Could the United States and China be Rivalry Partners?

The strategic rationale for the relationship between the United States and China has collapsed. After a quarter century in which American presidents sought to integrate a rapidly developing China into the American-led international order, the United States has concluded that what it thought was a “strategic partner” is in fact a “strategic adversary.” After decades of keeping its head down following Deng Xiaoping’s injunction to “hide and bide,” Xi Jinping’s China has discarded that cloak and become increasingly assertive.At this point, policymakers in Beijing and Washington understand that they are locked in a classic Thucydidean rivalry. China is a meteoric rising power. The United States is a colossal ruling power. As China achieves its dream to “make China great again,” it is inevitably encroaching on American positions and prerogatives at the top of every pecking order—commanding heights that after an American century, Americans have naturally come to see as their rightful place.In the long sweep of history, when a rising power threatens to displace a ruling power, alarm bells should sound: extreme danger ahead. The past 500 years have seen sixteen similar Thucydidean rivalries. Twelve ended in war. Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap? develops this diagnosis of the predicament leaders of the American and Chinese governments now face. As Henry Kissinger has noted, Thucydides’s Trap offers the best lens available for cutting through the noise and news of the day to the underlying dynamic in relations between these two great powers.

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