Zoh: Welcome to the Zoh Show. I'm Zoh Hieronimus broadcasting nationwide with the Liberty Works Radio Network. If you're interested in NATO's tragic technobarbarism, the actual tally of the two thousand some civilian war dead under what conditions or what Bill Clinton knew when and where, or how there might be evidence of alchemy of long ago, do keep listening to the Zoh Show. We'll be covering that on a later portion of the program.

With the issue of Chinese espionage in front stage of American current events, it's an appropriate time to examine the actual issue of Chinese spying, it's long standing art as a very integral part of Chinese military tradition and strategy. To do that for us - is the world's authority on the subject in the English speaking world, his name is Ralph D. Sawyer.

As Sawyer states in the introduction of his massive almost 600 page book, Tao of Spycraft, he focuses on the history and development of both overt intelligence theory and covert practices in China. Rightly pointing out that the PRC has deployed thousands of agents worldwide following an ancient protocol that has been tested not for decades but centuries and centuries.

In his work, Ralph Sawyer focuses not on intelligence gathering within China, as applies to the State's power, but rather his very precise historical detailing and footnoting is an attempt to understand the very long standing practice and it's execution by examining in part, three aspects of the theory of agents, evaluating men and configurations of terrain, looking as have the Chinese since 1350 BC, one gets a sense of the way in which this work has swept across the centuries of Chinese life unto this very day starting back with the Art of War, one will never quite think of Johnnie Chung, John Wong, or Charlie Tree, as mere conduits for the PLA, but rather, its simply some of those exposed for their participation in what is now and always has been a major cornerstone for Chinese military intelligence gathering and operations initiatives. We are joined now by the author of this book who heard not a single word of my introduction and that's a loss for all of us, but none the less, his book The Tao of Spycraft. Let us welcome to The Zoh Show Ralph D. Sawyer. Welcome to the Zoh Show, Ralph.

Ralph: Thank you very much. It's a privilege and a pleasure.

Zoh: Thank you. Look, there's no way I could read all of this in one sitting, but I did have a chance to go through just about all 600 pages. So, why don't we do something for our audience, the art of Chinese spying, as though none of us had ever heard of China nor knew anything about spying. Because I think your book puts it in the proper perspective that our own military seems to overlook. What is the relationship between the Tao of Spycraft in China, in a big picture and then we'll break it down into the several thousand years of history you examine?

Ralph: Okay, well, basically the word Tao comes from a Chinese character meaning road or way. And I used that as the title because the methods of Spycraft do in fact comprise a system of knowledge just like the Tao of cooking or as a popular book put it, the Tao of Pooh. This has been part of China's thrust for 2500 years to gain intelligence of their enemy and therefore it's very appropriate to the contemporary times because they're not doing anything they haven't done and yet we seem to be surprised.

Zoh: Well, take a look for a moment for our audience, the history of spying. You make it very clear it was canonized, so to speak, so long ago and the art of war is indeed taught as such. Share with us some of those origins.

Ralph: Well, basically the Warring States period and before that the Spring and Autumn, these are periods dating from about 600 BC to 300 BC in China, more or less, was a period of great strife and turmoil in China. It was also it's formative intellectual period. And at that time, from military experience, people began to try to discern the laws of warfare, the basic tactical principles. The famous progenitor of many of these, known in the west as Sun-tzu, wrote down some of these thoughts in very brief form - they didn't have paper then, they were writing on bamboo strips, so it's kind of a notebook rather than an exposition.

He wrote down his basic concepts about 500 BC and one of the chapters in the 13 chapters addresses a question of military intelligence and spies in particular. And its the first, really, manual of spies that we know of in the world. He identifies five types of spies and gives two justifications for using spies. The first one is economics because warfare is very expensive. And of course, the state of the nation depends on it.

Then the second one is humanitarian or moral, that it would be inhumane or immoral to send your troops out or to endanger the nation without having gained all the evidence and information you possibly could.

This begins the tradition in China. The military writings start in about 500 BC and they're kind of continuous up until the present time. They are added to and they are revised. So, Sun-tzu concept of five agents eventually becomes thirty-two agents, and it's added, and some people disagree with him, and they have other methods, but it is a continuous tradition.

Now, someone might say, hey, this is traditional China, it's irrelevant to modern China. And three decades ago I would have agreed, absolutely. But in the last decade the PRC government and the think tanks have been looking very carefully at traditional military doctrine, and spycraft, and reanalyzing not only the lessons of history, but to discover a Chinese way of doing things.

