Beyond the Thucydides Trap: Understanding China's Unique Development Path
Deep Dives
Explore related topics with these Wikipedia articles, rewritten for enjoyable reading:
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Thucydides Trap
14 min read
Central concept in the article - Graham Allison's theory about inevitable conflict between rising and ruling powers, which the author critiques as misapplying American historical patterns to China
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Great Divergence
16 min read
Directly referenced in the article as the historical moment when Euro-Atlantic economies diverged from the rest of the world; understanding this debate is essential to grasping the article's argument about China's unique development path
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One-child policy
11 min read
Cited by the author as a key counter-example to myths of omniscient Chinese long-term planning, attributed to Deng Xiaoping rather than Mao, illustrating the complexity of China's modern governance decisions
The China leg of the 2025 World History Tour was one of the most demanding. Why? China’s history is so vast. I know a fraction of it, and none of the language. To enter this maze as a beginner was tough.
Four videos to watch now or later in the week
A quick note. I have rescheduled the concluding recap post on Russia till the end of the month, and similarly put back my planned mini-series on YouTube on Gorbachev and Soviet Collapse. Instead, today I am releasing on YouTube a mini-series on American Colonialism and the Monroe Doctrine, in response to the events in Venezuela.
Out now (one hour ago) on the Burning Archive YouTube Channel, the 2026 New Year binge (back to one video weekly next week!)
The Truth About the Monroe Doctrine: Not Protection, But Conquest
The Maduro Kidnapping: Why This Is the Biggest Threat to World Order Since WW2
You Get More History, Ideas, Series AND Less Politics AND War on my History Channel in 2026
On the Old Substack Writer YouTube Channel
Do you struggle to focus on writing when the world news is overwhelming?
The long Chinese history bibliographies can be intimidating. The adamant opinions on complex events can be off-putting. The recycling of old tropes can be infuriating. And the warring scholarly and ideological interpretations of the grand narrative of China can be confusing.
Is it a civilization-state, great power, socialist paradise, revolutionary hell, or just a messy modern culture? Or all of those in combination? Was Mao a Great Helmsman or a Monstrous Dictator? Was the Great Leap Forward a grand vision or a criminal folly? Was the Cultural Revolution a Red Trauma or a righteous Smashing of the Old?
Debates on the grand narrative of China’s history were heated last year, culminating in the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, in which different strands of modern China all played crucial roles. My posts on Rana Mitter’s celebrated history of those roles was timely, and were reinforced by my later interviews with Michael Jabara Carley on the events leading to World War Two, including in China.
I tried not to be too heated or dogmatic, as befits a novice to Chinese history, who yet discovered more insights than I expected. I am by temperament pluralist and humanist. I find no theory about history adequate to ...
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