Appraising the “Thucydides Trap” Geographically: The Korean Factor in Sino-US Relations Xiangfeng Yang * In lieu of taking stock of the many problems presently plaguing Sino-US relations, this research zeroes in on just one of them – the evolving situ- ation on the Korean Peninsula that has both alarmed and captivated the world. Korea, prima facie, is a case that has the likely potential to erupt into an open conflict between China and the United States. Situated against the broad context of great power entanglement on the Peninsula, this paper examines the convergence, as well as divergence, of interests and strategic objectives for both China and the United States in terms of areas of cooperation and competition. It argues that their shared aver- sion to a war, and the complex, multilateral nature of the matter, distin- guishes Korea from other disputes, particularly Taiwan and the South China Sea. Korea, therefore, is not at the center of a Sino-US Thucydi- des Trap. Nevertheless, Sino-US competition to shape the future of the strategic landscape of the Peninsula will undoubtedly continue and might even intensify. Key words: Thucydides Trap, Sino-US relations, North Korea, complete, verifiable, and irreversible dismantlement. Introduction The “Thucydides Trap,” popularized by Harvard political scientist Graham Allison, has captured the public’s imagination with the long, simmering, wide- ranging tensions in Sino-US relations, while injecting into the debate an unmis- takable dose of foreboding. 1 At the same time, not only has it been criticized for *The author would like to thank Son Daekwon and the anonymous reviewers for comments and suggestions. 1. Graham Allison, Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017). Pacific Focus, Vol. XXXIV, No. 2 (August 2019), 183–203. doi: 10.1111/pafo.12144 © 2019 Center for International Studies, Inha University 183