Make Use of Contradictions, Win over the Many, Oppose the Few and Crush Our Enemies One by One

The Strategic Principles put forward by Mao Zedong in his work "On Policy" at the end part of 1940. Mao Zedong pointed out that "our present Anti-Japanese National United Front policy is neither all alliance and no struggle nor all struggle and no alliance, but a policy that combines alliance and struggle." In discussing the policy of dealing with imperialism, he said: “we deal with imperialism in the same way. The Communist Party opposes all imperialism, but we make a distinction between Japanese imperialism which is now committing aggression against China and the imperialist powers which are not doing so now, between German and Italian imperialism which are allies of Japan and have recognized ;Manchukuo’ and British and U.S. imperialism which are opposed to Japan, and between the Britain and the United States of yesterday which followed a Munich policy in the Far East and undermined China's resistance to Japan, and the Britain and the United States of today which have abandoned this policy and are now in favour of China's resistance. Our tactics are guided by one and the same principle: to make use of contradictions, win over the many oppose the few and crush our enemies one by one. Our foreign policy differs from that of the KMT.”

“That is to say, we should not only be good at analysing and differentiating all aspects of the internal contradictions within the United Front, but also be good at analysing and differentiating various forces outside the United Front and making good use of the internal contradictions of the enemy camp so as to isolate the current main enemy to the greatest extent.”