During President Donald Trump’s state visit to China a few days ago, President Xi Jinping burnished his intellectual credentials by citing the Thucydides Trap during talks with his counterpart.
He explained to the quite possibly bemused US leader how the Peloponnesian War in ancient Greece between two superpowers of the time, Athens and Sparta, arose from their inability to manage their respective interests, one being a nation in the ascendant unnecessarily provoking fear in the other. No prizes for guessing which role China thinks it is playing now. The exposition carried an unusually explicit warning about US-Chinese geopolitical rivalry: “Can we work together to address global challenges and bring more stability to the world?” More privately, and in the context of the future of Taiwan, President Xi left Mr Trump in no doubt about his meaning.