It's my opinion, and not just my opinion, other people share this idea, that the Chinese are trying to develop expertise in "Chinese" warfare. That is, not to be second best in western warfare, but to be best in unexpected maneuver -- Chinese -- warfare. And that means that all the things that were irrelevant twenty or thirty years ago that the communist tried to get rid of, suddenly have great relevance and are being reexamined.

Moreover, the popular culture throughout history has always emphasized courage and martial values and tales of intrigue and daring, and now we have in China, comic book editions of say, Sun-tzu Art of War, which are selling in the millions. Movies and TV serialize dramas about swordsmen and such.

Newspapers, they're all filled with these kinds of stories that are part of the military tradition and part of the spycraft tradition. So, it affects the mind set. And thus the history is alive and current today probably in ways it hasn't been for fifty years.

Zoh: Which is the part that interests me so much. And with the growing movement of the remnants of the Shaolin priesthood, some doing dark arts and most not, who are also practitioners of Ch'i-kung (qigong) there's an interesting aspect to - as you point out in your book The Tao of Spycraft, the relationship of prognostication, telepathy, remote viewing and some of the greatest psychics on the planet are Chinese.

When we return what I'd like to do is take a look at that, sort of this whole notion of how the Tao and Taoist theory impacts the execution of the military as well, Ralph, as the role culturally of the military hero system. If you're just joining the Zoh Show, Ralph D. Sawyer is our guest. His book an extraordinary historical analysis entitled The Tao of Spycraft, Intelligence Theory and Practice in Traditional China. We'll be back to you after this.

COMMERCIAL BREAK

Zoh: Welcome to the Zoh Show. I'm Zoh Hieronimus broadcasting nationwide with the Liberty Works Radio Network. Our guest is one of the world class historians in the English speaking language, probably the eminent one, Ralph D. Sawyer. His beat and his book The Tao of Spycraft, Intelligence Theory and Practice in Traditional China.

I think one of the things, Ralph, that the mainstream media and even our military intelligence, the analysts, our congress, and sort of our culture in general, does not appreciate about the Chinese is their recognition that all things have their season and their ability to look at the long haul rather than the short run and the use of force. Would you address for a moment the role of the Tao and what Taoist philosophy is and how it impacts their utilization of military and spying?

Ralph: Well, basically the concept of Tao is related to their naturalistic understanding of the universe. It's kind of the flux, the seasonality, the way the sun and the moon rise and set, the days are longer and shorter. They see basic patterns in the universe and in fact their medicine is based upon this. You undertake medical treatments as appropriate -- not just, you know, brute attack methods. You have to be at the right point.

So, they have a kind of view of harmony that you want to attain. And in fact, divination, Chinese divination, I Ching and several other systems which are not well known in the west, are primarily designed to put you into harmony and to allow you to accord with the flux of events so that you're not butting your head against the flow of boulders coming against you or you're not out in the stream treading water going nowhere. If the flux is against you then you have to figure out a way to flow with it and still utilize it.

Therefore, the Chinese have had a kind of sense that things will turn about and there is a saying that you can just fold your hands and wait, events will unfold, and we can hope in the U.S. that they're going to take that attitude as regards to military activities so that we're not going to have to confront them in immediate or even distant future. Certainly the flux of events very much favors the PRC at this time. Everybody wants to go there and sell them a bottle of Coke or a Widget or a pair of shoes because its such a huge market. The lure is overwhelming and if they're just patient and they don't do anything precipitous, they will find that everything comes to them and they could probably be the pre eminent power in the world in two decades, let's say. So, there is that kind of view.

At the same time when you look in history you do find that pigheads and hotheads will go out and start military activities on the wrong days of the month, the wrong days of the week, or you know, any other reason, in the middle of a snow storm when they shouldn't. So, the theory is wonderful. The practice is not always in coherence with the theory.

Zoh: Returning to the theme of cultures and their hero system, how does spying play into the regard they give to those that are competent and their use of threat of death penalty if they violate that trust.

Ralph: Well, the interesting thing about China is that its always been portrayed as de-emphasizing anything to do with martial values and that the civilian government prevails, that the military figures were sort of tolerated when necessary but basically disesteemed and despised.

