《孫子兵法》是文化瑰寶，久為中外人士用為政策推估、傳遞訊息的工具。但《孫子》成書歷經春秋、戰國，而定型於秦漢。它問世的目的有二：顯示作者孫武軍事造詣、協助讀者闔閭建立霸業；它的特色亦有二：以軍事威攝和政治謀略，屈服對方的「全勝」觀念，以及以軍事手段奪取勝利的「戰勝」觀念。全勝觀念如齊桓公「九合諸侯，一匡天下，不以兵車」，而成為霸主；勝戰觀念涵蓋一統天下，「車同軌，書同文」，動輒坑殺敵卒數十萬的秦始皇。同樣一本書，能夠同時涵蓋兩種截然不同的兵家思想，不可不謂是異數。兩岸如要論及軍事互信，卻只引用孫子兵法加以論述，前途是堪虞的。因為我們不知道雙方所追求的目標，究竟是齊桓公的一個「文化中國」，還是秦始皇的「一個中國」文化。

Sun Tzu’s Art of War is one of the most revered treasures from ancient China and is recognized as one of the beacons of our cultural heritage. It is little wonder that people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait quote Sun Tzu in their effort to persuade each other of their interests and tries to facilitate negotiations. To the best of our knowledge, The Art of War was written during the end of the Spring and Autumn Period, heavily revised during the Warring States Period and the finalized version was completed during the early years of the Han Dynasty. Since this book was written to show the author’s acumen and to help the King of Wu to establish his hegemony, it has two characteristics: One was that it emphasizes an approach of overwhelming the enemy politically and strategically, thus achieving a “holistic” victory; and the other was to subdue the enemy by any means, a philosophy which emphasizes above all else the importance of winning battles in order to secure victory. Because Sun Tzu uses two opposite concepts of victory, “holistic” and “subdued” in the same book it is often difficult to follow. Hence, the political theorists using Sun Tzu’s concepts to elaborate on a tenuous and delicate issue such as cross-strait negotiations, which is fraught with enormous and perilous military consequences, and is extremely sensitive to the slightest unraveling of political cooperation, because they believe Sun’s ideas have their best interest at heart, is quite a leap of faith in light of this paradox.