"War" And "Harmony" In China's Strategic Culture: Two Strategic Options For "Self-Study" Culture

For a long time,the discussion of Chinese strategic culture is always constrained by the duality of war or peace inclination.How to interpret Chinese strategic culture beyond the inclination toward war or peace is the core question that would be answered in this thesis.Strategic culture could be defined as a lasting stable thinking and behavioral model which exists in the strategic procedure of an entity.The antagonism between two groups of pre-Qin philosophers indicates that two equally systematical and significant strategic logics were born at the birth of Chinese cultural identity.The “War Logic” pursues a military-competing order through accelerating the accumulation and transformation of material resources in terms of power;while the “Peace Logic” pursues a non-attack order through bestowing rights and interests in terms of morality.However,we could find neither of them could suppress the other nor dominate China's strategic procedure.From the evaluation of their stability of functioning,depth in consciousness and degree of socialization,they could only be categorized into strategic options but not culture.By abstracting the consensuses of those two mechanisms,this article turns out Chinese strategic culture to be a systematical “self-revising” culture which is characterized with “balanced accumulation of both power and morality”,“passive reaction” and “corresponding and moderate principles in reaction”.In Chinese history,the grand strategies consistent with this “self-revising” model would to the maximum degree realize national security and economic prosperity;while the ones deflecting or against the “self-revising” model in any key links,which may lead to strategic suspension or overdraft,would be punished by internal disorder.The observation of Western Han Dynasty and Northern Song Dynasty further testifies the causal relationship between “grand strategy's consistency with self-revising model” and “stability and sustainability of internal development”.Moreover,the observation also illustrates the details of “self-revising” model in practice.The “self-revising” culture emerges from the unique geographical and humanistic circumstances of China.All of the geo-political circumstance and agriculture-dominating production,rational tradition repelling religion,and the effects resulting from a huge mass are all determinant in the formation of each key link of the “self-revising” model.In addition,this thesis also interprets the variation of China's grand strategies from the age of Mao Zedong to nowadays and points out the strategic reason for China's successful revolution and peaceful rise is the implementation of “self-revising” model.To rise to a further degree and to contribute new thoughts to the world,China should and could continue to make and implement its grand strategies according to the “self-revising” model.