China’s rise may invert the Thucydides Trap, new studies suggest

As I see it

China’s rise will turn Thucydides Trap on its head

New studies of the centuries-old Confucian order in East Asia show the country is, more than ever, committed to stability and peace

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Alex Lo has been an SCMP columnist since 2012, covering major issues affecting Hong Kong and the rest of China.

Published: 9:30am, 20 May 2026

The end of the Cold War was supposed to deliver a long peace. For a while, that was working, until it wasn’t. We might now be entering another period when the breakdown of a world order leads to war.

It was no accident that President Xi Jinping cited the “Thucydides Trap” during his summit in Beijing with his US counterpart Donald Trump, putting it forward as something for both superpowers to avoid. The theory, popularised by Harvard political scientist Graham Allison, digs deep into an episode in ancient Greek history to warn against the danger of war between a rising power and a declining one.

Meanwhile, more scholars – both Western and Chinese – are examining the Chinese tribute system and the peace it maintained in East Asia over several centuries. In “The Lessons of the Long Confucian Peace”, an essay in Foreign Affairs earlier this month, authors Michael J. Gigante, Joshua Stone, Daniel Druckman and Ming Wan argue that “from 1598 to 1894, most of East Asia – China, Japan, Korea, the Ryukyu Kingdom (now part of Japan) and Vietnam – was largely devoid of internal fighting”.

The key to this peace, the authors say, “was a shared ideology: Confucianism”. Led by China, they were all Confucian states, “so they had a joint political philosophy that emphasised harmony and made it easy for them to engage in diplomacy. They established an interconnected system of regional governance centred on China, the most powerful state, that helped ensure security and prosperity. They also traded frequently.”

This long peace was, however, undermined by Western imperialism and by Japan adopting this aggressive ideology of territorial conquest.

Xi cites Thucydides trap to Trump during summit

The essay compares the East Asian long peace with another long peace, that among post-war democracies led by the United States. Sometimes called the liberal rules-based order, it is now being challenged, and perhaps undermined, by its former guarantor, the US.