(COURTESY OF DAVID GOSSET)

The coexistence of a gigantic bureaucratic state with an overall social plasticity and transformation whose scale has no equivalent in world history is a paradox that puzzles China watchers. Why is China so comfortable with change while Western democracies dangerously lack the capacity to question their assumptions and could be, in the long term, threatened by immobility, inertia and complacency?

As China's renaissance is gradually reshaping the 21st century and taking our global system to another level, the understanding of the nation has become a practical necessity. Instead of continuously trying to lecture in a tone of superiority about what it poorly terms an "emerging market," the West would gain much by putting itself more modestly in a mode where it can accept being inspired by a source of civilization whose renewal, far from being a threat, is contributing to the world's equilibrium. As China's intellectuals endeavor to reconnect with the universal message of their tradition, China's humanistic revival is also the promise of a more harmonious global village.

CHINA EXPERIENCE: Ming Dynasty painter Qian Gu (1508-78) realizes an exquisite masterpiece when, in a mood of ease and poise, he portrayed A Weiqi Game at the Bamboo Pavilion (COURTESY OF DAVID GOSSET)

By the consideration of Weiqi, one of the most significant symbols of Chinese mental geography, one can develop a better understanding of the dynamics at work in politics, business or even in more trivial social interactions. The Weiqi envelops an aesthetic and an intellectual experience that takes us closer to the Chinese psychology, and gives us insights into Chinese strategic thinking but is also, to a certain extent, a way to approach the fundamental patterns of China's collective success. Beyond their affiliation or their ritualistic rigidity, members of the Communist Party of China or the bureaucrat-mandarin are, above all, individuals whose behaviors are determined by an underlying cognitive culture that can explain what, at first glance, seems to be paradoxical.

Zbigniew Brzezinski, former National Security Advisor to U.S. President Jimmy Carter, wrote in The Grand Chessboard in 1997: "Eurasia is the chessboard on which the struggle for global primacy continues to be played." But is Beijing playing chess? On Eurasia and beyond, Chinese strategists are not engaged in a chess game but are probably designing a series of moves congenial with their own understanding of strategy. While Westerners might navigate a world mapped as a chessboard, the Chinese mind circulates on a weiqi board.

An artistic skill

The literary chronicle by Japanese writer Yasunari Kawabata (1899-1972) of an intense intellectual duel, translated in English as The Master of Go, certainly contributed to the popularity of the game in the West, but weiqi is a product of Chinese civilization and spread over time in the educated circles of Northeast Asia. Kawabata, who viewed his book as one of his favorite creations, knew for China the game of "abundant spiritual powers encompassed the principles of nature and the universe of human life" and that the Chinese had named it "the diversion of the immortals."

In imperial China, weiqi had the status of an art whose practice had educational, moral and intellectual purposes. In a Chinese version of the scholastic quadrivium, the Chinese mandarins had to master four arts, known as "qin, qi, shu, hua." It was expected of the gentlemen to be able to play guqin (qin), a seven-stringed zither, write calligraphy (shu) and demonstrate talent at brush painting (hua). The second artistic skill, qi, refers to weiqi, a strategy game played by two individuals who alternately place black and white stones on the vacant intersections of a grid. The winner is the one who can control, after a series of encirclements, more territory than the opponent. One can translate weiqi as "the board game of encirclement" or "the surrounding game." For centuries, players have been fascinated by the contrast between the extreme simplicity of the rules and the almost infinite combinations allowed by their execution.

Traditionally, the game was conceptualized in relation with a vision of the world. In the first part of the 11th century Classic of Weiqi in 13 Sections, the author uses philosophical notions to introduce the game's material objects: the stones "are divided between black and white, on the yin/yang model... The board is a square and tranquil, the pieces are round and active."

