Harro von Senger was originally a law student at the University of Zurich. Finding law too dry he decided to try something new in a totally different culture, which turned out to be Chinese. After graduation he obtained a scholarship to study for two years at the Law Department of National Taiwan University.

He enjoyed the campus life of the early 1970s very much. At that time there were not many foreigners on campus, so the students were all very friendly towards him and he recalls the warm embrace given to him by the great family of the Chinese people.

Apart from National Taiwan University, Harro von Senger also studied at the Mandarin Training Center of National Taiwan Normal University, where he began his research into the "Thirty-Six Stratagems."

He recalls: "I had a very good teacher at the Mandarin Training Center, I thought that she knew everything. Once she mentioned the last of the 'Thirty-Six Stratagems' and I asked her what they were. When she couldn't tell me I decided I had to find out." He tried to ask everyone what the "Thirty-Six Stratagems" were, but most people could only name five or six.

In 1977 von Senger bought his first book concerning the "Thirty-Six Stratagems," which became his bible, and when he left Taiwan to study at Tokyo University he continued to collect information about them." What really gave him an insight, however, was when he met an Australian writer at Peking University who had fled there in the 1930s. He lent von Senger a book for socalled "internal" use which was published in the period of Lin Piao and was called A Chinese-English Political, Military and Cultural Dictionary. In that book he found not only the "Thirty-Six Stratagems" but also an analysis of more than forty others. Von Senger was also told to read the People's Daily so that he could see what was involved in the "study of real-life strategy."

In 1976, at the end of the Cultural Revolution, when there were a lot of political struggles and mutual accusations of plotting, von Senger could really see the modern face of the "Thirty-Six Stratagems": "I was thinking that because the mainland is not a country ruled by law but ruled by individuals, there was a large amount of plotting, conspiracy, and struggle." He also wrote a long article called "Using the Thirty-Six Stratagems to Criticize the Gang of Four" for a leading German daily, and in the same year translated the "Thirty-Six Stratagems" into German.

From his point of view, the most popular strategy during the Cultural Revolution was that of "creating something from nothing" (wu chung sheng yu), such as the Gang of Four's faking evidence to try to destroy the old cadres. Then there is "borrowing a knife to murder someone" (chieh tao sha jen) when Mao used the excuse of the Cultural Revolution to consolidate his leading position and disrupt the whole country. Then there was the "Campaign to Criticize Confucius" which was, in fact, aimed at Chou En-lai, and was an example of "pointing at the mulberry to blame the acacia" (chih sang ma huai). When von Senger returned to Switzerland, apart from the "Thirty-Six Stratagems," he had the forty stratagems he had taken from the dictionary and others he collected on his own, making over a hundred in all. He says, "In fact, as soon as I came back, I was planning to write a book about the 'Thirty-Six Stratagems,' but at that time it was still something totally Chinese that had been created in the particular atmosphere of China. Then I had a really good lesson in strategy from my own country which changed my direction and made the book what it has now become, a comparison of Chinese and foreign, ancient and modern."

After six years of studying in the Far East, it was when von Senger returned to Switzerland and for the first time became involved in society and had to be aggressive in furthering his career, which began his new understanding of stratagem. He says: "On the surface, under the influence of Christianity and the rule of law, any kind of stratagem was considered to be the work of devils in Western society, so the study of stratagem was suppressed in Western culture. But in real life, all kinds of stratagem were used all the time, although they were not expounded in theory."

Von Senger found that even the Bible is full of stratagems, such as in the Old Testament story of King David who, after having seen Bathsheba bathing, sent Uriah, her husband, to die in battle--a clear example of "borrowing the knife to murder." Then there is the exact Western example of "hiding a knife behind a smiling face" (shiao li tsang tao) in the case of Judas. Von Senger sees that, "There are many such examples, but the theologians would not point them out." He emphasizes that the use of stratagem is the general experience of mankind and in order to say clarly that all races and nations have used stratagem, apart from the "Thirty-Six Stratagems" and the Bible, his book also draws on the brothers Grimm, African legends, Greek myths, and currently popular management strategy, such as McCormacks's What They Don't Teach You at Harvard Business School. According to the sales figures for Strategeme, it seems that this was certainly a winning strategy for von Senger.

When Strategeme was published, it was about the time of the Tienanmen Massacre. As a professor of sinology, von Senger became the favorite media commentator on what was happening. He thinks the reason that Western observers were all shocked by this massacre was because for more than ten years the Western media had created a very open and reformist image of Teng Hsiao-p'ing. He believes that the way the Western media report on China is still in the tradition of seventeenth-century Jesuit sinology -- which means that so long as they see anything that happens in mainland China that can feed the Western imagination, they report it. Anything else they only look at but do not see, and listen but do not hear. For some so-called "China watchers," their one-sided love affair with Teng Hsiao-p'ing was as naive as that of the 1960s with Mao and the Cultural Revolution.

He points out that for over ten years a lot of "China watchers" who do not even know a single Chinese character but can only see the surface have been confused by such things as Western companies being able to invest in China, priests distributing Bibles, and the peasants being given their own land, and see them as proof of Teng's reforms. In fact, Teng Hsiao-p'ing's words and behavior are not any different from the structure and way of thought of the Mao era: between 1978 and 1979 Teng suppressed the Peking Spring, and then between 1986 and 1987 the student movement, and now there is the Tienanmen massacre. Throughout all of this Teng has never changed. Von Senger calls this strategy "killing a thousand to warn a billion."

Trying to understand the Chinese study of strategy and the Legalist tradition is von Senger's way of understanding mainland affairs. He emphasizes that as long as the Western media fail to withdraw from their Eurocentrism and always wear tinted spectacles, they will always have to worry about them being broken.

[Picture Caption]

Professor Harro von Senger used a Chinese viewpoint in looking at a common trait of mankind--cunning--in his fascinating book Strategeme.

Professor von Senger is a refined and amiable gentleman who would hardly seem an expert in craft and cunning.

Two of the traditional Thirty-Six Stratagems: "The Best Policy is to Run Away" and "The Counter-Spy." (cartoon courtesy of Han Hsin Cultural Co.)

Strategeme examines plots and schemes in Sun Tzu's The Art of War, the " Thirty-Six Stratagems," the Bible, and fairy stories.

King David used the strategy of "murdering someone with a borrowed knife" in sending Uriah to his death to take his wife. A similar tactic was adopted by the brave little tailor in the Grimm fairy tale. (cartoons by Hung I-nan)

Shuttling between Germany and Switzerland, Professor von Senger is a busy man. Making an appointment with him often involves arranging a time half a year in advance.

China's ancient books of military strategy are precious treasures that, if studied thoroughly, can enable the student to analyze the causes and possible results of a situation in change.

Professor von Senger is a refined and amiable gentleman who would hardly seem an expert in craft and cunning.

Two of the traditional Thirty-Six Stratagems: "The Best Policy is to Run Away" and "The Counter-Spy." （cartoon courtesy of Han Hsin Cultural Co.）

Strategeme examines plots and schemes in Sun Tzu's The Art of War, the " Thirty-Six Stratagems," the Bible, and fairy stories.

King David used the strategy of "murdering someone with a borrowed knife" in sending Uriah to his death to take his wife. A similar tactic was adopted by the brave little tailor in the Grimm fairy tale. （cartoons by Hung I-nan）

Shuttling between Germany and Switzerland, Professor von Senger is a busy man. Making an appointment with him often involves arranging a time half a year in advance.

China's ancient books of military strategy are precious treasures that, if studied thoroughly, can enable the student to analyze the causes and possible results of a situation in change.