cannot use force or will not fight. If necessary, the Chinese will fight as bravely as other peoples to protect their territory and national pride as shown in the war with Japan. Before moving to a more contemporary analysis, it should also be remarked that while it is tempting to connect contemporary knowledge directly to the ancient, the above saying should not lead one to believe that the 36 currently known stratagems are identical to the ancient ones, since some experts believe those currently known arose after this saying, and other experts believe the number 36 may have only been used figuratively to express a large number. Swiss researcher Harro von Senger, the author of "Стратагемы. О китайском искусстве жить и выживать" (translated to "Stratagem: About the Chinese art to live and survive") examines the concept of stratagem 计 ji as a combination of the grapheme 言 yan (Myasnikov stresses that in Chinese and European dictionaries "言" means "the word or “the speech") and 十 shi, meaning "ten". Thus, the author leads the reader to the fact that 计 means "to count up to ten" or even "take it into account, to count" and as a noun can be translated as "calculation". Cultural Barriers and Moral Quandaries It is interesting to note that when Europeans hear about Chinese stratagems they can often be confused by some moral aspects, as not every European is ready to build on his success by cheating others. However, in the context of stratagem-thinking this problem is solved quite simply; a victory,
according to the art of warfare in Chinese, is worthy and good because the strongest in a fight and the one who sees further than his opponent obtains it. This overriding principle is plain in the stratagems themselves. The first stratagem is "to deceive the emperor to swim across the sea" (瞒天过海). The essence of the phrase is to hide the aim or shoot down an enemy from the course. Stratagem number 3 is "To kill, using someone else’s knife" (借刀杀人), widely known in the world today. Its basic sense is to defeat the enemy by proxy. Contemporary Stratagem Thinking Turning to more modern matters, it turns out that Mao Zedong was also known as the master of methods of stratagem, and his words "hit on the head, and the rest will collapse itself" became "the slogan of Chinese diplomacy". At the same time, as Zenger notes, these words accurately reproduced stratagem 18 (擒贼 擒 王), the essence of which is to eliminate the ruling elite, the leader, so that the enemy will no longer be any danger. The meaning of stratagem 23 ("be friends with distant (countries) and fight with his neighbor", or 远 交 近 攻) is to unite with distant countries in order to attack those who are nearby. The idea of this stratagem is "all are enemies", but there are obvious enemies with whom one will fight soon and secret enemies (so-called "temporary" allies) who can be involved to fight against obvious enemies. One of the heroes of Sima Qian in the "Historical notes", Su Qin teaches the ruler of the kingdom, "You don’t have to make mistakes in the calculations more than negligible risk, located at a distance from you in a hundred li, and attach
great importance to the disaster, which is located in a distance from you thousands of li" ( 10. P. 97). According to the above stratagem, the most dangerous enemy is the one who is the closest. In fact, they are a constant source of increased danger. One example from recent history can be seen in the Chinese invasion of Vietnam in 1979 while the Soviet Union supported the Vietnamese. Another example of the successful use of stratagems in Chinese leadership: as a result of complications arising from German-Chinese relations, the Chinese side canceled the 11th China–EU summit scheduled for 2008. In this case, perhaps, the leaders of China behaved in accordance with the 16th stratagem (欲擒故縱), which teaches "if you want to catch something at first release it". As mentioned earlier, the Chinese are not ready to use force if there is at least one opportunity to return to the negotiating table for a peaceful settlement of the conflict. This is perhaps part of the reason that China has been stable for many years. In the words of the true wisdom of Chinese strategy, "A skillful general wins without a fight. The greatest warrior doesn’t fight." Stratagems can be considered a weapon which has been capably used by the Chinese for thousands of years. The sphere of usage of stratagems is broad, but were first used in military and diplomatic practice. Stratagem thinking is an unusual approach to critical situations.
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