One of my classes involved reading and comparing On War and Art of War, and I was wondering if there was any reason to believe Clausewitz would have been familiar with Sun Tzu's Art of War. He never directly mentions it or even China as far as I can see, but might he have been aware of it at all? Had any Chinese literature been translated into European languages at that point? If not, when did that begin to occur?
The Art of War was translated into French and published by Jean Joseph Marie Amiot in 1772, a French Jesuit missionary who had once acted as a translator to the ruler of Qing China, the Qianlong Emperor, and who spent over 40 years living in China. In addition to the Art of War, Jean Joseph Marie Amiot also published works dealing with Chinese Culture, such as works covering art, science and history.
So, if Carl von Clausewitz, being born in 1780, knew French, he had could possibly have read it. If he actually did so however, I do not know.
Sources: http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/preserving/2014/01/28/jean-joseph-marie-amiot-introduces-the-art-of-war-to-the-west/ Scan of the actual book: http://pds.lib.harvard.edu/pds/view/47511720?n=63&imagesize=1200&jp2Res=.25&printThumbnails=no