The concept of the Thucydides Trap, predicting conflict between China and the US, projects the West’s conquest-driven history onto Chinese civilisation.

In the shadow of escalating tensions between the US and China, Graham Allison’s concept of the Thucydides Trap has become a staple of geopolitical discourse. Coined by the Harvard scholar, the term evokes the ancient Greek historian Thucydides’ observation that “it was the rise of Athens and the fear that this instilled in Sparta that made war inevitable”.

Allison’s study of 16 historical cases, where a rising power challenged a ruling one, found war in 12 instances. He warns that China’s ascent threatens American hegemony, potentially dooming both to conflict unless deliberate efforts are made to avert it.

Yet, this framework is itself a conceptual trap for the West. By drawing from the histories of the West and Japan, Allison projects onto China a narrative of inevitable aggression. This is like gazing into a mirror: the West sees only its own reflection of historical conquest and rivalry — from European empires to Japanese imperialism — concluding that China, as it gains strength, will behave similarly.

But China’s 5000-year history tells a different story. Its cultural DNA is profoundly land-bound, shaped by geography and ecology. For much of history, Chinese civilisation has thrived within the 400-millimetre annual rainfall isohyet, the climatic threshold separating fertile agricultural heartlands from arid steppes.

This line, roughly aligning with the path of China’s Great Wall, demarcates zones where rainfall exceeds 400 mm per year, sufficient for stable crop yields, and the drier northern regions, suited largely for nomadic herding. South of this boundary, wheat fields and rice paddies sustained vast populations, fostering a society incentivised to defend its productive core rather than venture into marginal lands.

Northern steppe peoples roamed the grasslands, chasing scarce water and forage. Their survival depended on mobility and raiding, inevitably leading to clashes with other nomadic tribes. The Xiongnu, Mongols and other steppe peoples repeatedly made southward incursions, prompting a defensive response from China in the form of fortification and counter-attacks.

Indeed, China’s territory reached its maximum historical extent not through outward expansion, but via inward foreign invasion and occupation. The Mongols established the Yuan dynasty (1279-1368), bringing their vast steppe domains into Chinese maps. The Manchus founded the Qing dynasty (1644-1911), incorporating new territories. Over time, these invaders were assimilated into Han culture, adopting Confucian bureaucracy and sinicising their rule.

This contrasts sharply with the cultures of the nomadic and sea peoples that gave rise to European civilisations, which blended herding with subsistence agriculture across fragmented polities. Sea peoples like the Vikings and Japanese raiders, driven by scarce resources and mobility, developed cultures of raiding and conquest, clashing with rivals to secure survival.

To protect its agricultural heartland, China’s strategy relied on fortifications like the Great Wall, built from at least the Qin dynasty (221-207 BC) onwards, which shielded the northern frontier from nomadic invaders. Coastal defences, like those during the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing dynasties that relocated populations inland, restricted maritime activity and blocked threats from pirates, but also severely hindered trade, a major reason the country had resisted opening up its ports for trade until after the Opium Wars.

Moreover, China’s maritime ventures, such as those under Zheng He, were not for conquest or colonisation; his Treasure Fleet, the most advanced in the world with more than 300 ships and 27,000 men, sailed to East Africa, carrying treasure as gifts to foster relations with the countries along the Indo-Pacific coasts.

In stark contrast, Western history, shaped by nomadic Indo-Europeans and seafaring powers like the Vikings and Portuguese, was driven by scarcity and mobility, fuelling aggressive expansion from Rome’s legions to Britain’s global empire.

Small European states, which struggled to buffer against famines due to fragmented lands, turned to international trade, expansion and colonisation, a pattern echoed by sea peoples like the Japanese, whose 16th century invasions of Korea and the piracy along the Chinese coasts, 19th century annexation of Okinawa and Taiwan by force, early 20th century colonisation of Korea and the 20th century imperialism reflect a maritime-driven conquest ethos, especially after Westernising itself after the Meiji Restoration in 1868.

