INTRODUCTION

We already know that Zheng He was charged by Emperor Yongle with the fundamental mission of pursuing a diplomacy of peace by spreading Chinese culture and forging friendly ties between China and countries in Asia and Africa. Zheng He was to lead the grand voyages to the West to spread goodwill, help others progress, and in the process, network and build bridges for trade and collaboration; this would in turn facilitate everyone coexisting peacefully and harmoniously, even as they were ruled in accordance with the ways of heaven, and in this way, do justice to the grandeur and splendour of the Ming Imperial Court.

Zheng He's fulfillment of this emperor-decreed mission through his grand voyages therefore carried with it the much bigger message of pursuing peace, goodwill and collaboration for the benefit of all peoples. His fifteenth-century message and practices as demonstrated through his voyages represent what we consider in this book to be his fundamental contribution for the benefit of not only business leaders and managers, but for all mankind. We refer to this as Zheng He's Art of Collaboration (AoC) and we have introduced and presented this in chapter 2 as an alternative model to the very well-known and well studied Sun Zi's Art of War (AoW).

Interpretations and applications of Sun Zi's Art of War in the business arena have become especially popular in recent years. Managers and leaders have been awed by AoW's stratagems for winning against their competitors by managing the perception and psychology of these “enemies” on the business battlefields, something that is basically absent in the mechanistic strategic convention of western business teaching. Especially in the area of Marketing and Sales, where competition is particularly fierce, Sun Zi's AoW has become a source of inspiration for managers to formulate competitive strategies for winning markets and customers. Books such as Sun Tzu: Strategies for Marketing — 12 Essential Principles for Winning the War for Customers, and Sun Tzu: Strategies for Selling — How to Use the Art of War to Build Lifelong Customer Relationships were written in an attempt to adapt Sun Zi's military strategies into guidebooks for winning in business competitions. MacDonald and Neupert even considered Sun Zi's insights in the understanding and use of geography in warfare and interpreted them in the context of competing for markets through marketing strategies.