Chinese military texts on the teachings attributed to Sun Tzu emphasize the radical and constructive nature of deception in Chinese warfare. Ren Li, editor of Lectures on Sun Tzu's Art of State of war, argues that "warfare is a style of charade" is the most shocking concept in the Dominicus Tzu considering it favors an unchoreographed, asymmetric approach to fighting while rejecting any notion of continuance in warfare.1 The People'southward Liberation Army (PLA) uses these military machine texts to encourage commanders to do all they can to mislead their adversaries while employing agile and flexible responses to the actual conditions encountered on the battlefield.

PLA Senior Colonel Ma Jun, for example, leans heavily on this estimation of deception, charging that "War is precisely war. State of war is precisely a fight to the death (literally: 'yous die and I live'). It is not possible in this domain to pay attending to morality."2 Ma notes, however, that such deception is to be used only against adversaries and never confronting 1's friends and colleagues.3 While it is unlikely that a coincidental reader of the Dominicus Tzu would derive such insights from these writings, knowing how the Chinese military interprets these texts is key to agreement their rationale for operations.

Meanings of Deception

Much of the academic research on the Sunday Tzu tends to follow traditional Sinological threads—historical, linguistic, and philosophical. Mass-market place publications apply or misapply the text to contemporary issues such as business concern, leadership, and golf game. Chinese military interpretations have a distinctly unlike and applied focus.

PLA texts explicate warfare constantly is changing and cannot be fought by relying on predetermined strategies.iv They emphasize further that the Sun Tzu's "fashion of deception" adds a series of rules to be applied dynamically in various conditions to get the upper hand. These guiding principles must exist mastered for planning and directing war. Deception refers to:

  • The supremacy of unconventional warfare as opposed to the conventional (Sunday Tzu Chapter 5 notes , "Join battle with conventional tactics and reach victory through anarchistic tactics"v).
  • The value of cheating as a traditional underpinning of deceptive warfare.
  • The recognition that change keeps warfare in a constant state of flux.
  • The imperative to focus on benefiting from and controlling one'southward superiority in warfare.6

Guiding principles let the warrior to develop methods to turn deception into a "magic weapon" that a military strategist brings into play through initiative to beat out the enemy and gain victory.vii

Methods of Charade

The Sunday Tzu presents 12 methods of employing deception. PLA texts explain that this is not an exhaustive list, just instead is a compendium of advisable actions that might be taken in various situations. The listing addresses both deportment that could be used to deceive or mislead the enemy and other actions that exercise not meet the typical definition of deception (e.yard. if the enemy is strong, evade him).

Ren Li characterizes the 12 methods to explain the Sun Tzu's broader awarding of "deception."

  • The purpose of the first 4 methods ("capable" through "far") is to deceive or mislead an adversary.
  • The side by side four methods ("greedy" through "strong") provide ways of adopting a flexible response strategy for different enemy situations.
  • The last four methods ("angry" through "friendly") talk over weakening an adversary's warfighting adequacy past focusing on morale, psychology, stamina, cohesiveness, etc., thus causing the enemy'south strong points to get weaknesses.8

These categorizations emphasize Ren Li's point that the goal of the "way of deception" is "to as much as possible increase our advantageous conditions and reduce the adversary's advantageous weather."9 Deception not but involves manipulating an antagonist'south understanding of 1'south own capabilities and intentions, but too includes manipulating the state of affairs with the goal of farther degrading the adversary's capabilities. PLA texts include detailed analyses of each of the 12 methods of deception, explaining the meaning, application, historical examples, and gimmicky significance of each method.

For example, Method ix (If your antagonist is angry, then aggravate him) varies across PLA texts in estimation. At first, it seems unambiguous: "If the adversary is a bad tempered or obstinate and self-opinionated commander, yous should think of ways to enrage him, causing him to do battle with me while in a country of having lost his reason."10

But Ma Jun broadens his caption past highlighting the importance of preventing one'south side from falling victim to such a method;

Nosotros must teach commanders to certainly be absurd-headed and calm, not able to bad temperedly practise battle. They themselves are not angry and rationally control operations, even so nosotros desire the same to cause the adversary's commanders at volition and in a violent rage to send their armies to do battle. This is the implication of "If he tin be provoked, [and so] agitate him."

Ma Jun then relies on a "warring states" era example to demonstrate the danger of beingness easily provoked and concludes by restating the importance of keeping control of one's anger, even in peacetime.11

Other analysts take a dissimilar view. Because the character translated every bit "angry" may have originally meant "to accept high morale," some translate Method 9 as, "If morale is high, I should avoid his capabilities, wait for his morale to reject, and so assault him."12 Ren Li similarly interprets Method nine as, "If enemy morale is running high, then frustrate him."13 Despite these differences, at that place remains universal agreement among PLA texts that the Sun Tzu's deceptive methods must be understood and applied to achieve success in war.

Applying Charade

Specific applications of the Sun Tzu occasionally are included in PLA literature. Essentials of Sunday Tzu and the Fine art of War and Submarine Operations, written by the PLA Navy Submarine University, for instance, provides four examples of how "warfare is a way of charade" might be applied to submarine operations.

  • "Show yourself to intimidate the enemy." A submarine is equipped with formidable attack power. It can appear at a certain fourth dimension or place to create a psychological threat to an adversary and prevent him from taking military action.
  • "Show the fake to confuse the enemy." A few submarines can be deployed to non-principal boxing expanse and testify themselves to divert an adversary, while the more than submarines are covertly deploy to the master battle area to catch an antagonist by surprise.
  • "Create momentum to harass the enemy." When a submarine is in the vastness of open-body of water long-range operations, it can create the appearance of the submarine being anywhere at any time, causing the enemy to prepare up defenses everywhere and yet not existence able to defend anywhere, thereby dispersing their forces and exposing their weaknesses.
  • "Deceive to obstruct the enemy." If a submarine is unable to realistically get in at the operating expanse as a event of its deadening speed, information technology can apply deceptive measures. Intentionally divulging incorrect data to the public can cause the adversary to believe that submarines are operating in important sea areas. This can deter an adversary's warships, especially those with poor antisubmarine capabilities.fourteen

While the types of submarine operations being proposed are consistent with historical submarine employment, it is interesting to note how the Sun Tzu's precepts are used to rationalize current operations.

