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US-China ties: Averting the grandest collision of all
The Song-Liao treaty from Chinese history offers lessons on how fierce rivals can avoid war
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Leaders in both Washington and Beijing will have to find a way to cooperate in some areas while competing ruthlessly in others.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Graham Allison
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If historian Thucydides were asked about what is happening in relations between the United States and China today, what would he say? That was the question posed to me at the Davos World Economic Forum in January. I responded that he would say that this is a classic Thucydidean rivalry in which the two parties are right on script, each competing to show which can best exemplify the typical rising and ruling power – leaving him on the edge of his seat anticipating the grandest collision of all time.
The debate that began in 2017 with the publication of Destined For War: Can America And China Escape Thucydides’s Trap? is now in the rear-view mirror. No one can deny that China is the most formidable rival a ruling power has ever seen.
