Thucydides Trap Explained: Why Xi Raised Ancient Trump War Warning | Today’s news
Chinese President Xi Jinping invoked an idea rooted in ancient Greek history during a meeting at the White House with US President Donald Trump on September 24, saying “the Thucydides trap can be overcome”, Bloomberg reported.
The message came as Xi urged the US and China to keep their rivalry “within bounds” and urged the militaries of both countries to maintain regular dialogue and improve mechanisms for communication and crisis prevention, Bloomberg read further.
The phrase refers to the risk of conflict when a rising power challenges an established power. While the concept is named after the ancient Greek historian Thucydides, its application to modern US-China relations was popularized by Harvard political scientist Graham Allison.
Quick answers to key questions
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The Thucydides Trap describes the increased risk of conflict when a rising power such as China challenges the dominance of an established power such as the US. It draws on historical examples of such dynamics leading to war.
Xi referred to the Thucydides Trap to highlight the need for better communication and crisis management between the US and China, urging that competition be managed to avoid escalation into conflict.
Xi believes the Thucydides trap can be overcome by maintaining regular military dialogue and crisis prevention mechanisms while promoting healthy competition between the US and China.
The Thucydides Trap has significant implications for trade and technology, as continued geopolitical competition can affect trade arrangements, access to technology, and investment decisions between the two nations.
Yes, both countries should take Thucydides’ trap seriously, as it highlights the risk of conflict due to their competitive actions, and effective management of this rivalry is key to global stability.
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Xi alluded to the same idea in his meeting with Trump in Beijing in May, when he asked whether the two countries could overcome the trap and build a different kind of relationship. His final remarks in Washington were more direct: the trap, he said, could be overcome.
What is Thucydides’ trap?
The Thucydides Trap describes the increased risk of conflict when an emerging power begins to challenge the position of an established power.
The term draws from Thucydides’ account of the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta. Thucydides attributed the conflict to the rise of Athens and the fear it caused in Sparta.
Allison subsequently applied the historical idea to modern superpower competition. His Harvard Thucydides’s Trap project examined 16 cases over the past 500 years where a rising power threatened to displace an established power. According to his research, 12 of these cases ended in war.
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However, this number does not predict that the US and China are headed for war. Scholars have questioned Allison’s case selection and methodology, arguing that some historical examples do not fit neatly into the framework and that the small sample makes broad conclusions difficult.
Why did Xi bring this up in the White House?
Xi’s message came at the same time as a call for greater communication between Washington and Beijing.
He said the two countries should strengthen communication, better understand each other, seek common ground and manage differences, and maintain regular military dialogue. He also argued that both sides should avoid confrontation, Bloomberg reported.
The timing is important as the US and China remain competitors in several areas, including trade, artificial intelligence and technology. Taiwan also remains a major point of contention between Washington and Beijing.
So Xi’s message was not that the US and China had resolved their differences. Rather, the reference to Thucydides’ trap framed communication and crisis management as ways to prevent strategic competition from escalating into conflict.
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Xi rejected the idea that conflict was inevitable
Xi has debated the Thucydides trap for years, previously arguing that it is not an inevitable law of history.
His latest comments return to this argument: the outcome of the power transition between the US and China is shaped by decisions made by both governments, rather than predetermined by history.
That resolution matters. The Thucydides Trap is a framework for thinking about great power rivalry, not a rule that says a rising power and an established power must eventually go to war.
Why is Thucydides’ trap important to US-China relations?
This idea is particularly relevant as Washington and Beijing compete while trying to keep their relationship stable.
Trade remains a major part of the relationship, while technology and artificial intelligence are becoming increasingly important areas of strategic competition. The two countries are also managing disagreements over Taiwan and other geopolitical issues.
For businesses and investors, the significance lies in how geopolitical competition can affect trade arrangements, access to technology, supply chains and investment decisions.
Xi Jinping’s remarks at the White House were therefore more a call to manage competition than evidence that the underlying US-China rivalry had disappeared.
What did Xi mean when he said that the trap can be overcome?
Xi’s choice of words offered a relatively simple proposition: The US and China can remain competitors without allowing the competition to become a military conflict.
His call for regular military communication and crisis prevention mechanisms points to a practical challenge behind the historical analogy. Even if Washington and Beijing disagree on trade, technology or Taiwan, both sides are interested in preventing these disagreements from escalating accidentally.
That’s why the Thucydides Trap link matters. It was not so much a statement that the US-China rivalry had been resolved as a statement about how Beijing wanted the rivalry to be managed.
