Thinking from the tip of the spear
Military Power, Political Order, and the Making
of China’s Grand Strategy
The idea and project for this book began and took an initial form in 1990–91 through discussions with Paolo Beonio Brocchieri. He had been my professor of Eastern philosophy in Venice and later invited me to a conference in Pavia. I proposed to him a comprehensive work on the concept of warfare and its links to political organization and the development of logic in ancient China. It would not be limited to examining only Sunzi, the famous classic on war, or only the contemporary military texts. Rather, it would broaden the perspective on warfare to include all pre-Qin (before the 3rd century BC) classical literature. Essentially, it involved sifting through classical literature to find passages that referenced war. The starting point had to be Mozi, who addressed defensive warfare, politics, and logic, and even detailed the tactics for defending a besieged city. I didn’t even realize how ambitious that project was. Beonio Brocchieri was interested. He told me we would discuss it in detail upon his return from a short trip to India. But he returned from India ill, and shortly afterward, he passed away. At the same time, I was working on the Italian translation of Angus Graham’s book (my professor from London). I was very proud of this work because I had retranslated, from Chinese into Italian, all of Graham’s original citations, sometimes uncovering typos and misquoted passages. Graham also encouraged me in my thesis work. However, he too died in those months. The deaths of my two mentors deeply affected me, mainly because I was already quite shaken after returning to Beijing after two years and having experienced the entire Tiananmen movement in 1989. I had finished writing my thesis and was set to take an oral exam with Professors Paul Thompson and Sarah Allan. They had generously xviii sent me to study in Beijing as the first foreign student at the Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. There, I had the privilege of learning and reading the classics under the guidance of three exceptional teachers: Li Xueqin, Huang Quanmin, and Suo Jieran. By 1991–1992, I was married, with two daughters, and working for the foreign desk of ANSA, the Italian national news agency in Rome. The dynamism of modern China, its politics, upheavals, and the promise of returning to work in Beijing pushed me to leave the Academy. However, the sense of that initial research has never left me and, over the years, has taken on a different form. Much of this was influenced by my work first as a journalist in Beijing, then as a consultant for Chinese think tanks such as Strategy and Management, the Academy of Social Sciences, the Central Party School, and Renmin University. This blend of academic training, practical journalism, and contemporary research, spanning over thirty years, has given the current draft project of China’s grand strategy a non-conventional, certainly heterodox, and perhaps eccentric edge.
Empires, Old and New West, Old and New China
Beijing is trying to rethink the whole process of modernization, which we traditionally view as a highly complex historical process, as a rational formula that can be applied to present-day China. It copies some easy American and Western theories that ‘democracy’ can be standardized, reproduced, and exported worldwide, regardless of the local history and environment. The theories easily justify present results and are oblivious to historical processes.
In many ways, they are mirror images, possibly equally deceiving. From the American point of view, it answers the necessity to model the whole world according to its political and cultural standards. From China’s viewpoint, it wants to answer the fundamental question: how can China’s model fit into a modern system? The question is different from Russia, which offers a neo-czarist answer against modernity; China has something different.
Both models are simplifications that can be useful, but only as long as they are used with great caution. The historical evolution and background weigh immensely on whatever political model is used. What is necessary, politically and culturally, is an effort at mutual understanding. Here is a collection of essays written in the past months, an attempt at it.
Here is the list of the seven essays used here, as seven chapters of this excursion.
