ABSTRACT
Like many peoples, the Chinese have elaborated a body of doctrine dealing with the causes that justify recourse to organized, large-scale violence and the constraints within which it should be practiced. While they unsurprisingly had no concept exactly corresponding to the Western notion of “just” or “justifiable” war, the phrase yi bing, literally “righteous,” “just,” or “dutiful” war, came to serve as a rubric for many comparable ideas. These ideas developed gradually in the centuries leading up to creation of the first unified empire in 221 BC, and during the first imperial dynasties. Although later centuries witnessed new ideas about warfare introduced by followers of Buddhism and by nomadic conquerors, the theories formulated in this early period remained the classic Chinese justification of warfare into the twentieth century. Both their similarities to and differences from the Western tradition make them useful for comparative study.
