A "Qin" strategy is hard to implement, but makes sense conceptually. It is most useful in the middle game.
In the beginning, the board is divided into two parts, the northwest (England, France, Germany) and the southeast (Italy, Austria, Turkey). Russia straddles both parts.
In the opening, one country is eliminated from each of the two parts (in some cases, Russia is eliminated in place of another country from the second part). During that phase of the game, your most pressing concern is to ally with one country in your part of the board to eliminate the third.
If is after you have survived the first round that you start thinking about strategic considerations, like a Qin strategy.
Here is an "antagonism" table. (Positive numbers in Table 4 reflect antagonism, negative numbers reflect friendliness.) Note that the "friendliest" countries are those that are furthest away.
Take Turkey, for instance. It has high (positive) antagonism numbers toward Austria first and Italy second. It is (almost) neutral regarding Russia (low absolute positive value)and has "negative" numbers toward the three distant countries of England, France, and Germany.
Austria fears Turkey, Russia, and Italy in descending order, and like Turkey, is friendly with the three northwestern powers.
England's main fears are Germany and France, and it is friendly with the four non-western powers.
France fears England and Germany, and is friendly with the four non-western powers.
Germany's biggest fear is England, followed by France and Russia, and is friendly with Turkey, Italy, and to a lesser extent, Austria in the southeastern group.
Italy fears Turkey most, followed by Austria. It is often friendly with France (surprisingly) and is a natural ally of the three distant countries, England, Germany, and Russia.
Russia fears Austria first, Germany somewhat, is neutral toward Britain and Turkey, and friendly with France and Italy.