And spycraft, of course, was even worse. And I recall that when the first translation of Sun-tzu Art of War came to the west, I think in 1805 in France, everybody was horrified because here was someone who was advocating spycraft and deceptive practices in warfare. In other words, being clever in using intelligence rather than just using strength and head butting.

Now, the Chinese approach is very much in this direction, but the popular culture -- which is not represented in the historical writings which were done by the literate people and by the people who participated in bureaucracy and had a stake in that class -- the popular culture has always admired strength and courage, and admired sort of the rogue warrior who was able to thumb his nose at authority and maintain his values. And cleverness in tactics; I mean one of the gods is the god of war who was a famous general from the Three Kingdom period.

So, consequently martial values - we think of Kung-fu, has been passed down for century after century. These kind of practices are the practices of the people and they are at odds with the picture that we have been given for the last 30 or 40 years here in the west. This doesn't mean that they necessarily are violence prone, although you do see terrible excesses when they do go to war, casualty rates are very high in the so-called religious revolts, millenarian battles dynastic overturnings, and of course the cultural revolution which sadly took millions of lives just a decade or so ago.

They will go to great excesses and there is a propensity to violence in that sort of group context. But the ideal is courage controlled in the service of the Tao and in the service of righteousness and humanity. That's the ideal.

Zoh: And there are other things that I found so compelling in terms of better understanding why they're so successful at this point, particularly against this administration. And one of the comments you make throughout the six hundred-some page book - and if you're just joining us, I'm Zoh Hieronimus. Author Ralph D. Sawyer, a world renowned historian on Chinese military and other Chinese related matters, an absolute master at dissecting the primary documents in their original language and writings.

Ralph's book is entitled The Tao of Spycraft, Intelligence Theory and Practice in Traditional China. Before we get too far, is the Westview Press book available at local bookstores or is there a phone number people can call?

Ralph: Well, one would hope it would be at the local bookstores so then more than one person would see it, but of course they're not. This is a little bit heavy book, it's full of tales of spies and intrigue and history so there's a lot of fun to it. But the 800 number at Westview 386-5656 will get you a copy, or of course, the online book sellers.

Zoh: So, it's 1-800-386-5656.

Ralph: Yep, lots of sixes.

Zoh: And folks, this is one of these that you add to your library and you can trust it because its well footnoted, excellent bibliography, and based on the primary documents, which as you all know of my show if you're regular listeners, I prefer that kind of analysis because its not just theory backed up by a bunch of opinions, but its theory based on an analysis of the primary documents that in this case have served the Chinese community and their military apparatus for centuries.

Anyway returning to one of the things I noticed in your comments is the role of virtue in the leader, that if the leader does not have virtue, the military will not prevail and we see that complete decay of our own military preparedness, just the whole way in which the role of order and decorum and law no longer applies to our military because of our commander. Explain from the Chinese vantage point why that is so essential.

Ralph: Well, Sun-tzu first elaborated this doctrine in 500 BC. It's part of the first chapter in his famous book. He said that if the people aren't in accord with the ruler then efforts of war or any other national effort cannot be sustained. Moreover, common belief, although not always the practice, was that any leader had to be virtuous, had to be ethical and morally responsible so he could be admired. Because then people would be ashamed not to follow him, not to emulate his example. And that's how you get the whole society to move forward.

That's a basic doctrine that comes from Confucius and Confucianism, that you have to have models to emulate and therefore your society can become cohesive and make an effort to put the good of society as a whole in the forefront. Now, I sometimes have the privilege of working with our U.S. Military personnel or going to the Pentagon or the CIA and it's very disheartening to see the change over the last 6 and 8 years, from people who have given their lives to their careers, who are very hard working -- and most people are working 10 or 12 hours -- are well educated -- they pursue careers of excellence where they are constantly developing their knowledge -- and yet they just feel that under the current administration the military is sort of not even second rate or third rate. I mean, it's just a forgotten entity. It's something to be kicked around.

Zoh: Yeah, to be exploited for his own political and personal fortunes.

Ralph: I won't go so far as to say that, but certainly military values are being eroded in every direction. The basic ethical points of courage and loyalty and being willing to act selflessly, these things in our contemporary context are of course derided. You're a fool if you put something, anything besides yourself first. That's just the way it is. Obviously the operations we're now involved in in Kosovo are depleting our military force and our readiness and some people probably know that, for example, the Navy and the Air Force are having very difficult problems retaining pilots. Our retention rate is something like 20 or 30% even though they're offering bonuses of 60 or 80 thousand dollars.