The game, "a small Tao," was so popular that it generated obsessive conduct. An addiction to weiqi was considered by the thinker Mencius (372-289 B.C.) as one of five types of unfilial behavior. Through centuries, the game remained an important element of China's society. Ming Dynasty painter Qian Gu (1508-78) painted a masterpiece A Weiqi Game at the Bamboo Pavilion where breeze, water and young maids revolve around the circulations of black and white stones. One of the famous set of 12 screen paintings from the Emperor Yongzheng period (1678-1735) portrays an elegant and refined lady sitting beside a weiqi board. After being criticized during the "cultural revolution" (1966-76), the game is once again fashionable among China's elite. Master Nie Weiping and disciple Gu Li, among the world's top players, are acclaimed celebrities.

The introduction of the Classic of Weiqi says the Tao of weiqi cannot be separated from Sun Tzu's Art of War, a keystone of China's strategic thinking since the Warring States Period (476-221 B.C.). Mao Zedong used the weiqi metaphor in his 1938 essay Problems of Strategy in Guerrilla War Against Japan. In 1969, the American Scott Boorman displayed perceptiveness in using weiqi to interpret Mao's tactical and strategic moves.

In chess or xiangqi (Chinese chess), pieces constrained in movement are on the board when the game begins but the grid is empty at the opening of a weiqi game. During a chess game, one subtracts pieces; in weiqi, one adds stones. In the Classic of Weiqi, the author remarks that "since ancient times, one has never seen two identical weiqi games."

Weiqi axioms

Three golden axioms expressed in the Classic of Weiqi give a stimulating perspective on China's strategic thinking and also on the Chinese mind.

"As the best victory is gained without a fight, so the excellent position is one which does not cause conflict," says the classic. It introduces the concept of non-confrontation. At weiqi, the objective is not to checkmate the opponent—only positions in relation to others matter. Weiqi's innumerable moves aim to increase influence without reducing the opponent's forces to nothing. The ability to manage the paradox of a non-confrontational opposition requires high emotional and intellectual qualities.

The classic says: "At the beginning of the game, the pieces are moved in a regular and orthodox way, but creativity is needed to win the game." At the beginning of the engagement the action is guided by accepted rules, but victory often requires "irregular" decisions or unorthodox resolution, and only visionary intuition leads to breakthrough. The notion that an unimaginative China would be destined to repeat, imitate or perform mechanically is, of course, a misconception which is largely based on part knowledge of the Chinese world but which, despite the admirable research of Joseph Needham (1900-95) in Science and Civilization in China, persists in distorting the debate.

Discontinuity is the very essence of innovation. To a certain extent, Deng Xiaoping's extraordinary concept of "one country, two systems" to engineer Hong Kong's return to China is an application of this. Chinese leaders from Beijing and Taipei will also make full use of it to reinvent relations in coming years. China will not only innovate in technology or in business management, but also enrich the vocabulary of political science. Western political, business or opinion leaders have to be ready to act in a world with material or immaterial products not only "made in China" but "created by China."

The classic mentions a third dimension: "Do not necessarily stick to a plan, change it according to the moment." The concept of change commands adjusting to a situation and bewaring of blind adherence to a preconceived system, doctrine or ideology. Deng's emphasis on the necessity to "seek the truth from the facts" profoundly continues this pattern of strategic thinking. At the diplomatic level, Mao's unexpected rapprochement with Washington in the 1970s was obviously in this spirit.

This minimalism creates understanding, enabling action with maximum effectiveness. Generally non-confrontational, ready for paradigm change and fundamentally non-ideological, China is in a process of renaissance reinventing its tradition but open to the future. In that sense, the analyst should not look for a Chinese "model" because Beijing has only an experience to offer.

In his poem Written in a Dream, polymath and statesman Ouyang Xiu (1007-72) captures the depth and mystery of weiqi:

The weiqi game comes to an end.

One is unaware that in the meantime the world has changed.

(The viewpoints in this article do not necessarily represent those of Beijing Review)

The author is director of the Euro-China Center for International and Business Relations at CEIBS, Shanghai, and founder of the Euro-China Forum