Opinion | To avoid a clash of flawed but great civilisations, the US and China must address their own deficiencies and hubris

Beijing recently hosted both the Belt and Road Forum and the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilisations, displaying to Asia and beyond China’s grandiose vision of harmonious coexistence among civilisations, in a community with a shared future.

In Washington, the drum is beating to a decidedly different tune: of tariffs and war, retaliation and containment. It is a call to arms, as America faces down and pushes back, a clear and present threat, not only to its near-term global supremacy but long-term viability.

Uncertainties and risk of conflict accompany any power transition. But in the US-China rivalry, aside from tipping into the Thucydides Trap, it could also fumble into a clash of civilisations. America, as the State Department’s director of policy planning Kiron Skinner puts it, is now locked in “a fight with a really different civilisation and a different ideology”. And pointedly, “a great power competitor that is not Caucasian”.

This is factually correct. The Sinic civilisation is distinct, and an ascending China is likely to colour the existing world order with some peculiarly Chinese characteristics. And this has, unfortunately, reignited the West’s primordial fear of the “other’. After all, the Chinese were the archetype non-white “other”, the “yellow peril” to the Western civilisation.