{"id":475,"date":"2026-05-18T10:52:46","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T10:52:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/2026\/05\/18\/xi-warned-trump-against-the-thucydides-trap-heres-what-ancient-greece-can-tell-us-about-us-china-relations\/"},"modified":"2026-05-18T10:52:46","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T10:52:46","slug":"xi-warned-trump-against-the-thucydides-trap-heres-what-ancient-greece-can-tell-us-about-us-china-relations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/2026\/05\/18\/xi-warned-trump-against-the-thucydides-trap-heres-what-ancient-greece-can-tell-us-about-us-china-relations\/","title":{"rendered":"Xi warned Trump against the \u2018Thucydides Trap\u2019 \u2013 here\u2019s what ancient Greece can tell us about US-China relations"},"content":{"rendered":"
Thucydides recounted how rising power Athens challenged Sparta, resulting in a destructive 30-year war.<\/span> Natalllenka.m\/Shutterstock<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In his opening remarks<\/a> at his summit with Donald Trump on May 15, the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, invoked the fifth-century BC Greek historian Thucydides to issue a veiled warning to the US president.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe world has come to a new crossroads. Can China and the United States transcend the so-called \u2018Thucydides Trap\u2019 and forge a new paradigm for major-power relations?\u201d<\/p>\n

Thucydides has been surprisingly prominent in international affairs this year. In January, Canadian prime minister Mark Carney cited<\/a> the famous line from the Melian Dialogue<\/a>, that the \u201cstrong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must\u201d, to warn against the decline of a rules-based order. Others have quoted it to describe US military action in Venezuela and Iran \u2013 both positively and negatively.<\/p>\n

Xi looked instead to Thucydides\u2019 view of the \u201ctruest, though least discussed, reason\u201d for the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta. The most familiar translation of his words<\/a>, from 1875, is that: \u201cIt was the rise of Athens, and the fear this aroused in Sparta, that made war inevitable.\u201d<\/p>\n

American international relations scholar Graham Allison developed from this the idea of Thucydides\u2019s Trap<\/a>. Thucydides\u2019 stated goal was that readers would find his history useful for understanding future events. So, Allison argued, we can turn his words into a general principle: when an \u201cestablished power\u201d like Sparta is confronted with a \u201crising power\u201d like Athens, conflict is usually the result.<\/p>\n

History, claims Allison<\/a>, bears this out. Across the centuries, 12 out of 16 examples of an established great power facing an upstart rival have resulted in war, including the two world wars. Will this also be the case between the USA, the global hegemon since the Soviet Union collapsed, and a resurgent China challenging its dominance, especially economically?<\/p>\n

Three traps<\/h2>\n

Allison\u2019s idea was much discussed. In 2017, he was invited to the White House<\/a> to talk about it in relation to China and the US. So Xi\u2019s mention of the Thucydides Trap was less a new idea than a call-back to the first Trump presidency. The theory has been taken seriously by the Chinese government, if only as a guide to American thinking. It has been identified as one of three traps<\/a> faced by China today, together with the Tacitus Trap<\/a> and the Middle Income Trap<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Discussion of the Thucydides Trap has largely focused on Allison\u2019s account of the contemporary situation. Debate has centred on whether his characterisation of the US-China relationship is correct<\/a>, and whether the advent of nuclear weapons and\/or economic interdependence has changed the dynamic<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Allison offered the Thucydides Trap as a warning, to encourage both governments to pursue compromise and cooperation. The risk is that the established power might think Thucydides is telling them to suppress potential rivals before they become a threat \u2013 even if that makes war more likely. Hence Xi\u2019s emphasis on avoiding the trap. But China hawks see that as a ruse to delay conflict until the balance of power is more even.<\/p>\n

Cautionary tale<\/h2>\n

Since this is presented as a theory grounded in historical data and the authority of Thucydides, it is worth noting that it is questionable on both counts. Characterising many past conflicts as concerning just two rival powers, established and rising, is dubious; was the first world war just about Britain and Germany, for example?<\/p>\n

As for Thucydides, the crucial line is a very loose translation of what he actually wrote, which is much more ambiguous<\/a>. A more literal version: \u201cAthens becoming great caused the Spartans to fear, and compelled towards war.\u201d Compelled whom? Thucydides doesn\u2019t specify. The Spartans? (And if so, were they actually compelled, or simply felt themselves to be compelled?) Both sides? Or the whole situation? Is he just being unclear \u2013 or is this deliberate, to push his readers to think more deeply?<\/p>\n

Having offered this opaque and slightly ambiguous statement, Thucydides then presented a detailed narrative of the events leading to Sparta\u2019s declaration of war. This included many points where things might arguably have turned out differently. His interpretation emphasised both short- and long-term developments, and both individual decisions and emotions as well as structural factors. His \u201ctrap\u201d is much more complex \u2013 and it\u2019s definitely not inevitable.<\/p>\n

This is very familiar to discerning readers of Thucydides. His work doesn\u2019t offer straightforward laws of war and politics, but sets out the complexity of human behaviour in a way which prompts us to think more deeply about it. But his ideas are often wrongly presented as simplistic principles<\/a> that supposedly explain the world.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s response<\/a> to Xi \u2013 that the USA may have been in decline under Biden but it\u2019s now the hottest country ever \u2013 is a misreading even of Allison\u2019s simplified version of Thucydides. The \u201cTrap\u201d theory says nothing about decline, only that the established superpower now faces a rival. <\/p>\n

But anxiety about decline and decadence now pervades western thought<\/a>. Perhaps this is evidence for the same sort of fear that came to govern Spartan thinking and, as Thucydides himself recounted, drew both states into a destructive war.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Neville Morley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thucydides recounted how rising power Athens challenged Sparta, resulting in a destructive 30-year war. Natalllenka.m\/Shutterstock In his opening remarks at his summit with Donald Trump on May 15, the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, invoked the fifth-century BC Greek historian Thucydides to issue a veiled warning to the US president. \u201cThe world has come to a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}