a*****g
发帖数: 19398 | 1 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-gosset/weiqi-versus-chess_b
Using a universally relevant metaphor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, former National
Security Adviser to US president Jimmy Carter, wrote in The Grand Chessboard
(1997): "Eurasia is the chessboard on which the struggle for global primacy
continues to be played." China's New Silk Road strategy certainly
integrates the importance of Eurasia but it also neutralizes the US pivot to
Asia by enveloping it in a move which is broader both in space and in time:
an approach inspired by the intelligence of Weiqi has outwitted the
calculation of a chess player.
The chronicle by Japanese writer Kawabata Yasunari (1899-1972) of an intense
intellectual duel, translated in English as The Master of Go, contributed
to the popularity of the game in the West, but Weiqi is a product of the
Chinese civilization and spread over time in the educated circles of
Northeast Asia. Kawabata, who viewed the Master as one of his favorite
creations, knew that 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 mandarins had to master four arts, known as qin,
qi, shu and hua. It was expected of the literati to be able to play the
guqin (qin), a seven-stringed zither, but also to write calligraphy (shu)
and demonstrate talent at brush-painting (hua).
The second artistic skill, qi, is a reference 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 his opponent; one can
translate Weiqi (围棋) as "the board game of encirclement" or "the
surrounding game."
For centuries, literati 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 to a vision of the
world. In the early 11th-century Classic of Weiqi in Thirteen Sections,
arguably the most remarkable essay on the topic, the author uses notions of
Chinese philosophy 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." In the Classic of
Weiqi, the famous Book of Changes (Yi Jing), which presents the cosmology of
Chinese antiquity, is quoted several times.
The game, "a small Tao," was so popular that it generated obsessive attitude
. Addiction to Weiqi was considered by the Chinese philosopher Mencius (372-
289BC) one of the five types of unfilial behavior. Through the centuries,
the game remained an important element of the Chinese society. Ming dynasty
painter Qian Gu (1508-1578) realized an exquisite masterpiece when, in a
mood of ease and poise, he portrayed A Weiqi Game at the Bamboo Pavilion,
where the breeze, water and young maidens 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 by a Weiqi board.
As indicated in the introduction of the Classic of Weiqi, the Tao of Weiqi
cannot be separated from Sun Tzu's Art of War, which stands since the
Warring States Period (476-221BC) as the very foundation of China's
strategic thinking. Mao Zedong used the Weiqi metaphor, for example, in his
1938 Problems of Strategy in Guerrilla War against Japan. In 1969, American
mathematical sociologist Scott Boorman displayed genuine perceptiveness by
using Weiqi to interpret Mao's tactical and strategic moves.
While in chess or in Chinese chess (xiangqi) the pieces with a certain
preordained constraint of movement are on the board when the game begins,
the grid is empty at the opening of the Weiqi game. During a chess game, one
subtracts pieces; in Weiqi, one adds stones to the surface of the board. In
the Classic of Weiqi, the author remarks that "since ancient times, one has
never seen two identical Weiqi games."
Three golden axioms expressed in the Classic of Weiqi give a stimulating
perspective on China's strategic thinking but 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 what can be
called the axiom of non-confrontation. In Weiqi, the objective is not to
checkmate the opponent: only positions in relation to others really matter.
The decision to establish the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB)
and the position it occupies vis-à-vis the Bretton Woods financial system
are, in a sense, extensions of Weiqi moves.
Weiqi's innumerable circumambulations aim at increasing influence without
reducing the opponent's forces to nothing. The ability to manage the paradox
of a non-confrontational opposition requires the highest emotional and
intellectual qualities.
The Classic adds: "At the beginning of the game, the pieces are moved in a
regular and orthodox way, but creativity is needed to win the game." What
can be named the axiom of discontinuity is a variation on a postulate that
is central to Sun Tzu's Art of War. 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 a misconception largely based on a partial
knowledge of the Chinese world but which, despite the admirable research of
British sinologist Joseph Needham (1900-1995) in Science and Civilization in
China, persists to distort the debate.
The postulate of discontinuity is the very essence of innovation. To a
certain extent, Deng Xiaoping's extraordinary concept of "one country, two
systems" to handle Hong Kong's retrocession was an application of this
second postulate. Chinese leaders from Beijing and Taipei will also make
full use of the second axiom to reinvent their relations in the coming years
. China will not only innovate in technology or in business management, but
will enrich the vocabulary of political science. Western political, business
and opinion leaders have to be ready to act in a world with material or
immaterial elements 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 axiom of change commands the player
to adjust to the situation and to beware of blind adherence to a
preconceived system, doctrine or ideology. Deng Xiaoping's emphasis on the
necessity to "seek the truth from the facts" profoundly continues this
pattern of Chinese strategic thinking. At the diplomatic level, Mao's
unexpected rapprochement with Washington in the 1970s was in the spirit of
the third postulate.
These minimalist axioms create the cognitive conditions to act with
maximized effectiveness. Generally non-confrontational, ready for paradigm
change and fundamentally non-ideological, China, which has regained
centrality, is increasingly at the source of initiatives shaping the global
agenda.
In Written in a Dream, the polymath and statesman Ouyang Xiu (1007-1072), a
magister ludi, 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." |
|
