The Principles and Operational Code of Communist China's International Conduct

Mao Tse-tung and his associates in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) appear to have a penchant for reducing an important and complex policy or strategy to a relatively simple set of rules that their followers can easily understand and implement without undue deviation. In the military field, for example, Mao laid down, at a very early stage of his revolutionary career, the now well-known rules governing guerrilla warfare which read in part:… The enemy advances, we retreat; the enemy camps, we harass; the enemy tires, we attack; the enemy retreats, we pursue.To extend stable base areas, employ the policy of advancing in waves; pursued by a powerful enemy, employ the policy of circling around.Arouse the largest numbers of the masses in the shortest possible time and by the best possible methods.