The first China Sun Tzu Cultural and Tourism Festival has opened at the birthplace of China's most famous militarist Sun Tzu in east China's Shandong Province.

The two-day festival was launched Tuesday in Huimin County, Binzhou City, Shandong Provincial Cultural Bureau announced.

A bureau official said Sun Tzu was often overshadowed as one of China's great sages by Confucius (551-479 BC), also a native of Shandong, whose thought influenced Chinese culture for more than 2,000 years. In recent years, Confucius had become a tourism name brand for Shandong, attracting flocks of tourists.

However, Sun Tzu needed publicizing to lure more tourists to Shandong to learn of his military spirit, said the official.

Sun Tzu, born during the Warring States period (475-221 BC), wrote the world's earliest military masterpiece, "The Art of War". His thought has spread around the world and has been widely applied in military and political fields, and in business.

(Xinhua News Agency October 9, 2003)