Chinese Fox idioms-1 狐假虎威 Fox Borrows Tiger’s Majesty hú jiǎ hǔ wēi / hwu jea huu uei
When a tiger was about to eat a fox he had caught, the clever canid said that this was forbidden because he had received the Mandate of Heaven to rule over all the denizens of the forest. The skeptical tiger, persuaded to walk through the trees while following the fox, quickly noticed that all of the animals gave them a wide berth, so he was convinced that the fox was indeed the ruler of them all. [A parable from the 戰國策 Zhànguócè / Janngwotseh “Strategies of the Warring States”, written about 2500 years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhan_Guo_Ce]
The title graphic depicts a school bully taking advantage of a classmate who dares not fight back because the bully’s father is the principal (who is always manipulated into believing that his son can never do wrong).
Although 狐假虎威 is a very well-known classical allusion, it mostly appears in textbooks, but is not often used in daily life. Below is a rare example of this idiom being used to describe workplace bullying and what to do about it (the original article gives valuable insight on how Chinese can successfully handle troublemakers at work).
我的同事狐假虎威 【http://www.cheers.com.tw/article/article.action?id=5024605&page=2】