, Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Fragments of Song Xing. The Logician Gongsun Trauma and the Undoing of Character (New Long (best known for his sophistry in defending York: Scribner, 1994). See also Lawrence the proposition that ‘a white horse is not a Tritle, From Melos to My Lai: War and Survival horse’) also advocated the peaceful settlement (London: Routledge, 2000), and Robert of disputes. The Annals of Buwei contains an Meagher, Herakles Gone Mad: Rethinking anecdote in which his clever use of logic Heroism in an Age of Endless War undermines the Qin ruler’s attempt to persuade (Northampton, Mass.: Olive Branch Press, the state of to join him in an aggressive 2006.) war. See the entry on atNew World Encyclopedia. 38 For some contrary views, see Ralph Sawyer,

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‘Chinese Warfare: The Paradox of the39 Shijia, ‘Harmonious World: China’s Ancient Unlearned Lesson’, American Diplomacy, 4: 4 Philosophy for New International Order’, (1999) ; Andrew Scobell, China and Strategic People’s Daily Online, 2 October 2007. Also Culture (Carlisle, Pa.: US Army War College ‘China Supports Buddhism in Building a Strategic Studies Institute, May 2002). Harmonious World’, People’s Daily Online, 13 April 2006.

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