Paper tiger


"Paper tiger" is a literal English translation of the Chinese phrase zhilaohu. The term refers to something or someone that claims or appears to be powerful or threatening, but is actually ineffectual and unable to withstand challenge. The expression became well known internationally as a slogan used by Mao Zedong, leader of the People's Republic of China, against his political opponents, particularly the U.S. government.

Origin

纸老虎／紙老虎 is an ancient phrase. It is translated as "paper tiger" in a work by John Francis Davis that published before Opium War I. Unsigned Nixon administration White House minutes attribute to two members of a Beijing delegation the admission that one had invented the expression, followed by laughter all around.

Use

first introduced his idea of paper tigers to Americans in an August 1946 interview with American journalist Anna Louise Strong:
In a 1956 interview with Strong, Mao used the phrase "paper tiger" to describe American imperialism again:
In 1957, Mao reminisced about the original interview with Strong:
In this view, "paper tigers" are superficially powerful but are prone to overextension that leads to sudden collapse. When Mao criticized Soviet appeasement of the United States during the Sino-Soviet split, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev reportedly said, "the paper tiger has nuclear teeth".
In The Resistance to Theory, Paul de Man used the phrase to reflect upon the threat of literary theory to traditional literary scholarship in American academia. He said, "If a cat is called a tiger it can easily be dismissed as a paper tiger; the question remains however why one was so scared of the cat in the first place".