So this question has as much to do with philosophy and social science as it does with history. Generally, as a rule historians don't believe history repeats itself or is inevitable.

 

When looking at history, ask yourself this question: What is history? Is it a science or a social science? Only sciences can be predictable and have rules that dictate repetitiveness. For example, the laws of gravity and physics mean that scientists know why the sun rises in the morning, and that can be predicted with accuracy for the next thousand years if need be. Science demands that sort of precision. So, for history to be repeatable, it needs to have precise rules and be predictable. Now, you could argue that history could have rules, but they just need to be extremely broad. Unfortunately, for history to have rules they would need to be broad enough to encompass all events throughout time. At that point, rules lose their ability to be precise and become almost unusable. You could also argue that maybe rules would just apply to one kind of people. Your example of the Chinese works well here. By saying that the Chinese are dictated by rules and their history is repetitive, you are implying there is something biologically and sociologically different about them that makes them predictable. Saying history is repetitive also takes out the ability for humans to make their own choices. If you said there was a rule that after every famine the government was overthrown, that would imply humans were unable to choose to work with the current government to solve a crisis. Outside forces are instead dictating what humans do. Essentially, history is too unpredictable to stand up to the rigid standards of science. It is unpredictable, therefore it cannot have rules or be repetitive. There are certainly events in history that are similar, but this is not the same as being repetitive. History repeating itself means there needs to be predetermined rules.

 

History also struggles to fit in as an exact social science. Social sciences develop ways of understanding societies. Social scientists believe that human behavior is predictable, and societies are set up in certain ways. Unfortunately, what the best way to organize society is differs from expert to expert. Some feel its economics, other labor regimes and so on. However, can this apply to history? Can the society that is explained by social science today be extrapolated backwards in time? There will certainly be threads, as all history is connected, but the past is an entirely different world with different ways of thinking and acting.

 

Many historians like to feel their work is trapped somewhere between science and social science. Historians approach their topics as a scientist would, with factual data and attempting to explain an end result. However, history will never be exact enough to be considered repetitive or predictable, because that is not human nature. Historians also love to steal the terms developed by the social sciences and apply them to the past. This bastardization of terms helps explain the past, but it may not mean anything to the people that lived at that time. A good example is Marxism. Marxism is a socioeconomic theory that did not exist until the 1840s. However, historians have used that framework to explore events that occurred before that. The people of that time would not have defined anything in their lives as Marxist, but the historian is using a social science term to explain a past event.

 

If you are really interested in this kind of thing I recommend taking a Historiography class at your school. You'll find your head spinning at times, but the day it all clicks into place you'll question your entire world view.