TY  - JOUR
AU  - Jullien, François
JF  - Javnost-The Public
TI  - “To Kill the Horse to Reach the Horseman”: China’s Rhetoric of Obliquity
VL  - 12
IS  - 4
PY  - 2005
SN  - 1854-8377
PB  - EURICOM
UR  - https://javnost-thepublic.org/article/2005/4/3/
N2  - Chinese high tradition of theory concerning military strategy stresses the importance of avoiding direct, frontal attack. “Obliquity” represents the ways and means to deprive one’s opponent of the possibility, even the thought, of confrontation. While it is a process unknown to Ancient Greek, hence Western, military tradition it also explains how Western rhetoric of confrontation of viewpoints and frontal debate is foreign to the Chinese practice of persuasion. Transposed to international relations, obliquity poses a serious challenge as it pitches a philosophy and a practice of persuasive manoeuvring against modes of rhetorical deliberation Western-framed diplomacy deems natural and obvious and, possibly, the only valid ones.
U1  - Print ISSN: 1318-3222
ER  -