Overview
"Paper tiger" is a calque of the Chinese phrase zhǐlǎohǔ. The term refers to something or someone that claims or appears to be powerful or threatening but is actually ineffectual and unable to withstand challenge.
The expression became well known internationally as a slogan used by Mao Zedong, former Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party and paramount leader of China, against his political opponents, particularly the United States. It has since been used in various capacities and variations to describe many other opponents and entities.
Origin
Zhilaohu is an ancient phrase. Robert Morrison, the British missionary and lexicographer, translated the phrase as "a paper tiger" in Vocabulary of the Canton Dialect in 1828. John Francis Davis translated the Chinese phrase as "paper tiger" in a book on Chinese history published in 1836. In a meeting with Henry Kissinger in 1973, Mao Zedong claimed in a humorous aside to have coined the English phrase.
Use
Mao Zedong first introduced his idea of paper tigers to Americans in an August 1946 interview with American journalist Anna Louise Strong:
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