Discourses on Salt and Iron and China's Ancient Strategic Culture

Abstract

‘A generation ago, the predominant view among analysts of China was that Chinese leaders in the early 1900s had only a rather limited and confining repertoire of strategic thought available to them. … But perhaps most important, recent scholarship has discovered that traditional Chinese strategic thought was a good deal more sophisticated and varied than earlier interpretation allowed. … As more recent writings have stressed, Confucianism was hardly a monolithic system of thought, and when Legalist and Daoist thought were added to the mix, Chinese intellectual traditions were rich, diverse, and wide-ranging.’1 ‘There has been a surge of interest since the second half of the 20th century, especially in the 1990s, among Chinese and foreign scholars in China's strategic culture. One important reason is China's gradual growth from a regional great power to international super power, and the question of whether or not China's rise presents a threat to world peace. It is a topic that draws much attention, one that people look to China's strategic cultural traditions to answer [the questions] … What was pre-modern China's basic strategic culture? How was this strategic culture formulated? What influence did this strategic culture exert on China's strategic behaviour?’2