IT IS TIME TO REACH OUT

“His mentor, Zeng Guofan, a top-ranking Confucian scholar and veteran commander of the Taiping campaigns, had advised Li in 1862 how to use the basic Confucian value of self-restraint as a diplomatic tool: “In your association with foreigners, your manner and deportment should not be too lofty, and you should have a slightly vague, casual appearance. Let their insults, deceitfulness, and contempt for everything appear to be understood by you and yet seem not understood, for you should look somewhat stupid.”

― Henry Kissinger, On China

We must exhibit certain virtues: modesty, not pride nor arrogance, real affection for people who work with their hands, who literally get dirty; the ability not merely to talk to such people but also to listen to them and articulate and express their will and desire. It can of course be strategically useful to seem somewhat stupid, to allow one's enemy's to show themselves clearly. It has but little tactical advantage, for rarely are we confronted by men with hammers.