Those people just don't want those extended deployments for which they see no purpose.

Zoh: And there are also many who recognize it's an illegal act of technobarbarism. There's nothing lawful about what NATO is doing. And for some, that's a reason not to participate.

Ralph: As the other Chinese military writings tend to point out, there are different types of warfare. There's the warfare that's fought for righteous and humane purposes, which is the surface justification for this, but beneath the surface it seems like an incredibly stupid exercise. It's debilitating the United States to no advantage that we can see and moreover, it's raising very interesting questions with the PRC, which naturally is going to oppose this despite their long standing friendship with the Albanians.

The Albanians were the only friends they had during Mao Tse-tung regime in the bamboo curtain. Because other people are quick to point out - Tibet -- the case of Tibet and mass slaughter, racial genocide, not just the people, but the whole destruction of a culture -- is not just a similar case, but cries out much more for intervention. If you're going to intervene in Kosovo, shouldn't you be intervening in Tibet, and if you're intervening in Tibet, what does that mean? Does that mean you're going to bomb Beijing?

Zoh: Right, and as their recent threats say about telling us to back off protecting Taiwan, their comment is we've watched you in Bosnia, we've watched you in Haiti and we've watched you in Yugoslavia and you, referring to the United States, don't have the courage, don't have the will, don't have the might, so, what are we going to do? Are we really going to sit down and listen to you? No, they said, in a very clear remark to our State Department, they said, sure, right. Tell me you care more about Taiwan or Taipei than you do L.A.

So, their point was we're equal Steven now, folks. Thank you Bill Clinton, thank you Jack Stevens, thank you Swarto, Marcto, and James Riotti, thanks DNC, thanks RNC - anyway, it's an extraordinarily despicable reality that we need to deal with.

When we return, more with Ralph D. Sawyer. If you have questions about his extraordinarily significant book The Tao of Spycraft, don't forget you can order it yourself by simply calling 1-800-386-5656.

COMMERCIAL BREAK

Zoh: Welcome to the Zoh Show. I'm Zoh Hieronimus broadcasting nationwide with the Liberty Works Radio Network. His book is an extraordinary really important contribution in understanding where China is today by understanding it's great and long many century-fold art of spying. His book The Tao of Spycraft. Sawyer is an international consultant with long experience in Asia. He's the translator of the definitive English versions of the great Chinese military writings, The Complete Art of War and a lot of others.

If I try to do these Chinese names I'll be laughed out of town. So, we'll leave that alone.

Ralph, coming back to some of the other things you comment on that really show the contrast between our culture, the military, the Chinese culture and the Chinese military; is their emphasis on raising, quote, the worthy and employing the talented? In our culture today, we tend to demean the worthy and praise the faulty.

Ralph: It certainly seems that way. I know right now in the military, one of the problems we have in America is that administrators are being advanced and those people who might be good commanders, who are risk takers, and of course, they'll make some errors along the way, who are more naturally oriented to being warriors, to actually fighting the war, find their careers stymied and themselves being forced out because they don't get posted up to a higher position. This is an issue that's much discussed in the military magazines and which are quite open, this is not something I personally know of, but just from those discussions.

So, I think that's true. Certainly though, China, under the PRC is kind of a funny animal, to put it mildly. You have Marxist Leninist thought. You have cliques, you have people who are very talented. You have political influence, then you have the military with it's sort of area of expertise and influence carved out.

So, you have all these people contending and to the extent that you do have these influences, I think expertise and quality hasn't risen to the top. Many good people have therefore left the country which is much to the advantage of the United States and other nations of the world. But the theory is there and they have been trying to combat corruption and nepotism and everything else in the last six months to a year, and they are reemphasizing that qualifications and ability should be recognized and should be promoted and certainly, this is in contrast to say, 20 years ago when under the communist regime, nothing that stood out should be promoted, nothing should be emphasized. You wanted to have a kind of, selfless equality.

Zoh: Yeah, homogenized look about everything so that the state is always given precedent over the individual. But you also write about some other things that I just find, you know, the American media tends either not to mention it at all or to give short strip to, and one of them is from a Chinese military perspective, the pivotal role of using women in Chinese spying operations - and I should add, wine and drugs and other narcotics.

