Xi Jinping on the Thucydides Trap
Beijing's engagement with Graham Allison is, frankly, damage control.
Earlier this week, Charlie Parton, a former UK diplomat who spent 22 years working in China and an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute and the Council on Geostrategy, and in my personal opinion an impressive China watcher, wrote an unflattering opinion of Graham Allison, the “Founding Dean” of Harvard Kennedy School and Assistant Secretary of Defense in the first Clinton Administration, in The Spectator, a British magazine.
For those who are yet to be familiar with the jargon, this is Parton’s handy summary of the much-touted Thucydides Trap
Allison’s intellectual contribution is based on a sentence in Thucydides’ Histories: ‘It was the rise of Athens and the fear that this instilled in Sparta that made war inevitable.’ He has elevated this into a historical principle, and publicised his fear that it characterises the relationship between the rising power China (Athens) and the established hegemon the United States (Sparta).
Here is Parton’s rationale for Beijing’s interest in engaging with Allison:
Professor Allison and his Thucydides Trap appear continually in CCP propaganda, for the same reason he gets to meet China’s top leaders: because here is an intelligent American who can be cited to articulate the CCP narrative that the US is trying to contain China’s rise, to strangle its economy and innovation, and to maintain its global hegemony.
I think Parton is misinformed here. First, Beijing has consistently rebuked the Thucydides Trap publicly, at one point even relegating it to the ranks of “hearsay, paranoid or self-imposed bias.” Second, Beijing’s interest in engaging in Allison, when it comes to the Thucydides Trap, lies in, forgive my bluntness, damage control.
The first known instance that Xi Jinping publicly invoked the Thucydides Trap is in the World Post, part of the Huffington Post, in January 2014.
AVOIDING THE THUCYDIDES TRAP
Xi echoed Zheng's famous doctrine of China's "peaceful rise." "The argument that strong countries are bound to seek hegemony does not apply to China," Xi posited. "This is not in the DNA of the country given our long historical and cultural background." He even offered this surprising historical reference to Sparta and Athens: "We all need to work together to avoid the Thucydides trap - destructive tensions between an emerging power and established powers, or between established powers themselves."
(Zheng refers to Zheng Bijian, a former senior Chinese official and a strategist.)
The second known instance came in September 2015, when Xi gave a speech in Seattle
we must read each other's strategic intentions correctly. Building a new model of major-country relationship with the United States that features non-conflict, non-confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation is the priority of China's foreign policy. We want to deepen mutual understanding with the US on each other's strategic orientation and development path. We want to see more understanding and trust, less estrangement and suspicion, in order to forestall misunderstanding and miscalculation. We should strictly base our judgment on facts, lest we become victims to hearsay, paranoid or self-imposed bias. There is no such thing as the so-called Thucydides trap in the world. But should major countries time and again make the mistakes of strategic miscalculation, they might create such traps for themselves.
(The Chinese-language website of The New York Times also published the full text).
In October 2023, Xi again mentioned the Thucydides Trap, this time when meeting with a delegation of U.S. Senators led by Majority Leader Charles Schumer
President Xi underlined that the China-U.S. relationship is the most important bilateral relationship in the world. How China and the U.S. get along will determine the future of humanity. Competition and confrontation is not consistent with the trend of the times. Still less can it fix one’s own problems and address the challenges facing the world. China maintains that the common interests of the two countries far outweigh their differences, and the respective success of China and the U.S. is an opportunity, rather than a challenge, to each other. The “Thucydides Trap” is not inevitable, and Planet Earth is vast enough to accommodate the respective development and common prosperity of China and the U.S. Given the high degree of integration between the Chinese and U.S. economies and their closely entwined interests, both countries stand to benefit from each other’s development.
The last and most recent occasion where the term is mentioned in an official readout of Xi’s activities is in March 2024
China’s official readout says one of the U.S. visitors said “The ‘Thucydides trap’ is not inevitable.” Given that all of the visitors that Xi met except Allison are businesspeople, that quote is apparently attributed to Allison.
The readout quoted Xi as saying
The U.S. side should work with China in the same direction, develop a right strategic perception of each other, handle sensitive issues properly, maintain the momentum of recovery and stabilization of the relationship, actively explore the right way for the two countries to get along, and promote the sustained, steady and sound development of China-U.S. relations.
The four instances show that Xi has never been a fan of the Thucydides Trap, if it exists, being applied to the case of China and the U.S.
