远交近攻

Pronunciation: yuǎn jiāo jìn gōng Literal meaning: Befriend distant, attack nearby

Origin & Usage

Fan Ju arrived in Qin and told King Zhaoxiang that his campaigns made no sense: Qin was attacking distant states and leaving neighbours intact, so every victory produced land it could not hold. Ally with the far (远交) and attack the near (近攻), he argued, and each conquest is contiguous and keepable. The Strategies of the Warring States records it, and Qin's unification of China followed the policy for decades. It remains a genuinely useful principle about the order of operations, in business as much as in war.

Examples

English: "In the game of politics, forming alliances with distant nations while undermining local rivals can be a winning strategy."

Chinese: 在政治博弈中，远交近攻的策略常常能取得胜利。