Xi Jinping sees Thucydides Trap as 'best diagnosis' of US challenge
Quick Look
- Chinese President Xi Jinping views the Thucydides Trap as the "best diagnosis" of Beijing's challenge with Washington, according to political scientist Graham Allison.
- Xi reportedly raised the concept with Donald Trump, signaling an awareness of the risk of conflict if current diplomatic paths continue.
AI-generated summary
Why It Matters
The Thucydides Trap is a concept describing the tendency for a rising power to displace an established power, often leading to conflict. Chinese President Xi Jinping has previously discussed this theory, acknowledging its relevance to China's relationship with the US.
Chinese President Xi Jinping viewed the Thucydides Trap as the “best diagnosis” of the challenge Beijing faces with Washington when he raised the concept with US leader Donald Trump this month, signalling an awareness that their current path risked conflict, an eminent American political scientist said.
“My impression is that he sees this as the best diagnosis of the challenge he and President Trump face,” said Graham Allison, the founding dean of Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.
“He understands that business as usual [and] diplomacy as usual will produce history as usual. And history as usual will be a catastrophic war that neither China nor the US will survive.”
The idea is not new but has gained greater salience in US-China relations as China’s global footprint has expanded.
Xi talked about the theory as early as 2013. In 2015, while he cautioned that major powers “might create such traps for themselves” through mistakes of strategic miscalculation, he insisted that “there is no such thing as the so-called Thucydides Trap in the world”.
Open Questions
- What specific "mistakes of strategic miscalculation" does Xi Jinping fear?
- How did Xi Jinping frame the Thucydides Trap to Donald Trump?
- What are the potential diplomatic or strategic shifts that could avoid the "catastrophic war"?
- What is Graham Allison's specific evidence for Xi's "best diagnosis" interpretation?