Ralph: Well, absolutely. But, of course, it's not just a Chinese tradition. The Russians Swallows as they call them entangle people and get information. The basic ways that you gain information and get cooperation are money, sex, or barring those two, coercion, and in a male dominated world, the use of attractive female associates proves to be very very effective. It makes men very pliant. Even today, in 30 years of being in business in the Far East, I can't tell you how many times I went into meetings representing or in association with Fortune 500 companies from the U.S. whose high ranking executive had flown out the day before, come in suffering from jet lag, didn't go to bed as we told him to, went downstairs in the hotel bar, picked up some attractive young woman or in the case of a woman, picked up some attractive young guy and spent the night with them and the next morning when we went to the meeting, every document they had in their briefcase was already photocopied or xeroxed and in the hands of the adversary.

So, people tend to succumb to these temptations of money or pleasure or suddenly finding themselves the center of adulation. Someone over here goes to China and he has three girls sitting beside him and he's just never had this experience, so he quickly loses any consciousness of basic virtues that he might have had, and all kinds of secrets then disappear, particularly when you are drinking some good wine or some good liquor. So, in the overseas setting, this is very much true. The Koreans and the Japanese, of course, have done this for centuries. The Chinese have caused countries, that is, within their own national borders, states were about the size of a country in antiquity – to fall because of this.

The famous Confucius lost his position as Prime Minister because the other states sent some very attractive dancing girls to the ruler and Confucius was so unhappy that the ruler was spending his time watching the dancing girls instead of developing virtue and implementing good government policy that he left the state.

Things like this are very easy to do and of course, within the context of the United States, more difficult, but we do have a kind of schizophrenic approach to sex in this country. You have topless clubs and this and that and we have the puritanical response on the other side and in between you can trap very many unsuspecting young men or women and thereby compromise them.

And the point here is if you can't get the information directly, you can compromise people and blackmail them thereafter and that's even more effective.

Zoh: Well, exactly. You also write about the pivotal role from a military perspective in China and its very much a recognized and acceptable form of military strategy - the pivotal role of assassination - would you talk about that for a moment?

Ralph: Well, historically assassination was used to eliminate -- not necessarily rulers, I mean, not necessarily a Hitler, but to assassinate the key advisors or other people who were setting up policy that might prove inimical. And assassins in China are very much admired. The CIA in our country in this century has made some assassination attempts but have bungled most of them and by and large it's not an acceptable practice within our country.

The Russians were very good at it, as we well know. They developed the wonderful umbrella weapon which, if they passed you by, they injected you with a little seed of, I think, ricin, which is a deadly poison that you were gone in 40 seconds and undetectable.

Zoh: There were a lot of other things that I found really significant given the return of the popular to their ancient writings and the Taoist tradition which continues to this day in the general population whether in the military or not. And one of them deals with one of the nine terrains or what is casually referred to as the yin and yang of heaven which pervade military thinking, their calculations - how would you suggest this old doctrine of nine terrains plays into what - I read their quadrennial review of how they plan on directing their military in the 21st century and it's very clear space ascendancy and dominance is their plan of action.

How does that play into the star wars of tomorrow put against the backdrop and training for centuries of the nine terrains?

Ralph: Well, the Chinese have always emphasized the value of terrain in warfare. In the west terrain has not been so significant. In the civil war people tried to get good ground, as they called it. The modern American military with the hummers and the various forms of air calvary and the helicopters and such tend to sort of, totally ignore terrain, although I have to tell you if you're walking up a 3% grade with a heavy pack on a hot day like today, you remember what terrain is very quickly.

Or if you have to come to a stream and you have to ford this stream and oh, hey, you know, terrain is significant. But in military planning, the strategy today has almost been forgotten. But for the Chinese, they tend to conceptualize space, in terms of the cardinal directions and in circles of influence. And one of the ways they understood the world was they were in the center and as you went further and further out the world became more and more barbarian and less civilized and therefore the methods that you use against those people would be less cultured and less civilized.

If you tried to bribe them, if you tried to subvert them, you could use military force against them. Now, the addition of space just gives you another dimension - and I see the music is playing so I'll take a break.

Zoh: (laughter) And you're one of the few who can see music. I'm Zoh Hieronimus. Ralph Sawyer is our guest. When we return, your questions. If you'd like to join us now is the time at 1-888-999-1787, 1-800-922-6680.

