以夷制夷 — Chinese idiom
以夷制夷
yǐ yí zhì yí
Meaning
- to use foreigners to subdue foreigners ; let the barbarians fight it out among themselves (traditional policy of successive dynasties)
- Use Western science and technology to counter imperialist encroachment. (late Qing modernizing slogan)
Character by character
- 以yǐaccording to; so as to; because of; then
- 夷yíancient barbarian tribes
- 制zhìsystem; to establish; to manufacture; to overpower
- 夷yíancient barbarian tribes
Idioms sharing a character
- 一以贯之 yī yǐ guàn zhī
- 不以为然 bù yǐ wéi rán
- 不知所以 bù zhī suǒ yǐ
- 以一驭万 yǐ yī yù wàn
- 以假乱真 yǐ jiǎ luàn zhēn
- 以债养债 yǐ zhài yǎng zhài
- 以儆效尤 yǐ jǐng xiào yóu
- 以卵击石 yǐ luǎn jī shí
- 以史为鉴 yǐ shǐ wéi jiàn
- 以少胜多 yǐ shǎo shèng duō
Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.