There's a path beyond Thucydides trap

On March 27, the country's top leader and a group of US businesspeople and academics agreed that the existing and rising powers can avoid the "Thucydides trap". The meeting was held just days after the release of the book, Escaping Thucydides's Trap: Dialogue with Graham Allison on China-US Relations, at the Center for China and Globalization. The timing of the book is critical, because the US presidential election in November will likely define the future of US-China relations amid a complex geopolitical landscape marked by trade disputes and regional conflicts.

In recent years, I have engaged in numerous discussions with Graham Allison, a leading analyst of national security, at events at the CCG as well as other places around the world, leading to the creation of our book. Through a series of questions and answers, we have examined the dynamics between rising and established powers, seeking paths for peaceful competition between China and the United States.

On March 22, 2024, Allison and I jointly released the English and the Chinese editions of the book at CCG's headquarters in Beijing. At the book launch, we also had a number of meaningful discussions on the future of Sino-US ties that drew on key themes from the book. Allison, who first articulated the concept of the "Thucydides trap", addressed the matter head-on: a US-China rivalry is inevitable, but so is cooperation when our need for survival requires it.