THE CHINA VISIT AND SUN WU "THE MASTER"

"The Sunzi" or the book of the Master Sun was written the last quarter of the fourth century BC
In thirteen chapters, and wrapped in an aura of exotism, his teachings collect "The Art of War", as it is popularly known in our day this text.
The dating of this brief treatise is part of the period "The Warring States (480-221 BC) which is the time when the confrontation between the Chinese nation no longer is characterized as a" tournament of values" between the exclusive warrior class (knights) of each of the states in combat. In this period it becomes an issue that encompasses the entire state, which is organized like an army, keeping correspondence with the social existing levels.

To understand the culture of China, according to experts, It´s a process that requires the knowledge of the evolution of history from a huge time scale. Any change requires several generations to push the vast inertia of the mass population. However, these periods are deeply rooted in culture, arts, writing and thinking of China.



Reading "The Art of War" at this very moment (with the symbolic visit of Chinese President to the U.S.A.) produces at least uneasiness. I proceed to enumerate the reasons:

1.-One of the cornerstones of the book is the principle that we should avoid any confrontation with the intention of “winning without having to fight”. In this sense China is not confronted with anyone economically, only advances inexorably and "wraps".

2.-In "area of convergence" (belonging to various nations) it´s necessary to use alliances to overcome an adversary. In this blog I think I've mentioned, the example China and the construction financing for the bridge across the Danube in Belgrade. We realize a growing diplomatic activity seeking strategic points in the case of Serbia, as future European Union country with great potential for growth and consumption.

3.-The Master Sun Wu also mentions the concept of using the enemy. “Make the enemy work for you." Buying the debt of Spain or any other country, is ultimately what they're doing. Whenever another country works for you and make you earn money, doesn´t work for itself. Ultimately, the “Buying-bond nation” will progress upon the effort of the selling one. Now all markets are very happy about the relocation of the debt but, has anyone stopped to think what will happen when that loop-back and refinancing of state debt is over and nations want to receive the cash. The good news should be not to achieve the selling of the debt, should be the progressive amortization.

4.-Another of the basic ideas of the treatise is to maintain strict discipline. This mechanism should be so refined, so that the orders are transmitted from the head of the general (who is not the task of wielding the sword) to the last of its soldiers without any possibility of misunderstanding or disobedience. Everyone knows the iron yoke imposed by China to its population in terms of human rights, precisely because the deprivation of the fundamental rights and basic needs was a methodology for the imposition of discipline since the days of "Warring States".

5.-The axiom of military preparation in this case is the preparation of the working masses throughout China productive improvement. In this case, the Chinese educational programs should be making progress inside the limits of the "ideological manual."

6.-The war (in this case the economy as a way to defeat other nations without resorting traditional confrontation) is an exercise of knowledge. When you buy a fighter jet Shukoi-29, the ultimate goal is not to use it in military operations, but to have the knowledge to produce many others. This simile is extrapolated to the rest of the industrial activity in the pursuit of the “know-how. " for their own brands.

7.-In a desperate situation with no way out, the enemy is forced to fight with all his forces till death. It is preferable always to leave an escape for the enemy soldiers so they are not forced to kind of "kamizake" actions. On the other hand, you must lead your troops into a hopeless situation to fight to exhaustion.
When President Hu Jintao tells President Obama that China will buy 45,000 million in aircraft, apart from extending the influence of their national airlines, it seems that he is leaving an economic output spigot to the global rival.

8.-The use of spies as a knowledge of the enemy is another key element. Apart from knowing yourself, you must fully know your opponent.
There are many urban legends about what the Chinese immigrants in each country, its lack of transparency both economically and socially. Without getting into discussions of living coexistence, the question that comes to the point of this article is, how much do they know us and how we know them? How we know them in their own country? Honestly I think that they know us better than vice versa.

9.-A perfect action has power consumption. We must therefore avoid the consistent and attack the void: For China is very profitable economically to enter African weak countries, without regulations or restriction to stop its progression.

10.-The war is also the art of being "inscrutable." You have no shape so you can adapt to the enemy and the enemy cannot chase you. In this case is very important on “the art of deception”. We must continually try to confuse the enemy.
So what's behind, what the real intention behind all diplomatic activities? Clearly China is now the friend with money that everyone wants to have. It´s the entity that has made the leap to a higher economic and financial dimension but, haven´t we realized by now what this is all about?

The open discussion will be to express ones view about China conquering the World (I know that this parallelism with the book is frightening and I put it in a very hard and maybe not fair way, just to encourage the debate) or it is only just a gradual opening of China to the global coexistence.

A last idea to mention is that the period of the "Falls and Springs" (770-480 BC, the predecessor of the period of the "Warring States"), as I´ve mentioned, warriors were knights in a contest of values and virtues (which also involved the safeguarding of peace). Today, keeping the pseudo-economic comparison, there are large companies.
But China's leap into the next phase in which the company is the entire country, will also mean that whole nations will be forced to compete structural, legislative and economically in the same way, but not necessarily following the same criteria.