8 - The Reaction to Griffith’s Sunzi Translation

Summary

The great recognition that Griffith’s translation received outside the sinological community completely shifted the place of Sunzi in the West. The coincidence of Griffith’s credibility as a marine with experience of China, the success of the Chinese Communists under Mao Zedong in the Chinese Civil War, and the more general rise of China as a major, and revolutionary, power, all made the Sunzi important in the West as it had never been before. The Western interpretation of Sunzi started from Griffith and Liddell Hart’s perspective, and was then influenced by the marketing of the work, by its perceived value in military education, and its use as a window into Chinese strategic culture. Griffith and everyone who followed him claimed that as a classic work of Chinese strategy it offered both profound strategic wisdom and insight into Chinese behavior. As a strategic work, a number of military and political leaders in the West called for it to be included into the curricula of military academies and officer training. And, absent any real knowledge of Chinese military history and strategic culture, the Sunzi could be substituted for a fully informed expert.