BOOK REVIEW
Ancient tactics for modern battles
The 36 Secret Strategies of the Martial Arts by Hiroshi Moriya with
translation and foreword by William Scott Wilson
Reviewed by Michael Jen-Siu
March 15, 2008
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/JC15Ad01.html
When groups of protesters tire out Chinese officials with relentless
payment demands after state-sponsored heists of their property, savvy
authorities often settle disputes without a stroke of a baton or even
a sentence in a labor or re-education camp. They research each protest
leader looking for exploitable weaknesses. Some agitators shut up if
they get paid. Others go away if faced with a minor threat against a
relative. Eventually the local government weakens the whole movement
by indulging the weaknesses of enough potential threats.
Payoffs, threats and other bloodless sneak attacks happen throughout
ambitious, but largely lawless, China today. Government agencies use
these methods to take people's land for rapid, lucrative redevelopment
and then squelch dissent. University students quietly flatter or bribe
weak-willed teachers to get good grades after months of cutting
classes. No-name job seekers send gullible prospective employers
anonymous notes to smear more illustrious fellow applicants.
The core strategies for foiling opponents came from China centuries
before any of today's practitioners of the tactics were born,
author-professor Hiroshi Moriya would argue in his book The 36
Strategies of Martial Arts. In the early 1980s, Moriya, an
accomplished scholar of Chinese culture and philosophy, analyzed and
explained these strategies in a book published in Japanese. Now,
renowned translator William Scott Wilson has translated the original
Chinese maxims and Moriya's interpretive research into English.
The ancient Chinese generally didn't want a bloody fight, especially
if there were high odds of losing, Moriya argues. Today's officials,
wary of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, know they would lose an
international public relations battle if they used violence against
protesting citizens. So they, and other modern Chinese in schools,
offices and even big messy families, use some of these old battle
strategies to get one over on perceived adversaries while minimizing
aftershocks.
The strategies, taken from the I Ching, which was theoretically
written almost 5,000 years ago, rely on deception and other
psych-outs, eliminating the need for much real firepower, Moriya
effectively explains. His 255-page guide to shafting your enemy
concisely describes each strategy and gives examples of how Chinese
dynastic leaders would wield it in battle. Several chapters describe
how Mao Zedong's armies applied the theories, and how those ruses were
adopted by the former Soviet Union and Germany in World War II and
elsewhere.
Among the more memorable strategies: Make an enemy think you're doing
one thing while you sneakily do another; divide a strong army
geographically and then reduce it by attacking the weak points;
exploit dissent within enemy ranks and keep faking attacks until an
enemy thinks you're not really up for a real fight - then finally wage
war when least expected. A garrison commander during the Tang Dynasty,
for example, twice lowered 1,000 soldier-like straw mannequins down a
fortress wall in front of rebel forces, who rolled their collective
eyes. When he sent in real soldiers later, the enemy imagined
mannequins again and quickly lost the battle.
Another strategy explains how ancient Chinese would delude an enemy
into suspecting internal dissent among powerful leaders, leading to
the elimination of the people most likely to win a battle. In that
spirit, Stalin executed a top general, Marshal Tohachevski, after
Hitler secretly fabricated documents that accused him of treason.
"Recent times have produced good examples of this strategy, even
though you might think that such a transparent, wedge-driving ploy
would no longer be effective," Moriya writes. He adds that this
strategy "has an equally comfortable home in the relations between
individuals as well".
Other lessons, we learn, can be used to beat bigger rivals in
business, say by introducing niche products that mega-companies
haven't produced. "I would request strongly that it be read as a book
whose practices can enliven our present world," Moriya writes.
But 90% of the examples come from Chinese history, dropping barrages
of obscure names and places that could be cited in generic terms
without detracting from otherwise concise and fluidly narrated stories
about how the strategies were used. The emphasis on historical detail
will frustrate a non-scholar of Asian history who reads to get hints
about battle plans against an industry competitor or personal rival.
Some strategies have also been compromised by law-driven modern
societies. If the modern incarnation of Japanese swordsman Yamamoto
Kansuke punched a hole in a business competitor's boat as he did in
the book's foreword, he'd simply be charged with vandalism. A special
prosecutor would be assigned to sniff out fraud in a developed country
if someone today followed Hitler's example of preparing fake documents
to convince Stalin that his general was a traitor. Moriya needs to
bring the strategies up to date.
The book is available now in Japan and will be out in Europe and
Australia plus elsewhere in Asia this May.
The 36 Secret Strategies of the Martial Arts: The Classic Chinese
Guide for Success in War, Business and Life by Hiroshi Moriya with
translation and foreword by William Scott Wilson. Kodansha
International Ltd, Japan (April 3, 2008) . ISBN-10: 4770030649. Price
US$19, 256 pages.
Michael Jen-Siu is a freelance writer in Greater China.
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