Xi Warned Trump Against the ‘Thucydides Trap’ – Here’s What Ancient Greece Can Tell Us About US‑China Relations
Xi urged Trump to avoid a war-triggering pattern as analysts said 12 of 16 major power shifts studied by Graham Allison ended in conflict.
- Last week, Chinese President Xi Jinping told Donald Trump he hopes the United States and China can avoid the "Thucydides trap," a theory suggesting rising powers often clash with established ones, leading to war.
- US political scientist Graham Allison re-popularized the term in the 2010s, citing the Peloponnesian War 2,430 years ago between Athens and Sparta, where fear of rising Athenian power made conflict inevitable.
- Allison identified 16 moments in 500 years when a rising power threatened a major ruling power, and 12 of those resulted in war. Current tensions between the nations stem from trade disputes and China's claims to sovereignty over Taiwan.
- Aaron MacLean called Xi's remarks "an entirely unsubtle warning, and even a threat" on The Free Press. David M. Pritchard, an associate professor at the University of Queensland, noted poorly managed rising powers may feel "obliged to go to war."
- Sparta managed to check Athens' rise but at terrible cost; after 27 years of conflict, the city-state's fighting population was decimated, forcing reliance on unreliable allies and ultimately triggering its decline.
13 Articles
13 Articles
Xi vs. Trump: Round One Goes to China
Columnist and China hawk Gordon Chang said President Trump did not achieve much during his trip to China, in an interview with Forbes, saying it made the U.S. look weak for the president not to walk out when Xi Jinping mentioned the "Thucydides Trap" at the welcoming ceremony.
Thucydides and impending war with China
In his opening remarks to President Trump before the recently completed summit in Beijing, Chinese leader Xi Jinping had this to say. “The world has come to another crossroads. Can China and the United States overcome the Thucydides Trap and create a new paradigm of major country relations?” There has been a lot of buzz in the press about this comment. Most of it fails to adequately address its true import. Let me explain. Thucydides lived in At…
What is the Thucydides trap?
Chinese president Xi Jinping told Donald Trump last week that he hoped the US and China could avoid the “Thucydides trap”. He was referring to an ancient Greek theory of war that has become a staple of geopolitical commentary in recent years. But what was he implying – and what do classical battles have to do with current US-China relations?What is the Thucydides trap?It’s the theory that, when a rising power threatens to displace an established…
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