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Notes -
I appreciate your response! Again, the Warring States comparison is from the book I recommended. It describes the strategy taken by a lesser state to undermine and eventually supplant the greater, using tools like 'appear weaker than you are', 'exploit internal divisions in the enemy', 'control information' etc. We know that Chinese strategic thinkers base their thinking on this period because they write about it. What you have described as Confucianism vs Legalism is internal politics, whereas this is foreign affairs, two totally different things.
The other distinction I would draw is between the 'lies' of a politician and diplomatic subversion. All politicians lie, that has little to do with the relations between states. On the other hand, the US State Department operates on an extremely high level of trust. If a US diplomat were to deliberately deceive their counterpart from a friendly nation, that would be a serious breach of trust, a betrayal, that could badly damage relations between the two nations. Especially if the deception was in service of harming or undermining the other nation! Your example of the Iraq war only strengthens my point here - despite the fact that it wasn't even a deliberate deception (but instead bad intelligence about WMDs), this remains a point of contention and friction decades later. Now imagine if a country were conducting deceptions of this sort constantly and with malice - that's China.
I'll lastly just note that you haven't even tried to dispute the historical facts that lead American thinkers to this conclusion. Rather, it seems to me that you are passionately defending your country's honor, which I can certainly admire. But that sense of honor, and the passion it inspires, will prevent you from clearly seeing things from the outside perspective. Of course the Chinese see themselves as the hero of the story, just as everyone does, the Russians, the IRGC, everyone. That doesn't make it so.
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