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On China QUOTES

On China QUOTES

1 " In his essay, ‘Perpetual Peace,’ the philosopher, Immanuel Kant, argued that perpetual peace would eventually come to the world in one of two ways, by human insight or by conflicts and catastrophes of a magnitude that left humanity no other choice. We are at such a juncture. "

― Henry Kissinger , On China

2 " It is one of history's ironies that Communism, advertised as a classless society, tended to breed a privileged class of feudal proportions. "

― Henry Kissinger , On China

3 " If Chinese exceptionalism represented the claims of a universal empire, Japanese exceptionalism sprang from the insecurities of an island nation borrowing heavily from its neighbor, but fearful of being dominated by it. "

― Henry Kissinger , On China

4 " The Soviet Union would never be bound by agreements, Deng warned; it understood only the language of countervailing force. "

― Henry Kissinger , On China

5 " What distinguishes Sun Tzu from Western writers on strategy is the emphasis on the psychological and political elements over the purely military. "

― Henry Kissinger , On China

6 " But Japan drew from the challenge the opposite conclusion as China: it threw open its doors to foreign technology and overhauled its institutions in an attempt to replicate the Western powers’ rise. "

― Henry Kissinger , On China

7 " The art of crisis management is to raise the stakes to where the adversary will not follow, but in a manner that avoids a tit for tat. "

― Henry Kissinger , On China

8 " If chess is about the decisive battle, wei qi is about the protracted campaign. The chess player aims for total victory. The wei qi player seeks relative advantage. "

― Henry Kissinger , On China

9 " Chinese thinkers developed strategic thought that placed a premium on victory through psychological advantage and preached the avoidance of direct conflict. "

― Henry Kissinger , On China

10 " When the Chinese court deigned to send envoys abroad, they were not diplomats, but “Heavenly Envoys” from the Celestial Court. "

― Henry Kissinger , On China

11 " Chess teaches the Clausewitzian concepts of “center of gravity” and the “decisive point”—the game usually beginning as a struggle for the center of the board. Wei qi teaches the art of strategic encirclement. "

― Henry Kissinger , On China

12 " [l]ove of kindness, without a love to learn, finds itself obscured by foolishness. Love of knowledge, without a love to learn, finds itself obscured by loose speculation. Love of honesty, without a love to learn, finds itself obscured by harmful candour. Love of straightforwardness, without a love to learn, finds itself obscured by misdirected judgment. Love of daring, without a love to learn, finds itself obscured by insubordination. And love for strength of character, without a love to learn, finds itself obscured by intractability "

― Henry Kissinger , On China

13 " The highest form of warfare Is to attack [the enemy’s] Strategy itself; The next, To attack [his] Alliances. The next, To attack Armies; "

― Henry Kissinger , On China

14 " Especially when ultimate decisions of peace and war are involved, a strategist must be aware that bluffs may be called and must take into account the impact on his future credibility of an empty threat. "

― Henry Kissinger , On China

15 " Almost all empires were created by force, but none can be sustained by it. Universal rule, to last, needs to translate force into obligation. Otherwise, the energies of the rulers will be exhausted in maintaining their dominance at the expense of their ability to shape the future, which is the ultimate task of statesmanship. Empires persist if repression gives way to consensus. "

― Henry Kissinger , On China

16 " Revolutionaries are, by their nature, powerful and single-minded personalities. Almost invariably they start from a position of weakness vis-à-vis the political environment and rely for their success on charisma and on an ability to mobilize resentment and to capitalize on the psychological weakness of adversaries in decline. "

― Henry Kissinger , On China

17 " Where Western strategists reflect on the means to assemble superior power at the decisive point, Sun Tzu addresses the means of building a dominant political and psychological position, such that the outcome of a conflict becomes a foregone conclusion. Western strategists test their maxims by victories in battles; Sun Tzu tests by victories where battles have become unnecessary. "

― Henry Kissinger , On China

18 " For Sun Tzu, victory is not simply the triumph of armed forces. Instead, it is the achievement of the ultimate political objectives that the military clash was intended to secure. "

― Henry Kissinger , On China

19 " Almost all empires were created by force, but none can be sustained by it. Universal rule, to last, needs to translate force into obligation. Otherwise, the energies of the rulers will be exhausted in maintaining their dominance at the expense of their ability to shape the future, which is the ultimate task of statesmanship. Empires persist if repression gives way to consensus. So "

― Henry Kissinger , On China

20 " The Art of War articulates a doctrine less of territorial conquest than of psychological dominance; it was the way the North Vietnamese fought America "

― Henry Kissinger , On China