{"id":450006,"date":"2026-05-15T09:52:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T09:52:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/450006\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T09:52:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T09:52:08","slug":"what-is-the-thucydides-trap-and-why-did-xi-jinping-mention-it-in-his-meeting-with-trump-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/450006\/","title":{"rendered":"What is the Thucydides trap and why did Xi Jinping mention it in his meeting with Trump? \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A messy war in the Middle East<\/a>. Tensions in Taiwan. When the leaders of the world\u2019s two superpowers met in Beijing <\/a>this week, these were the flashpoints everyone expected they would talk about.<\/p>\n

Instead, Chinese <\/a>leader Xi Jinping threw another, ancient war, into the mix.<\/p>\n

In his opening remarks on Thursday, Xi Jinping<\/a> made reference to the Peloponnesian War in ancient Greece, a decades long conflict that erupted between Athens and Sparta in 431BC.<\/p>\n

In a shot across the bow of hegemonic rivalry, Xi asked: \u201cCan China and the United States<\/a> transcend the so-called \u2018Thucydides trap\u2019 and forge a new paradigm for major-power relations<\/a>?\u201d<\/p>\n

What is the Thucydides trap?<\/p>\n

A staple of foreign policy commentary, including by Trump\u2019s former chief strategist Steve Bannon, the Thucydides trap refers to the idea that when a rising power threatens to displace an established one, the result is often war.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the rise of Athens and the fear that this instilled in Sparta that made war inevitable,\u201d Thucydides wrote in his book, the History of the Peloponnesian War.<\/p>\n

Just as Athens once warred with Sparta, the implication is that China\u2019s rise provokes anxiety and potential conflict with the US.<\/p>\n

Observers have noted that Xi has used the term for years, but deploying the classical reference during Trump\u2019s visit may be have been a foreshadowing of his position on Taiwan.<\/p>\n

The Chinese leader later warned Trump that any missteps on Taiwan could push their two countries into \u201cconflict\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Taiwan question is the most important issue in China-US relations,\u201d Xi said, of the self governing island that China claims as its own.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf mishandled, the two nations could collide or even come into conflict, pushing the entire China-US relationship into a highly perilous situation,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

But at a state banquet in the evening the Chinese leader struck a more conciliatory note, insisting the US and China could manage the seemingly inevitable friction.<\/p>\n

\u201cAchieving the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and making America great again can totally go hand in hand … and advance the wellbeing of the whole world,\u201d Xi said.<\/p>\n

Responding on social media Trump said that Xi had \u201cvery elegantly referred to the United States as perhaps being a declining nation\u201d.<\/p>\n

Of course, though, that was not a reference to the US under his watch, Trump said.<\/p>\n

\u201cTwo years ago, we were, in fact, a Nation in decline,\u201d Trump posted on social media early on Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, the United States is the hottest Nation anywhere in the world, and hopefully our relationship with China will be stronger and better than ever before!\u201d \u2013 The Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A messy war in the Middle East. Tensions in Taiwan. When the leaders of the world\u2019s two superpowers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":450007,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[114,969,42,43,40,38,41,39,90,12139],"class_list":["post-450006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-china","tag-donald-trump","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-us","tag-xi-jinping"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=450006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450006\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/450007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=450006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=450006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=450006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}