The Thucydides trap and a US-China face-off are not structurally inevitable; US-China relations are what the US and China make of them. Phua focuses on the ability to see "US as US" and "China as China" to trigger both countries' cultural tendencies towards pragmatism.

Phua examines China's arduous journey to fit in the Westphalian system, the deep cultural misunderstandings by the West of Sunzi's The Art of War, and attempts to offer an inside-out cultural synthesis of classical and modern Chinese thought as a proxy of their operational code, beyond the standard clichés about Confucian and Daoist thought. He builds on Jervis' perception and misperception as well as Alastair Johnston's cultural realism. Readers will benefit from a culturally-Chinese, western-educated and politically neutral understanding of "China as China".

An essential primer for academics, practitioners and students of international relations, diplomacy and Chinese culture.