Original phonetic: /saːt̚³ sɐu̯³⁵ kaːn³⁵/
one's trump card
Examples
Their efforts in many of these areas are a result of a decades-long commitment to the development of technologies that exploit particular areas of American weakness. Some of these projects sound like the stuff of science fiction, but many of them are part of a larger effort known as shashoujian, or “Assassin's Mace,” a term derived from an ancient Chinese folktale. In the story, a weaker hero triumphs over a mighty adversary with a macelike weapon hidden in his sleeve. Michael Pillsbury, director of the Center for Chinese Strategy at the Hudson Institute, explains the term in the military context: “Assassin's Mace refers to a set of asymmetric weapons that allows an inferior enemy to defeat a seemingly superior adversary by striking at an enemy's weakest point.” China has been embarked upon an effort to develop Assassin's Mace weapons for use against the United States for the better part of twenty years.