he aphorisms and maxims of Sun Tzu, the 6th-century BC Chinese general and philosopher, have become staple fare in business management classes. Yet his pithy sayings, even if a trifle hackneyed, still resonate in the febrile context of the deepening stand-off between China and the western democracies. “To know your enemy, you must become your enemy,” Sun Tzu reputedly counselled aspiring leaders more than 2,500 years ago. China’s modern-day Communist caudillos have taken his advice to heart. They have done exactly that. This, in a nutshell, is the basic problem underlying the seething tensions sparked by China’s security coup in Hong Kong last week, its refusal to accept responsibility for the Covid-19 catastrophe, its increasing aggression towards nations and peoples that get in its way, and its fierce rejection of any attempt, by the US or others, to deny its manifest destiny as a global superpower. In sum, China is behaving exactly as emerging powers have always behaved since empires and satrapies were first invented. The Persians, Greeks and Romans did it. So did Britain, Germany and Japan. More recently, the Soviet Union and the US also tried their hand at global domination. The victims include China itself. There are differences, of course, in Beijing’s ideology, motives and method. But the primary aim – the desire to be top dog – is identical. Contemporary China apes ancient enemies. China’s future peons should recall the Who’s famous 1971 lyric, “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss” – to ensure they don’t get fooled again. Looked at this way, it’s problematic to argue, as some western critics do, that there is something innately sinister and thus more dangerous about Chinese exceptionalism. It is true Xi Jinping’s version of “socialism with Chinese characteristics” is an authoritarian system of repulsively dictatorial bent. It’s true the mistreatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, reportedly including forced sterilisation and concentration camps that harvest inmates’ hair for export as beauty products, is an horrific crime against humanity. It’s evident that China’s president is contemptuous of international law and universal rights, as seen again in Hong Kong. None of this is remotely acceptable. But before they saddle up their high horses, western politicians and commentators should remember that the paths trodden by their own countries en route to national greatness, conventionally defined, were likewise littered with the corpses of native peoples, slaves, unbelievers, dissidents, vanquished rivals, rigged markets, unfair trade, broken treaties and outraged principles. It is facile, as Harvard professor Stephen Walt argues, to portray Xi or China as uniquely bad and wicked. Erecting bogeymen, such as Saddam Hussein or Iran’s ayatollahs, and pelting them with public abuse in the modern equivalent of the village stocks, is an unhelpful US habit. It’s more complicated than that. “The roots of the present Sino-American rivalry have less to do with particular leaders or regime types and more to do with the distribution of power and the particular strategies the two sides are pursuing,” Walt wrote. “New leaders or profound domestic changes are not going to alter inherently competitive US-Chinese relations.” In other words, regime change or crude external sanctions will not work. China and the west are fated to fight as Beijing pushes to the front. And since China is not suddenly going to disappear, the key questions now are how best to contain the damage, modify objectionable behaviours, and seek mutual benefits. Such foreign policy “realism” is distasteful. But it’s safer than direct confrontation. Yet even if this “live and let live” approach, hateful to hawks and zero-sum thinkers on both sides, is adopted, another basic difficulty arises. The west, as presently led and organised, is unusually ill-equipped for the task. And Xi, a wolf in wolf warrior’s clothing, knows this well. In the world according to Xi, the US, principal barrier to China’s ambitions, is led by the most incompetent, easily manipulated president in living memory. US influence and military reach across Asia are in decline. Anxious friends, notably the Taiwanese, can no longer count on Washington’s support. Seen from Beijing, the EU-UK, riven by rightwing nationalist, populist and separatist controversies such as Brexit, is not a serious rival. Like the US, Europe has been further weakened by the pandemic. Russia, obsessed with re-fighting the cold war, poses no threat. India’s leaders mostly spout hot air. As for the rest, in Africa, central and west Asia and Latin America, Xi sees an open field for imperial schemes such as his belt and road initiative. This all amounts to an extraordinary opportunity for China. Given perceived western reluctance-cum-inability to battle for liberal values and standards, Xi can be confident his Hong Kong coup, Xinjiang and Tibetan depredations, and illegal takeover of the South China Sea, will continue to go largely unpunished. The UN and the western-devised “rules-based international order”, actively sabotaged by Donald Trump, are no real check. Western leaders cannot say they weren’t warned. At the watershed 19th party congress in 2017, Xi hailed an approaching “new era” of unmatched Chinese (and personal) power. “This is a historic juncture in China’s development. The Chinese nation... has stood up, grown rich, and become strong,” he declared. “It will be an era that sees China move closer to centre stage.” Beijing’s interest in cooperative security is visibly fading. Fond hopes that China, in time, would democratise are dashed. Trump’s hostility has crystallised the rift. Xi is going for bust. In the absence of tougher, unified western resistance and significant political penalties, he will march on regardless, as emperors tend to do. Xi aims to establish Chinese hegemony in his lifetime. The target date is set: 2035. As Sun Tzu urged, China has become its enemy – and the west’s.