An ancient warning hangs over the Trump-Xi summit bonhomie
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“Can China and the United States overcome the Thucydides trap and create a new paradigm of major country relations? Can we overcome global challenges together and bring greater stability to the world? Can we together build a brighter future for our bilateral relations, for the sake of the prosperity of our two peoples and the future of humanity?” he said.
The summit itself may not transform U.S.-China relations overnight, but it has reopened an important debate about whether rivalry between the world’s two largest powers will inevitably result in conflict.
Xi’s warning and the return of the “Thucydides Trap”
The phrase “Thucydides trap” comes from the ancient Greek historian Thucydides, who described the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta in the 5th century BC. As Thucydides famously wrote: “It was the rise of Athens and the fear it inspired in Sparta that made war inevitable.” In modern strategic thought, the phrase has come to be used to describe the danger that arises when a rapidly rising power threatens to displace an established dominant power.
The term was popularized by Harvard political scientist Graham Allison in his influential book ‘Destined for War’, published in 2017. Allison examined 16 historical cases in which power was challenged by a rising power over the last 500 years. In 12 of these cases, the rivalry ended in war. This analogy has since become central to debates about the future of US-China relations.
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Xi has touched on this concept repeatedly over the past decade. Chinese leaders have long used the phrase to argue that conflict between the United States and China is not inevitable if both sides manage the relationship prudently. But the formulation also subtly places the onus on the United States, implying that the established power should accommodate the rise of the challenger rather than resist it.
At this summit, Xi revived the phrase at a moment of extraordinary global instability. The international system is being simultaneously reshaped by economic fragmentation, technological competition, military tensions over Taiwan, and conflicts extending from Ukraine to the Gulf. Xi arrived at the summit with a sense of confidence as Trump entered negotiations under mounting domestic and geopolitical pressures.
How does Graham Allison see the danger today?
Allison has become more pessimistic about the course of U.S.-China relations in recent years. In an interview with ET last year, he warned that there were growing repercussions of the pre-World War I rivalry between Britain and Germany. Recalling conversations with his late mentor Henry Kissinger, Allison said a devastating conflict was “quite possible,” though not inevitable. But Allison’s argument is often misunderstood. He does not claim that the war between the US and China was predetermined. Rather, he argues that structural tension between a rising power and an established power creates intense pressures that can escalate into conflict through miscalculation, nationalism, alliance commitments, or crises. The danger lies less in deliberate aggression than in escalatory dynamics that neither side can fully control.
Critics of Allison’s thesis argue that historical analogies may oversimplify contemporary realities. Many scholars note that the United States and China are more deeply intertwined economically than Athens and Sparta ever were. Nuclear deterrence also fundamentally changes the calculus of great power conflict. Others argue that the concept exaggerates the inevitability of China as a new hegemon at a time when the international system is now much more dispersed and multipolar.
Yet even skeptics acknowledge that the relationship increasingly exhibits the classic symptoms of strategic competition. A major strategic study of the US-China rivalry described the relationship as a “security dilemma” in which both powers view their own actions as defensive while interpreting the others as offensive. The study warned that economic, technological and military competition are merging into a broader systemic struggle for global order.
Why Taiwan remains the most dangerous flashpoint
If the Thucydides trap has a geographical center today, it is Taiwan. At the summit, Xi reportedly warned Trump that mismanagement of Taiwan could trigger a direct conflict between the two countries. Taiwan is the most sensitive issue casting a shadow over the negotiations.
For China, Taiwan is not just a territorial issue, but also a fundamental issue of sovereignty and national legitimacy. For the United States, Taiwan is at the center of the Indo-Pacific alliance system and semiconductor supply chains. As military activity around the Taiwan Strait intensifies, both sides increasingly find it necessary to deter through shows of force. But this also increases the risk of accidents and escalation. This is exactly the kind of dynamic Allison warns about. Historical great power wars have often broken out not because leaders were actively seeking disaster, but because crisis management mechanisms failed under pressure.
Beyond trade: A broader strategic competition
Although trade dominated public messaging around the summit, the underlying competition now extends well beyond tariffs. The talks take place amid an emerging technology war involving semiconductors, artificial intelligence and export controls. China wants restrictions on advanced chips to be eased, while the US wants greater access to Chinese markets and critical rare earth resources. Prominent American business executives, including technology chiefs, accompanied Trump to Beijing as both countries seek to explore limited economic stability. But the deeper trend is towards managed unbundling rather than renewed integration.
Many analysts argue that the emerging US-China balance is not compromise but a managed competition designed to prevent uncontrolled tension while maintaining strategic competition. The competition has also become increasingly geopolitical. Trump sought China’s help to rein in Iran and stabilize energy routes in the Strait of Hormuz. But China’s priorities are not the same as those of the United States. While Trump wants China to cooperate on Iran, China may instead see the regional crisis as leverage against the United States. This reflects a broader reality that both powers are collaborating more selectively while competing structurally across multiple domains.
Can this summit really ease tensions?
It seems unlikely that the Beijing summit will lead to a major negotiation between the two countries. Expectations on both sides were deliberately kept modest. The main goal is stability rather than breakthrough. Still, summits are important in periods of strategic competition because they reduce the risk of miscalculation. Personal diplomacy between Trump and Xi could help preserve communication channels during future crises. The symbolism of the meeting was important. Both leaders consciously projected warmth and stability despite deep underlying disagreements.
The summit could also produce limited practical results, such as extending a trade ceasefire, easing some export restrictions, restarting military communications channels and coordinating in global hotspots such as Iran. These measures will not end competition, but they can help manage it. The current phase of U.S.-China relations is not moving toward partnership in the traditional sense. It is evolving towards competitive coexistence. Both countries realize that full confrontation would be economically devastating and strategically dangerous, but neither is willing to give up their core goals.
Escape the trap without ending the competition
The deeper question that Xi’s words raise is whether the United States and China can build a stable relationship despite structural rivalry. History offers mixed lessons. Some major power transitions have ended in disaster. Others were governed peacefully through compromise, deterrence, economic interdependence, and institutional restraint. Today’s challenge is further complicated by ideological distrust, nationalism, and accelerating technological competition.
But the modern world is also fundamentally different from previous eras. The cost of direct war between nuclear powers would be catastrophic not only for the two countries involved but for the entire global economy. This creates strong incentives for restraint.
The Beijing summit does not resolve the underlying tensions driving the rivalry. Taiwan remains explosive. Technological competition is intensifying. Mutual suspicion deepens. But Xi’s invocation of the “Thucydides trap” made complete sense because it openly acknowledged what both sides privately understood: that the greatest danger is not the competition itself but losing control of it.
Whether the United States and China can avoid this trap may ultimately depend less on friendship or trust than on whether both sides can accept a long-term relationship defined by rivalry without allowing rivalry to escalate into inevitable conflict.
