On May 14, 2026, President Xi Jinping hosted US President Donald J. Trump for a state visit in Beijing, visiting the historic Temple of Heaven before holding talks at the Great Hall of the People.
The visit aimed to highlight Chinese history and civilisation, with the leaders touring the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests and emphasising harmony and dialogue.
The Thucydides Trap in recent timesThe New York Times reported that "As the leaders of the United States and China met in Beijing on Thursday, Xi Jinping had a much older rivalry on his mind.
The Chinese president invoked a warning from the Classical world, when the Greek city-states of Athens and Sparta went to war, saying that the United States and China should beware the “Thucydides Trap” in their own relations.
Xi cited the concept, popularised in recent decades, as he warned that Beijing and Washington could enter an “extremely dangerous place” if President Trump sought to impede China as it asserted itself over Taiwan.
The trap referred to by Mr Xi was named for Thucydides, the ancient Athenian general, whose account of the Second Peloponnesian War (431 B.C. to 404 B.C.) is considered one of the first written military histories.
'Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap? According to a 2017 book from Harvard University by Professor Graham Allison.
Book, "Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap?"
This statue is located outside the Parliament Building in Vienna, Austria.
The statue, often referenced in discussions regarding the "Thucydides Trap," on the marble statue of the ancient Greek historian and general Thucydides, who is depicted seated and draped in robes.
The Thucydides Trap
Reviewing the past 500 years, the Harvard Thucydides’s Trap Project has identified 16 cases in which a major rising power has threatened to displace a major ruling power. Twelve of these sixteen rivalries ended in war.
“It was the rise of Athens and the fear that this instilled in Sparta that made war inevitable.”
Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, 431 BCE
Thucydides’s trap has been sprung in the Pacific, from Graham Allison, FT 2022
However, Arthur Waldron, a notable scholar on Chinese history and military affairs, writes that two of the greatest classicists of the last century,
Prof Donald Kagan of Yale and the late Prof Ernst Badian of Harvard long ago proved that no such thing exists as the “Thucydides Trap,” certainly not in the actual Greek text of the great History of the Peloponnesian War.
"Although Thucydides presents the war as started by the resident power, Sparta, out of fear of a rising Athens, he makes it clear first that Athens had an empire, from which it wished to eliminate any Spartan threat by stirring up a war and teaching the hoplite Spartans that they could never win...The Spartans, Kagan tells us, wanted no war, preemptive or otherwise.
Dwelling in the deep south, they lived a simple country life that agreed with them."
There may well be the emergence of something akin to the Cold War between the West and the late Soviet Empire, but the difference then was that the United States had very little economic engagement with the Soviet Union.
"However, those like Graham Allison who talk about a Thucydides trap only capture half the meaning of the History of The Peloponnesian War. The true trap is countries going into, and continuing, war clouded by passions like fear, hubris and honor."
Arthur Waldron: ‘There is No Thucydides Trap’
Discussion
China aims to become a "moderately developed" country by 2035, a goal that requires maintaining stable growth to transition from an upper-middle-income to a high-income economy.
While major cities are highly advanced, significant regional income disparities and lower per capita GDP mean China officially maintains its status as a developing country, despite its massive total economic output.
We don't why Xi brought op the issue of Thucydides, but he he knows that the US will think hard on brinnging war to Asia.
