In his 2023 meeting with then Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer in China, Xi again, according to Chinese state media, underlined how Thucydides’ Trap was “not inevitable” and that “the world is big enough to fully accommodate China and the United States’ respective development and common prosperity.”
In a meeting with President Joe Biden in 2024 in Lima, Peru, Xi repeated that Thucydides’ Trap was “not a historical inevitability,” before warning that “a new Cold War should not be fought and cannot be won.” (Allison, the political scientist, has referred to the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union as one of the 16 cases of the “trap” that didn’t result in war.)
Echoed by Chinese diplomats
Chinese diplomats have since echoed Xi in using the phrase to describe U.S.-China relations.
In 2017, former Ambassador to the U.S. Cui Tiankai said that Thucydides’ Trap was among the main questions that needed to be answered for the future of U.S.-China ties. “What kind of relationship [should we] build together, in the interests of both countries, as well as of the world?” Cui asked. “Is the ‘Thucydides Trap’ so insurmountable that China and the U.S. are destined for war? Can China and the U.S. blaze a new trail in international relations in which countries, especially the major ones, engage in win-win partnership instead of zero-sum rivalry?”