10 Chinese Idioms About Strategic Planning & Foresight

Foresee big from small signs

Literal: See small know large

The Han Feizi observes that the sage sees (见) the minute (微) and thereby knows what is sprouting, sees the beginning and thereby knows the end — to catch the small sign is to know (知) the large development (著) it precedes. The skill named is not prediction but attention: the evidence was there the w...

Plan strategy carefully

Literal: Work the counting rods in the command tent

Liu Bang, asked why he had won the empire when Xiang Yu was the better soldier, named three men he could not equal. Of Zhang Liang he said: 运筹帷幄之中，决胜千里之外 — turning the counting rods inside the tent curtains (帷幄), he decides victory a thousand li away. The Records of the Grand Historian keeps the spe...

Overcome all obstacles

Literal: Cut thorns break brambles

The History of the Later Han records Emperor Guangwu presenting Feng Yi to his court as the man who had been his registrar when he first raised troops: 为吾披荆棘，定关中 — he cut through the thorns for me and settled the land within the passes. The four-character idiom grew out of that sentence, adding 斩, t...

Plan far ahead

Literal: Deep plan far thought

Jia Yi uses it in his essay on the faults of Qin, contrasting the rebel Chen She with the men of the earlier age: he had not their deep (深) planning (谋) or their far (远) reckoning (虑), and yet the empire fell to him. The pairing sets two dimensions against each other, depth and distance, and Chinese...

Prioritize minor over fundamental matters

Literal: Root branch reversed position

Root (本) and tip (末) put in reversed (倒) position (置). The botanical pair is one of the most productive in Chinese: 本 is the base of the trunk and 末 the outer twigs, and the whole vocabulary of priorities is built on it. What the phrase names is not disorder but inversion — the secondary thing is re...

Bluffing with fake display

Literal: Empty show of strength

To make an empty (虚) display (张) of sound (声) and force (势). The military technique behind it is concrete — extra banners, drums beaten by too few men, dust raised by branches dragged behind horses — and all of it is aimed at an observer who cannot come close enough to count. That is the condition t...

Excellence that outshines all others

Literal: Out of the kind, above the gathered

This one comes from the Mencius, where Confucius is described as having come out from his kind and risen above the gathered crowd — 出于其类，拔乎其萃. To emerge (出) from one's category (类) and stand above (拔) the assembly (萃) is not to be better at the same thing but to be no longer comparable. Somebody who...

Maintain high vigilance awaiting challenge

Literal: Pillow spear await dawn

This comes from the Book of Jin, on Liu Kun, who wrote that he slept with his spear (枕戈) for a pillow waiting for dawn (待旦), determined that a rival should not strike at the invaders before he did. The competitive edge is in the original and usually lost: he was racing a colleague, not only the enem...

Rigidly following outdated methods

Literal: Go by the drawing to find the horse

Mei Fu, memorialising the Han throne about how it chose officials, said that looking for able men by the current method was like consulting Bo Le's diagram and expecting to buy a thoroughbred in the market. The story behind the image is older than its famous telling: a Tang collection already has Bo...

Beyond comprehension or explanation

Literal: Cannot be thought discussed

Not (不) able to be (可) thought (思) or spoken (议). The phrase is Buddhist and technical in origin, describing what lies beyond the reach of conceptual thought and language — the standard Chinese rendering of the Sanskrit acintya. That is a strong claim, and ordinary use has worn it down considerably:...