Allison’s cases — such as Anglo-German rivalry and the Napoleonic Wars — stem from this volatile mix of semi-nomadism and agricultural fragility, not universal laws of power transitions. The US, whose culture, tradition and expansionist impulse originated in Europe, was engaged in imperial expansion once it became powerful, taking territories from Mexico, Hawaii and Spain.

Archaeology illuminates this divide. The Sanxingdui archaeological site in Sichuan province, which dates back thousands of years, yields bronze artefacts that are overwhelmingly ritualistic: masks, treelike altars and eye-like motifs symbolising cosmic order. Among the unearthed relics, weapons are not as prominent. It symbolised a culture focused on maintaining the existing social hierarchy characteristic of an inward-looking society.

Ancient Sanxingdui culture challenges traditional narrative of Chinese civilisation

As pointed out to me by Dr Ruiliang Liu, curator of the early China collection at the British Museum, Chinese burial objects were predominantly used for hierarchical rituals, with bronze carriages for elites and pottery for commoners, which suggests a stable agrarian society.

Objects unearthed from thousands of tombs dating back millennia confirm the social status of the buried, as there were likely strict rules on the number and kind of objects each social station was allowed to use. Buried in sacrificial pits, these ritual objects evoke ceremonies binding communities to ancestors and land, not mobile warbands.

By contrast, European burials like the 7th century Sutton Hoo ship burial in England, laden with helmets and swords, reflect a warrior culture geared for mobility and conquest. European Neolithic finds brim with utilitarian arms: flint axes and spearheads from Corded Ware cultures, signalling a world in perpetual motion. Celtic and Roman sites, similarly rich in weapons and trade goods, underscore this expansionist impulse.

To the Western eye, Sanxingdui’s esoterica might seem alien, but they underscore China’s focus on enduring order amid agrarian plenty. This land-bound tradition persisted in later centuries and is deeply embedded in Chinese culture. Early Chinese diaspora communities lacked dedicated cemeteries; Chinese immigrants still prefer to repatriate remains to ancestral soil as they believe “leaves [must] fall to their roots".

This practice views the homeland as the sole repository for eternal rest. As US justice Stephen Field wrote in a decision of the US Supreme Court related to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, “[Chinese immigrants’] dying wish is that their bodies may be taken to China for burial”.

This ritual stems not from clannishness but cultural psyche: the belief that spirits are tethered to the homeland, not foreign wanderings.

This homeland-bound identity historically diverged from the mobile traditions of ancient nomadic and seafaring peoples.

Chinese history cycled through wars and peace. Overpopulation and famine often precipitated internal conflicts, leading to fragmentation into warring states, as epitomised in the 14th century epic Romance of the Three Kingdoms: “The country, if divided for long, inevitably unifies; if unified for long, inevitably fractures”.

Yet the pull towards unity, driven by a shared culture, language and unitary governance since the Qin dynasty, was irresistible. The political unity of the land enabled grain reallocation from abundant regions to those hit by crop failures in any given year, a necessity for an agrarian society. These factors explain why China is one of the longest-enduring civilisations in the world without much history of foreign conquest.

China never developed a universal religion like those in other civilisations. Instead, its belief system, centred on ancestor worship, reflects an identity bound to the ancestral homeland and familial ties. Its syncretic pluralism absorbed foreign faiths like Buddhism, Islam and Christianity without exporting dogma.

Europe wielded faith as a crusader’s sword, with proselytism justifying centuries of wars in God’s name and imperial expansion. In contrast, China’s non-proselytising culture avoided such aggression, reinforcing its defensive character.

Allison’s Thucydides Trap risks a self-fulfilling prophecy. Allison himself urges escape via diplomacy, yet his Eurocentric assumptions blind the West to China’s defensive history. To avert war, the West must shatter its mirror, recognising that a rising China seeks security and territorial integrity based on historical claims, not the seas of empire. Only then can mutual understanding replace reflexive fears.

Republished from South China Morning Post, 21 October 2025

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.