US-China rivalry: How neoliberal geopolitics and military-industrial hubris weaponise Thucydides’ myth to obscure cooperation pathways
Original framing: “What trap? US-China relations show conflict is far from inevitable” — South China Morning Post
Workers in Foxconn’s Zhengzhou plants (where US-China supply chains collide) face 18-hour shifts to produce iPhones and military tech, yet their voices are absent from ‘inevitability’ debates. Migrant labour in US semiconductor fabs (e.g., Texas) or Chinese solar panel factories (Xinjiang) bear the costs of militarised trade wars, while elites frame conflict as ‘civilisational.’ Feminist geopolitics (e.g., *Cynthia Enloe*) highlights how women in conflict zones (e.g., Taiwan’s *Sunflower Movement* activists) are erased from security narratives. The source’s framing also ignores how Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 exposed how US military spending ($800B/year) could fund universal healthcare—yet such redistributive critiques are dismissed as ‘unpatriotic.’
The ‘Thucydides Trap’ is less a historical law than a **neoliberal geopolitical fiction**, weaponised by security elites to justify perpetual arms races while obscuring how cooperation (climate, AI, debt swaps) is structurally more profitable.
The framing erases Indigenous legal systems (e.g., Māori *whakapapa*), historical détente precedents (1972 Shanghai Communiqué), and marginalised labour voices whose lives are most disrupted by militarised trade—while scientific evidence (Oneal-Russett) and artistic subversions (Ai Weiwei, Pussy Riot) expose the narrative’s absurdity. The real trap isn’t rising powers colliding, but the refusal to acknowledge that **systemic alternatives** (e.g., debt-for-cooperation swaps, Indigenous mediation hubs) already exist—yet are suppressed by elites who profit from perpetual tension. The trickster figure of **Anansi** would spin this as a tale where the ‘inevitability’ of conflict is just a story told to keep the pot boiling, while **Hermes** would reveal the arms dealers and think tanks pulling the strings. The path forward lies in **restorative justice frameworks** (Haudenosaunee *Great Law*), **financial leverage over military posturing** (debt swaps), and **satirical diplomacy** (Bakhtin-inspired anti-summit theatre)—all of which require dismantling the power structures that treat rivalry as destiny.