 This is a curious recommendation: the ruler should completely nullify himself both in order to preserve his authority against scheming ministers, and to acquire—unjustly!—a good name at the minister’s expense. Yet this sovereign, who has neither desires nor observable views, becomes the ultimate slave of his office. For the sake of self-preservation he must abolish his personality, being completely submerged by the system which he ostensibly runs. A.C. Graham provocatively notices that the ruler in Han Fei’s system “has no functions which could not be performed by an elementary computer. … Might one even say than in Han Fei’s system it is ministers who do the ruling?” (Graham 1989: 291). This paradox of an entrapped sovereign, who enjoys God-like omnipotence, but who is required to refrain from any activism in order to preserve this omnipotence is one of the most fascinating manifestations of the intrinsic contradiction of the authoritarian system. When it comes from a thinker who is often described as singularly authoritarian-minded, it deserves utmost attention.