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The Word for WarQ: I have been told that the Chinese word for war
is composed of two elements meaning "stop arms," so China as a culture is naturally peaceful. True?
A: False. Once and for all, any argument which rests on the analysis of a Chinese character, as this one does, is garbage.
You might as well say that the German word for war (Krieg) starts with a K, and so does Kein ("none"), so the Germans have an inner resistance to war. Nobody of adult capacity argues this way. To understand a culture, you have to see how it behaves. Chinese governmental behavior over the last few thousand years has been constantly warlike, and Chinese literature includes some of the world's oldest military manuals, starting with the Sundz "Art of War" and continuing with a long tradition of military expertise. See also the separate page on the question of China's Strategic Culture.
The idea that Chinese culture can be explained by its writing system, and that characters in that writing system can be analyzed in the folklike way shown above, is very prevalent. It is part of what the West likes to believe about China: a quaint country, where everything is the opposite of what we are used to. Not probable, and in fact not true. People should keep their common sense about them, in order to appreciate the differences properly, and to appreciate no less properly the similarities, the universal elements. And to catch the liars at their trade. In all of this, there are no one-word shortcuts.
Sorry. It was more fun the other way. But our job is to tell it like it is.
14 Mar 2004 / Contact The Project / Exit to Implications Page
