ABSTRACT
The Suns of Wu, who held sway over the great belly of southeast China, were the redoubtable descendants of none other than Sun Tzu, the author of The Art of War. In this manner he was able to appear neither ungrateful to his generous enemy, nor disloyal to his frugal friend, according to the arithmetic of the Chinese moral abacus. Throughout history the Chinese have displayed the greatest reverence for chung—loyalty—but also the greatest reverence for the double standards of appearance and reality by which they have lived. The heads of Chairman Mao's foes rolled during the Cultural Revolution, but so did the heads of some of his henchmen. Their fall from grace often sealed a bargain between the extremist and moderate factions within the Chinese Communist Party which was satisfactory to both sides, and among them was Ch'en Po-ta, Mao's personal secretary and a high-ranking member of the Politburo in Peking.
