@article{8b8c2ca027c7495da8b8943605450106,
title = "Warfare ethics in Sunzi's art of war? Historical controversies and contemporary perspectives",
abstract = "Contemporary English and Chinese scholars alike have interpreted Sunzi's Art of War as advocating amoralism in warfare. That charge has a long history in pre-modern China and has not been fully refuted. This essay argues that the alleged amoral Machiavellianism is more appropriate for ancient Qin military thought than for Sunzi. The third chapter of Sunzi's treatise contains a distinctive moral perspective that cannot be found in the military thought of the state of Qin, which succeeded in defeating all other states in the Period of the Warring States. Such a moral perspective contains both ad bellum and in bello norms. I submit that my interpretation of Sunzi's warfare ethics can provide an important resource for the People's Liberation Army of China to construct full-scale just war ethics that is similar to Western understandings.",
keywords = "amoral realism, Art of War, Clausewitz, Henry Sidgwick, last resort, Machiavellianism, Michael I. Handel, Michael Walzer, People's Liberation Army (PLA), proportionality, Shang Yang, Sunzi (Sun Tzu)",
author = "Lo, {Ping cheung}",
note = "Funding Information: An example of a {\textquoteleft}crypto-pacifist{\textquoteright} interpretation of this passage appears in the translator{\textquoteright}s notes in one recent English translation: {\textquoteleft}This is, of course, an idealistic desideratum. In an actual war setting, where one is under attack by an aggressive enemy, such an approach to war would be both simplistic and impractical, as well as potentially fatal. In this regard, the defensive strategies described elsewhere in the Sun Zi must be considered of greater practicality and effectiveness than the suggestion that not fighting at all is the best policy{\textquoteright} (Mair 2007: 142). According to James Turner Johnson, this ius in bello requirement emerges quite late even in the Western just war tradition, and its emergence is largely to the credit of Paul Ramsey (Johnson 2005: 19). Sawyer{\textquoteright}s interpretation of this passage is correct in his {\textquoteleft}Introduction{\textquoteright}: {\textquoteleft}Even when exercising this option [armed combat], every military campaign should focus on achieving maximum results with minimum risk and exposure, limiting as far as possible the destruction that is inflicted and suffered, fighting with the aim of preservation{\textquoteright} (Sawyer, 1994: 129). Li Ling also correctly points out that Sunzi is more interested in victory than in killing, and that {\textquoteleft}preservation{\textquoteright} is a paramount goal (Li 2010a: 45, 2010b: 163). Hence it seems correct to me that Sunzi is more interested in maneuver warfare than warfare of annihilation and of attrition. Hart{\textquoteright}s stress on the difference between Clausewitz and Sunzi has both been disputed (Johnston 1999: 23, Handel 2001) and re-affirmed (Waldron 2007). More in-depth study is still needed, as virtually all Western interpretations of Sunzi are not adequately informed by commentaries of eminent exegetes in the long history of interpretation of this text in Chinese. A knowledgeable strategy scholar in Taiwan concludes that there are more overall parallels between Sunzi and Clausewitz than differences, though Clausewitz{\textquoteright}s stress on destruction and annihilation is clearly distinctive. Clausewitz realizes this mistake too late to incorporate it into his On War (Niu 2007: 215–27). It has been observed that Sunzi{\textquoteright}s strategic thinking is reflected in the game of wei qi (go), which resembles maneuver warfare and has remarkable differences from the game of chess, which resembles attrition warfare (Lai 2004). Quite a number of historical examples were cited in the Eleven School of Glosses (Yang 1999: 45–7). Hence P.J. Ivanhoe is correct to say that {\textquoteleft}Sunzi never glorifies war or revels even in the prospect of victory, and he is poignantly aware of how harmful war is to the welfare of states and the people within them{\textquoteright} (Ivanhoe 2011: xv). The Chinese Communist Party came into power as a result of initiating a violent revolution which turned into a civil war in the 1930s and 1940s. Gu and his team work in the Chinese PLA Nanjing Academy of Politics, which is one of the major think tanks of the PLA and an academic institution for senior PLA officers. {\textquoteleft}Since China has long been oppressed – enduring more than a century of humiliation – it follows that any war China wages is a just one, even a war in which China strikes first{\textquoteright} (Scobell 2003: 34). This statement by a China-watch scholar is confirmed by the words of a senior PLA strategist, who proclaims that all wars that China might have to fight in the future will be forced upon her, for example, when territorial integrity, sea border rights, and national unification are under serious threat. Such wars will be just and defensive wars, and will be fought with no other choice (Peng 2009: 209). This research is supported by the General Research Fund (GRF), Research Grant Council of Hong Kong 2011–12 (Project Number 246311).",
year = "2012",
month = aug,
doi = "10.1080/15027570.2012.708179",
language = "English",
volume = "11",
pages = "114--135",
journal = "Journal of Military Ethics",
issn = "1502-7570",
publisher = "Routledge",
number = "2",
}