At its core, the tension between China and the West is not primarily ideological, military, or economic—it is psychological. The underlying driver is fear, shaped by the West’s historical experience of rising to power through conquest, colonization, and external domination. Accustomed to interpreting global influence through this lens, Western powers often assume that any ascending state will follow the same path. China’s rise, however, is guided by a different logic—internal development, governance reform, and peaceful trade—which challenges these assumptions and generates confusion and anxiety. This cognitive misalignment, rooted in historical path dependence, leads to systematic misjudgment and underlies much of the contemporary friction between China and the West.
I. The West’s Poverty of Historical Imagination
1. The Foundations of Western Power: Empire, Colonization, and Global Dominance
The rise of modern Western powers followed a consistent historical pattern rooted in empire and colonization. Military conquest, colonial extraction, forced trade systems, and imperial rivalry were not incidental but central to the accumulation of wealth and influence. From the Roman concept of imperium to the maritime empires of early modern Europe, the material foundation of Western prosperity was closely tied to violence and external exploitation.
Gold and silver from the Americas, enslaved labor from Africa, and monopolized trade routes across Asia provided the resources and capital that fueled industrialization and global economic dominance. These practices were not only economic strategies but also shaped the political and social structures of Western states, reinforcing a worldview in which power and wealth were inseparable from domination.
This historical experience ingrained a perception of the world as fundamentally zero-sum. Rising powers were assumed inevitably to seek expansion at the expense of others, and wealth was seen as something extracted rather than produced cooperatively. These assumptions became embedded in Western thought and informed modern international relations theories, particularly realism and hegemonic transition theory, which interpret global politics through the lens of competition, conflict, and strategic advantage.
By tracing the formation of Western power through conquest and colonization, it becomes clear that the patterns of historical experience continue to influence contemporary perceptions of global rising powers, shaping both policy and prejudice.
2. Orientalism and the Exercise of Western Discursive Power
Western academia has long interpreted non-Western civilizations, particularly China, through frameworks shaped by its own imperial history. This practice, rooted in Orientalism, applies categories derived from Roman or European colonial experience to societies with fundamentally different political and social logics. In doing so, complex and distinctive systems are simplified into familiar Western templates, often at the cost of historical accuracy.
Common distortions emerge from this approach. Chinese dynasties are frequently labeled as “empires” in the Western colonial sense, border negotiations are interpreted as imperial conquests, and concepts such as “feudalism” or “authoritarianism” are imposed without meaningful historical equivalence. These analytical choices reflect not objective comparison, but the projection of Western historical experience onto China.
This framing serves a dual purpose. First, it renders China legible and intelligible through familiar Western categories, reducing complexity to manageable terms. Second, it implicitly normalizes Western imperial history by suggesting that territorial expansion and domination are universal strategies, practiced by all rising powers.
As a consequence, China’s distinctive political traditions—bureaucratic governance, merit-based selection, and sophisticated civil administration—are often marginalized or misrepresented. By treating Western historical experience as the default standard, Orientalist discourse reinforces both cognitive biases and the subtle exercise of Western discursive power, shaping global perceptions of China in ways that align with familiar narratives rather than historical realities.
3. Path Dependence and the Projection of Western Historical Experience
Western political thought is deeply shaped by historical analogy. When analyzing the rise of China, Western observers instinctively seek precedents in familiar patterns of power expansion, such as the British Empire, American global hegemony, or even the Mongol conquests. These examples form the cognitive framework through which Western analysts interpret the behavior of rising states.
However, China’s trajectory does not conform to these historical templates. Its growth is driven primarily by internal governance, institutional reform, and trade, rather than external conquest or colonization. Lacking a direct historical analogue, Western observers often default to suspicion, interpreting unfamiliar methods of statecraft as potentially threatening.
This cognitive reflex produces a central, though unspoken, question: “If we rose through domination, won’t China do the same?” Rather than evidence-based forecasting, this is projection—an assumption about another civilization’s behavior filtered through the lens of one’s own historical experience.
The reliance on path-dependent thinking highlights a broader challenge in international relations: the difficulty of evaluating non-Western powers on their own terms. By projecting familiar historical narratives onto China, the West risks systematic misjudgment, viewing alternative models of power and prosperity as inherently suspect rather than distinct and legitimate.
II. Why External Aggression Has Never Been Central to China’s Rise
1. The Civilizational-State Logic: Prioritizing Internal Governance
China is most accurately understood as a civilizational state, a political entity defined by a massive population, vast territory, continuous civilizational history, and deeply rooted cultural and institutional traditions. Unlike Western powers, whose historical logic prioritized conquest and external domination, Chinese political strategy has centered on internal governance as the primary source of stability and strength.
The central challenge for Chinese rulers has historically been managing complexity at home. Administering a population of hundreds of millions across diverse regions required sophisticated bureaucratic institutions, economic coordination, and social management. Dynastic collapses often resulted not from foreign invasion but from internal failures—corruption, inequality, and popular unrest—demonstrating that domestic stability was both the prerequisite and the measure of effective rule.
External wars and overseas ventures, while not absent, were generally costly and strategically secondary. Sustained expansion abroad was unnecessary when internal governance ensured prosperity, security, and legitimacy. This inward focus shaped a political logic in which the consolidation and reform of the state took precedence over imperial ambition.
By prioritizing governance inward first, the civilizational-state model challenges assumptions rooted in Western historical experience. It provides a framework for understanding China’s rise through institutional development and trade, rather than through the conquest and domination that defined Western power formation.
