Beneath the “China threat” thesis, often heard in Western policy circles, is the assumption that China will become expansionist as it grows more powerful.
But history gives us little reason to treat that as inevitable. At moments of peak strength, China has not consistently converted power into the kind of overseas colonialism, expansionism or conquest that marked the ascent of Western great powers.
There are three often-cited reasons to suggest China’s rise might lead to expansionism.
First,…