A Magic Weapon?

PLA texts analyzing the Sun Tzu'south "warfare is a way of deception" ostend that efforts to mislead one's adversary are deeply ingrained in the Chinese way of war. While inflexible plans established on predictable weather condition have no place in warfare, PLA commanders must employ active and flexible deceptive responses to the bodily conditions encountered in battle. Whether deception is a decisive "magic weapon" in modern state of war or not, remains to be seen.

The Rise of Deceptive War

The Sun Tzu's influence on the Chinese armed forces's view of deception must be understood in context of 7th century Chinese warfare. Warfare was a highly ritualized and ceremonial matter that followed traditional procedures in which "an enemy force was encountered in the field, the 24-hour interval and place of battle would be formally fixed past the two parties, and so the requisite preparations for gainsay would begin."15 Martial legitimacy was earned past conforming to established military protocol. Going into battle without properly establishing one'southward battle array would not be considered real combat. Even if victory was achieved, at all-time the result was described as "defeating such-and-such an ground forces."xvi

The Zuo Zhuan ("The Zuo Tradition"), an early Chinese classic, describes such an encounter between the states of Vocal and Chu in 638 BC. As the warriors of Chu were crossing a river, the Song general twice requested permission from his ruler to attack the vulnerable force and twice was denied. The Song ruler explained that his sense of accolade would not permit him to attack the enemy until they had established their boxing lines. Ultimately, the Chu force crossed the river, formed their boxing lines, and routed the inferior Song army.17

Given such expectations for ritualized and predictable martial practices, one can imagine how the Sun Tzu'south 12 methods of deception were received.

When one is capable, requite the appearance of being incapable.

When one is active, requite the appearance of being inactive.

When one is near, give the advent of beingness far.

When one is far, give the advent of being near.

When one's opponents are greedy for advantage, tempt them.

When one's opponents are in chaos, seize them.

When 1'due south opponents are secure, prepare for them.

When 1'due south opponents are potent, evade them.

When one's opponents are angry, aggravate them.

When ane'south opponents are apprehensive, make them arrogant.

When ane's opponents are at ease, make them weary.

When one'due south opponents are friendly to each other, divide them.

Attack them when they are unprepared; Come up forth when they are non expecting you to do so.

Herein lies the victoriousness of the strategist, which cannot be divulged beforehand.18

Traditionalists who revered classic precepts as sources of moral guidance considered the use of deception in warfare to be unethical.19 Eventually Sun Tzu commentators, such as eighth century Song dynasty scholar Zhang Yu, noted, "Although the root of the utilise of military forcefulness is based on benignancy and righteousness, for them to be victorious they must rely on deception."20 Over time, deception has get the accustomed Chinese way of war.


ane. Ren Li, Lectures on Sunzi's Art of War (Beijing: PLA Press, 2013), 32.

two. Ma Jun, Ma Jun Explains Sunzi's Fine art of War (Beijing: Zhonghua Printing, 2008).

3. Ibid, 178.

4. Ren Li, Lectures on Sunzi'southward Art of War, 32.

v. Victor H. Mair, trans. The Art of War: Sun Zi's Military Methods (New York: Columbia UP, 2007), 92.

6. Ren Tingguang and Li Weiguo, Sun Tzu's Art of War: Collected Expositions (Beijing: PLA Press, 2013), 27-28.

7. Ren Li, Lectures on Sunzi's Art of State of war, 32.

eight. Ibid, 31-33.

9. Ibid, 31.

x. Ma, Ma Jun Explains Sunzi's Fine art of State of war, 170.

xi. Ibid, 170-171.

12. Wu Jiulong, Sun Tzu Annotations (Beijing: Armed forces Scientific discipline Press, 1990), fourteen.

13. Ren Li, Lectures on Sunzi'south Art of War, 48.

14. Geng Shixin, Essentials of Sunzi'due south Art of War and Submarine Operations (Beijing: Military Science Press, 2002), 24.

fifteen. Mark Edward Lewis, Sanctioned Violence in Early China (Albany: SUNY Printing, 1990), 23.

16. Ma, Ma Jun Explains Sunzi'southward Art of War, 158. James Legge, trans. The Ch'un Ts'ew with The Tso Chuen (Taipei: SMC Publishing Inc., 2000), 88.

17. Stephen Owen, ed. and trans. An Album of Chinese Literature: Ancestry to 1911 (New York: Norton, 1996), 78.

eighteen. Mair, The Art of War: Sun Zi'south Armed forces Methods, 78-79.

19. Lewis, Sanctioned Violence in Early People's republic of china, 121-133.

20. Fu Chao, Sunzi'due south Art of State of war: A Structural Analysis (Beijing: PLA Printing, 2010), 211.

*Author's Note: Since Sinologists are not entirely sure about the provenance of the text of Sun Tzu (it was compiled several hundred years after Lord's day Tzu's lifetime), concepts and citations are appropriately attributed to "the Sun Tzu."

Commander Metcalf, a retired surface warfare officer and naval cryptologist, is a 1976 graduate of the U. Due south. Naval University (Far Eastern studies). He has graduate degrees in Chinese studies from the Academy of Arizona and the University of Cambridge and is a lecturer in Chinese literature at the University of Virginia.