Some critical thoughts on Kissinger on China

Henry Kissinger suggests that weiqi rather than chess is the appropriate board game for understanding China’s approach to geo-politics. I have outlined what this would imply in two earlier columns of the blog.  Let me now review this proposition, albeit within the context of a short column.

1. Is weiqi more popular than chess in China?  The answer is a categorical no!  Most modern Chinese do not play a lot of weiqi. Chess is a much more popular game among the Chinese population.  This was especially the case regarding Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, two important players, one would think, in recent Chinese history.  For example, in evaluating the Sino-Indian War, Mao  compared the Forward Policy to a strategic advance in Chinese chess, commenting  through the following words:

Their (India’s) continually pushing forward is like crosing the Chu Han boundary.  What should we do?  We can also set out a few pawns, on our side of the river.  If they don’t cross over, that’s great.  If they do cross, we’ll eat them up (a chess metaphor meaning to take the opponent’s pieces).  Of course, we cannot blindly eat them.  Lack of forebearance in small matters upsets great plans.  We must pay attention to the situation.

2. Does China pay specific attention to encirclement?  At least until very recently, leading Chinese politicians have paid little or no attention to the concept at least explicitly. Naturally, China is concerned to protect its borders from outside attack.  This explains its preparation for war with India and with the USSR,  its watchfulness with respect to Japan, and its close scrutiny of any U.S. naval maneuvers in the Strait of Taiwan or in the South China Sea.  It has not manifested any of the imperialism that created the British Empire, that motivated Germany’s Third Reich, that motivated the Empire of Japan, or that motivated the post-WWII United States. The behavior of any of these actual or would-be imperialist powers corresponds more to weiqi than does post-1949 Chinese geopolitics. Chess, not weiqi, has been and still is the predominant Chinese geopolitical game.

3.  Was China an aggressor in the Korean War? Kissinger argues that it was and for weiqi-based reasons.  This is disputable. China was drawn into the Korean War reluctantly under strong pressure from Stalin’s USSR and in response to General Douglas MacArthur’s taunting threats.  China did not throw its entire military effort into that war.  If it had done so, only the use of nuclear weapons by the United States would have prevented a complete victory for the North. China forwent a strategic weiqi move, no doubt for economic reasons. Two years of  costly war to be rewarded by twenty years of political isolation looks more like a chess loss than a weiqi advancement.

4.  Did communist ideology play a role in Chinese geo-politics?  Of course it did.  Mao and Zhou were not playing at politics simply to build a Chinese Empire.  They were true believers who instinctively supported co-believers. So Mao was more likely to support the USSR than the United States, more likely to support North Korea than South Korea, more likely to support North Vietnam than South Vietnam, whatever the weiqi board might signal. Kissinger has no principles other than those of realpolitik.  That does not mean that all other actors on the international stage shared or currently share his amorality.

5.  Should one always put one’s stones on the board?  The essence of weiqi is that each player puts his stones on the board. That surely can be a stupid policy in the geo-political game.  Did Britain always puts its stones on the table, when building its Empire? Of course not!  Use private corporations whenever one can to disguise national purpose. Prop up  ‘independent puppets’ whenever one can so do, so that the full reach of Empire is hidden. These are the historically  successful strategies, at least until a substantive Empire has been set in place.

6. Is the two- person game the only geo-political game in town?  Of course it is not. Coalitions are crucial to the achievement of geo-political success at any time in history. Britain built its Empire on the basis of the balance of powers doctrine. Rome extended citizenship to lure hostile tribes into joining the Roman legions. The United States works wherever it can with coalitions of the willing. Even the USSR pretended to negotiate with its satellites, building coalitions of the unwilling. 

Oddly enough, China alone of the Great Powers tends to rely upon its own resources, rather than those of any allies, to advance its causes. In this respect, China is closer to the two game model than any other major power. But that game, arguably, is chess.

Henry Kissinger: at 88 years of age, it may be time for you finally to hang up your analytical boots! 

 

Tags: China plays chess not weiqi, Henry Kissinger may be incorrect, weiqi not well-suited to geo-politics