COMMERCIAL BREAK

Zoh: Welcome to the Zoh Show. I'm Zoh Hieronimus. On line with us is world class historian, probably one of the finest of the historians in the American English speaking world, his name is Ralph D. Sawyer. His extraordinary contribution to the field of intelligence and understanding the Chinese and their military history legacy training, it's entitled The Tao of Spycraft, Intelligence, Theory and Practice in Traditional China. It is a Westview 1998 press release. You can call 1-800-386-5656.

You know there are so many things, Ralph, in your book that literally we could talk about for hours and hours and still not even get beyond the very surface of your penetration of the subject. But I did want to ask you sort of a general question how would you contrast the Chinese military world view and their approach to using the military against the western world, particularly America today, our use of the military and our- the way we view intelligence and theory?

Ralph: This relates to the last question you asked, which was an excellent question and I'd like to just finish with a comment there.

Zoh: All right.

Ralph: And that is from the Chinese perspective, speaking about the realms and space, space is the new realm.

Zoh: Yeah, and it is very clear folks, if you read their quadrennial review, which I have done in the English language anyway, they plan to dominate space, that's the goal.

Ralph: Absolutely. They can really only threaten us or confront us in space at the present time and the foreseeable future. And this has become a very much closer reality than it was a decade ago. They stole miniaturization technology for nuclear warheads and also they were reportedly provided with reentry vehicle information by Loral and Hughes and positioning information.

This is very frightening in the general sense because it now gives them the ability to blackmail us with nuclear weapons. Particularly because they have a number of diesel submarines - four right now and approximately fifteen more on order - all from Russia. These are very quiet submarines, very difficult to detect and they will now be able to mount them with cruise missiles with small nuclear warheads and run them up off the coasts of the United States.

And as some people do not know, and I made this point earlier today, that the sonar and the underwater sensing systems that were installed in Atlantic and Pacific Oceans at the cost of billions of dollars to detect Russian submarines are now deteriorating very rapidly because, quote, the cold war is over, end of quote, and therefore we don't need to be concerned with threats.

Well, here comes a new threat. Now, China's basic doctrine militarily has been, historically, to make alliances with people who are distant and attack people who are close. So, it's in their best interest to continue alliance with us and not disturb the economic engine.

At the same time they're going to try to gather all the intelligence and information they possibly can as they try to move from the 19th century army to a contemporary army. Now, to do this they're going to use the Chinese approach to warfare and they're going to integrate hi-tech weapons, but they don't need to match us weapon for weapon. They don't have to have every weapon we have. They merely need to know, for example: how to defeat our space weapons.

So, we rely for our intelligence on China and PRC on a system of satellites, downlooking radar and so on and so forth. The PRC has developed laser guns that are apparently capable of blinding the sensors on these satellites. They don't have to shoot down the satellite. People say, ah, they can't shoot them now. No no no, all you have to do is overwhelm the sensors so that they can no longer determine what's happening on the ground in China. And the Chinese are going to basically use this approach to find a way to balk our weapons.

And of course, we make it easy for them to do because our military publications openly discuss the shortcomings of new technology. So, that's one aspect of it. They probably don't want to confront us directly for at least a decade or two. At the same time they want self respect. So, therefore where are we likely to have confrontation?

I would say over the Sprateley Islands because the oil reserves there are very great, although unproven. And they're claimed by Philippines and Viet Nam - two countries that have nothing to particularly sustain them militarily against China.

The PRC could roll up the Philippines over night. Viet Nam is a different issue and it would be one of the great ironies of the century if China goes to war with Viet Nam again and asks President Clinton for troops to support them.

Anyway that's where there is a basic clash because that would be part of their doctrine of being in close. Their net import is in oil right now. They'll probably need a million barrels a day by the end of the millennium, which is only, you know, 200 days away. So, we're going to be conflicting with them for scarce resources in the next decade. And on local scenes, and of course there's the Taiwan issue as well.

Zoh: There are some other things that I think at least we should touch on and I don't know to what degree you want to elucidate them, but on page 523 when you were writing about the four disharmonies, I thought it very applicable in understanding how respectful they are about the integration about the collective. And granted, they're a communist country and people don't have freedom of choice, but they also recognize something that our culture does not - that you can't always do what you want - there are some things of necessity that abide by permanent law.
Would you address that?