2. The Tributary System and Its Distinction from Colonialism
Western scholarship often misinterprets China’s tributary system by equating it with colonial domination. In reality, the system operated on fundamentally different principles, emphasizing symbolic recognition, diplomatic ritual, and mutual prestige rather than economic exploitation or territorial control. Tributary states offered gifts and formal acknowledgment, but China frequently returned more in value than it received, highlighting the ceremonial and relational nature of the arrangement.
Unlike Western colonialism, the tributary system involved no permanent military occupation, no monopolized trade, and no systematic extraction of resources. It functioned as a cultural and political order aimed at regional stability, reinforcing China’s centrality and authority without imposing direct economic or administrative control. In many cases, the system was economically costly to China, standing in stark contrast to the profit-driven logic of Western empires. Understanding this distinction is essential to appreciating China’s historical approach to regional relations and its divergence from Western models of power projection.
3. Endogenous Development and Institutional Innovation in China
China’s development, both historical and modern, has relied primarily on internal accumulation and institutional adaptation. From agricultural productivity and infrastructure to bureaucratic reform and market integration, growth has been driven by the effective mobilization of domestic resources. Major reforms—spanning from the Tang and Song dynasties to the contemporary era of reform and opening—focused on revitalizing internal circulation, enhancing governance capacity, and improving living standards rather than on external conquest or exploitation.
Modern China’s rise as a manufacturing and technological power continues this inward-driven logic. Labor, infrastructure, education, and institutional innovation remain the core engines of growth, while international cooperation functions as a supplement rather than a foundation. This pattern underscores a civilizational-state approach in which endogenous development and institutional innovation are central to sustained prosperity, contrasting sharply with models of expansion-based power historically associated with the West.
4. Cultural Memory and Anti-Hegemonic Norms in Chinese Political Tradition
Chinese political culture has long emphasized benevolent governance over coercion, moral legitimacy over military conquest, and the welfare of the population as the foundation of authority. Historical experience reinforced the limits of expansionist rule: the Yuan Dynasty, despite controlling vast territory, collapsed quickly due to weak governance and insufficient integration, demonstrating that conquest without legitimacy is unsustainable.
This historical memory has shaped enduring norms against hegemonism. China’s modern experiences of foreign invasion and national humiliation further strengthened a cultural preference for security, dignity, and development rather than the replication of imperial hierarchies. Consequently, Chinese political behavior is guided less by ambitions of domination and more by a civilizational ethic that prioritizes internal stability, legitimacy, and the long-term welfare of society.
III. Collision Between Western Fear and China’s Development Reality
1. Conflict at the Level of Discourse: Interpreting China Through Western Frameworks
Western analysis of China is often constrained by a narrow binary of democracy versus authoritarianism. This framework overlooks alternative sources of political legitimacy, particularly performance-based governance, and fails to account for the distinctive logic of China as a civilizational state. By evaluating China through preexisting Western categories, observers risk misunderstanding both its institutions and its developmental model.
Consequently, China’s achievements are frequently attributed to coercion or labeled as “distorted,” while indigenous concepts such as “civilizational state” or “Chinese-style modernization” are dismissed or ignored. This framing produces an asymmetric discourse in which dialogue is limited, misperceptions are reinforced, and constructive understanding becomes difficult. At the level of discourse, the tension between China and the West reflects not only differences in political practice but also the inability to interpret unfamiliar models of legitimacy on their own terms.
2. Misinterpretation of Behavior: Projecting Western Expectations onto China
Western assumptions about rising powers shape the interpretation of China’s actions, often resulting in systematic misreadings. Infrastructure investment is frequently labeled “neo-colonialism,” trade cooperation is framed as “debt traps,” and defensive sovereignty measures are portrayed as aggressive expansionism. These assessments rarely reflect the actual outcomes of China’s policies and initiatives.
Such misinterpretations stem from reliance on historical analogies drawn from Western experiences of power, conquest, and empire. Instead of evaluating China on its own logic and empirical results, observers project expectations of domination onto actions that are primarily cooperative or defensive. The gap between perception and reality illustrates how cognitive biases and historical path dependence distort understanding, fueling misperceptions and contributing to tension in international relations.
3. Structural Insecurity in a Changing World Order
China’s rise challenges a global order long dominated by the West, where economic, discursive, and strategic privileges were largely uncontested. As China moves from the periphery toward parity, the West experiences a relative dilution of economic advantage, a weakening of discursive dominance, and erosion of structural benefits that previously ensured global influence.
This shifting balance generates insecurity, which, when combined with historical projection and cognitive biases, drives policies of containment. Measures such as technological blockades, strategic decoupling, and military posturing reflect not an inevitable conflict but a fear of losing entrenched dominance. Understanding structural insecurity as the underlying driver clarifies why rising tensions are often reactive, shaped by perception and anxiety rather than by the actions of China alone.
Summary & Implications
The tension between China and the West is fundamentally a conflict of historical lenses. The West interprets global politics through the experience of conquest and domination, while China operates according to a logic of civilizational continuity, internal development, and governance-centered growth. Applying an imperial framework to predict the behavior of a civilizational state is therefore analytically flawed. The central question is not whether China will follow the Western path, but whether the West can recognize that multiple paths to modernity, stability, and power exist. Until this historical imagination expands, fear-driven misjudgments will continue to shape perceptions and policies, sustaining global tension.