Xi raised ‘Thucydides Trap’ with Trump as warning against conflict, expert says

Xi's Thucydides Trap Reference: A Signal of Shifting US-China Dynamics

When Chinese President Xi Jinping met with US President Donald Trump in Beijing this month, he invoked a concept rooted in ancient Greek history: the "Thucydides Trap." The reference, which draws on the 5th-century BC conflict between Athens and Sparta, was not merely academic. According to observers, it was a carefully calibrated signal about the state of US-China relations.

The Thucydides Trap, a theory popularised by Harvard political scientist Graham Allison, posits that when a rising power threatens an established power, war between the two becomes more likely. Allison, who served as an assistant secretary of defence in the Clinton administration, said Xi viewed the concept as the "best diagnosis" of the challenge Beijing faces with Washington. "He understands that business as usual [and] diplomacy as usual will produce history as usual," Allison said, adding that "history as usual will be a catastrophic war that neither China nor the US will survive."

Xi's use of the term was not unprecedented. He talked about the theory as early as 2013. In 2015, he cautioned that major powers "might create such traps for themselves" through mistakes of strategic miscalculation, but insisted that "there is no such thing as the so-called Thucydides Trap in the world."

Many observers interpreted Xi's latest reference as a subtle indication that China is now more willing to acknowledge its emergence as a global power. For nearly a decade, Beijing carefully avoided projecting itself as a challenger to the international order, cultivating instead the image of a leader of the Global South and a partner of developing economies. If that posture is shifting, the implications could be profound for global politics and for countries like Pakistan, positioned at the intersection of great-power competition, economic dependency and regional strategic realignment.

China's confidence is rooted in economic realities. Over the last two decades, China has transformed itself into the principal manufacturing and trading hub across Eurasia and much of the Global South. Its trade volume exceeded $6 trillion in 2025, and its expanding influence in green technology, infrastructure development and industrial production is now challenging the foundations of the post-1945 US-led order.

Meanwhile, the US retains its dominance over the financial and military architecture of the Atlantic alliance system. The two countries have been rivals for almost 80 years, but the dynamic described by the Thucydides Trap has gained greater salience as China's global footprint has expanded.

Beyond the immediate bilateral context, the concept has also sparked broader historical reflections. Some scholars, both Western and Chinese, are examining the Chinese tribute system and the peace it maintained in East Asia over several centuries. In an essay in Foreign Affairs, authors Michael J. Gigante, Joshua Stone, Daniel Druckman and Ming Wan argue that from 1598 to 1894, most of East Asia was largely devoid of internal fighting. The key to this peace, they say, was a shared ideology: Confucianism. Led by China, these Confucian states established an interconnected system of regional governance centred on China, the most powerful state, that helped ensure security and prosperity.

This long peace was, however, undermined by Western imperialism and by Japan's adoption of an aggressive ideology of territorial conquest. The essay compares the East Asian long peace with the long peace among post-war democracies led by the United States, sometimes called the liberal rules-based order, which is now being challenged by its former guarantor.

Xi's reference to the Thucydides Trap, therefore, is not just a warning about the dangers of great-power conflict. It is also an invitation to consider alternative models of order, both historical and contemporary, and to reflect on the choices that lie ahead for the US and China.