Ralph: Well, just basically Chinese society was founded on Confucianism to a large extent, although some of these values are being eroded. Also Singapore and Southeast Asia and so forth believe that collective values are very important. That society as a whole has to move forward and to be in harmony -- that individuals have to give up their impulses. They don't have to give up all their freedoms, but you have to give up the impulse to immediate satisfaction of various individual desires. And by doing so - then the individual benefits greatly because society benefits. It's a circular thing. So, you try to have this kind of unification. You have to be all one in the Tao.

Of course, you still have different viewpoints. I mean some people are Taoists, some people are Buddhists, some people like rock music, other people like jazz. These are not denied, but in terms of the fundamental actions that you can undertake in society, there are certain rules and if you accept these rules then the society moves forward harmoniously and becomes strong.

Zoh: Another area you cover as it pertains to historical lineage and tradition that is still in practice today - it's the different kinds of field intelligence and the value they place on those different echelons of intelligence - will you address that for a moment?

Ralph: Well, basically in the old days, of course, warfare was not conducted with any kind of overhead sensors so you had to use reconnaissance and you try to categorize the terrains and then try to suit your actions to exploit the terrain. And the Chinese are very much oriented to not, at least in terms of doctrine, not fighting until they can win. So they don't want to be precipitous.

And secondly, they're very much oriented toward maneuver warfare, which is the exact opposite of the American Army attrition warfare or head butting, as I like to call it. They want to maneuver you around, tire you out, make you hungry, get you destabilized and chaotic and dispirited, and then they will overwhelm you. This is somewhat like the Gulf War approach, you know, you pound the enemy until the enemy is dispirited and disoriented and then you finally strike, it's a very easy victory.

This is the Chinese approach to warfare and you use any and every technique possible to attain that. You gain intelligence and then you use that intelligence to exploit, to conduct psychological warfare operations, to try and dispirit the enemy as well as weaken them physically. This is the basic approach.

Zoh: Well, and as you pointed out, whether there's penetrater spies, observers, and then villagers, sort of this lineage, there is also returning to something we talked about at the very start of this portion of the program, which is their adherence to the Taoist philosophy, the Shaolin priesthood which has continued their use of psychic spies and remote viewing - they have the capacity to convene forces of nature both technologically and spiritually, which gives them an obvious advantage as a military operation over our own military, which as you point out is the old I'm the Rambo with the gun, don't get in my way kind of philosophy.

Ralph: Right, well, of course, motivated warriors fighting for a cause, which is the basis of our citizen's army, has always been the essence and whether you infuse that with additional religious beliefs or harmonization, it can only help. I would like to make one point here and that is that we should as a country, as a culture, be careful not to demonize our Chinese Americans or Asian Americans, that even though Wen Ho Li and a couple of other prominent Chinese Americans have been identified at the heart of this particular spy operation. The Cox Report is case specific and it's probably only a touch on the iceberg.

And moreover, China's method of approach today is to target people who are well in place, who have information that they want. It's very easy for them to communicate with the Chinese American community, but these are likely to be the least successful people, they're too visible. So, when you look around and your neighbor is a Chinese American, you shouldn't be thinking, these people are spies for the PRC - by and large they're here because they hated the PRC and they hated Communism and they were fortunate enough to immigrate to the United States or were born in the United States. And they're not going to be the ones who are going to cooperate with the PRC. It's going to be your other neighbors who want to have new Mazzeratis or Ferraris or like to eat and drink well.

Zoh: Yeah, who have nice American names and they're real nice American boys and girls.

Ralph: Absolutely.

Zoh: And I share that opinion, while of course, there are some, among the communist leadership who could care if they kill their own or anybody else's, but by the same token Bill Clinton has managed to kill off our national security just as easily as Tiananmen Square did what it did. Ralph, thank you so much for taking part in the Zoh Show.

Ralph: Well, I certainly appreciate the opportunity. We're just getting started, we can do another 5 weeks, but we'll do what we can.

Zoh: (laughter) A series with Ralph Sawyer right here on the Zoh Show. Well, anyway thank you, it's a beautiful contribution. Again, the Tao of Spycraft by Ralph D. Sawyer, a Westview 1998 press release. Call 1-800-386-5656 to buy a copy of your own. And be good to each other we do need more love in the world.

END OF INTERVIEW

For further reading by Ralph Sawyer
Chinese Warfare: The Paradox of the Unlearned Lesson
available from American Diplomacy
http://www.unc.edu/depts/diplomat

See also, by Ralph Sawyer
One Hundred Unorthodox Strategies: Battle and Tactics of Chinese Warfare
a Westview paperback