Xi’s consistent public remarks have been, as he told President Joe Biden in San Franciso in November 2023, China
will not take the old path of colonization and plundering, or the wrong path of seeking hegemony with growing strength. It doesnot export its ideology. It has no plan to surpass or unseat the United States
, or as he told Biden in November 2022 in Bali, Indonesia
China does not seek to change the existing international order or interfere in the internal affairs of the United States, and has no intention to challenge or displace the United States.
(Yes I know the U.S. doesn’t buy it after everything but that’s what he said.)
Those public remarks are consistent with Xi’s public dismissal of the Thucydides Trap, where he tries to steer clear of the HKS Founding Dean-made theory’s potential to mislead the U.S.
Unsurprisingly, China’s official messaging has echoed the dismissal. The People’s Daily, the flagship of the Communist Party of China, once devoted a full page to 破除修昔里德陷阱的迷思 “get rid of the myth of the Thucydides Trap” in December 2017
Excerpts from the three articles on the page
by Wang Yiwei of Renmin University of China
China-U.S. relations can overcome the so-called "Thucydides Trap"
Comrade Xi Jinping emphasized that when looking at Sino-US relations, we must look at the overall situation and not just focus on the differences between the two countries. As the saying goes, "the one who gets the big can take the small." China and the United States have extensive common interests in global governance and are fully capable of resolving conflicts through cooperation, constructively managing differences, jointly improving the global governance system, and building a community with a shared future for mankind. This is not only conducive to leveraging our respective strengths and strengthening cooperation, but also conducive to solving the major challenges currently facing mankind. It can be said that China and the United States have a thousand reasons to cooperate and can completely overcome the so-called "Thucydides Trap".
by Huang Ping of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
In recent years, some Western scholars have used Thucydides' name to express their concerns about possible conflicts between the United States and China. This is just their opinion and cannot be regarded as a law that big countries must fight each other, let alone an iron law of international relations…
President Xi Jinping has pointed out that there is no Thucydides Trap in the world, but repeated strategic miscalculations among the major Powers may create a Thucydides Trap for themselves. Therefore, we do not agree with the western scholars' claim of "Thucydides Trap", but we can regard it as an important reminder to save for a rainy day, strengthen communication and cooperation with relevant parties, and promote mutual benefit and win-win situation.
After the end of the Cold War, some Western scholars have been exploring: the First World War, such as "sudden events" in the end how and why it happened, there is no possibility to avoid the recurrence of such a historical tragedy. Behind this implies an important concern, that is, how the United States and China can cross the so-called "Thucydides Trap", to avoid repeating the tragedy of war. Some Western scholars also have this strategic concern: whether and when China will replace the United States as the world's hegemon. This has to do with the fact that Western countries have long been in the position of international rule makers and dominant players in the world order. If they have been in a dominant position for a long time and are accustomed to hegemony, they will always worry about who may take over their hegemonic position. Those who harbor such worries, even if they are not unfounded, are judging others by themselves. After the Opium War, China experienced the deep suffering of being bullied, ceding land and paying reparations, and having its mountains and rivers shattered, and the Chinese nation has always adhered to the value of "What you don't want to be done to you, don't do to others", and will never impose its own will or even bully the weak after it has stood up, become rich, and become strong. Facts will eventually prove that China will never claim hegemony or engage in expansion, no matter how far it develops.
by Ye Zicheng of Peking University
Exaggerating the "Thucydides trap" as an iron law and applying it to the relationship between emerging powers and established powers is a kind of short-sighted, trapped thinking. This kind of "Thucydides trap" thinking is a localized, simple, and one-dimensional way of thinking, which ignores the possible impact of such factors as the global nature, complexity, and diversity of the world.
Let’s come back to Charlie Parton’s de facto characterization of Graham Allison as a useful idiot:
Professor Allison and his Thucydides Trap appear continually in CCP propaganda, for the same reason he gets to meet China’s top leaders: because here is an intelligent American who can be cited to articulate the CCP narrative that the US is trying to contain China’s rise, to strangle its economy and innovation, and to maintain its global hegemony.
As I’ve shown, Parton is misinformed. The Thucydides Trap appears in China’s official discourse not disrespectfully but indeed negatively. Beijing wants to control the damage that it fears the theory has done or will do, and its rationale is that first the theory may not hold at all, and if it indeed holds then China just doesn’t fit into the model.
Lastly, a disclosure of potential conflicts of interest by way of two recent newsletters documenting what Allison said in the Center for China and Globalization (CCG) shortly before he met with Xi Jinping. CCG was releasing a book (in Chinese and English simultaneously) that Henry Huiyao Wang, CCG’s President and my current employer, produced. The book is a Q&A between Henry and Allison.
(I’m not sure if they appreciate this Pekingnology post. Hope Charlie won’t be offended, either.)
