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them, Kissinger argues, was The Art of War by Sun Tzu, which dates from the even earlier Spring and Autumn period (770-476 B.C.). “The victorious army/Is victorious first/And seeks battle later”: axioms like this one encouraged Chinese strategists to think of international relations like the board game Weiqi (known in the West as Go), a “game of surrounding pieces.” Mao shared with China’s prerevolutionary leaders an assumption that China is not like other countries. With a population that amounts to a fifth of humanity, it is Zhongguo: the Middle Kingdom or, perhaps more accurately, the “Central Country.” At times it could even seem like tian xia: “all under heaven.” The best foreign policy for such an empire was to “let barbarians fight barbarians.” If that failed, then the strongest of the barbarians should be embraced and civilized (as happened to the Manchus). “Domineering and overwhelming ... ruthless and aloof, poet and warrior, prophet and scourge”—Mao’s true hero was not Lenin but the tyrannical, book-burning “first emperor,” Qin Shi Huang, who united China in 221 B.C. In a similar way, Kissinger shows, the current generation of Chinese leaders have drawn inspiration from the teachings of Kong Fu Zi (known in the West as Confucius). Their goal, he argues, is not world domination but da tong: “great harmony.” This goes to the heart of the matter. In 1971, when Kissinger first went to China, the U.S. economy was roughly five times that of the People’s Republic. Forty years later, as a result of the industrial revolution unleashed by Mao’s successor Deng Xiao- ping, it is conceivable that China could overtake America within a decade. This is a feat the Soviet Union never came close to achieving. Moreover, China is now the biggest foreign holder of U.S. Treasury notes, which form an important part of its vast $3 trillion of international reserves. How China will use its newfound economic power may be the most important question of our time. Few
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