When a rising power threatens to displace a ruling power, it rarely ends well.
It may not be apparent when President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping meet beneath the towering palms and crystal chandeliers at Mar-a-Lago this coming week, but the nations they lead are on a collision course for war.
An irresistibly rising China is challenging the United States’ accustomed dominance. Consider that the U. S. share of global economic output fell from 22 percent in 1980 to 16 percent today, while China’s grew from 2 percent to 18 percent over the same period. Historians know that when a rising power threatens to displace a ruling power, alarms should sound: extreme danger ahead. As Thucydides explained about the war that destroyed the two great city states of ancient Greece, “It was the rise of Athens and the fear that this instilled in Sparta that made war inevitable.” Likewise, a century ago, it was the rise of Germany and the fear it created in Britain that allowed an archduke’s assassination to ignite a conflagration so devastating that it required an entirely new category: world war.
This pattern, which I call the “Thucydides Trap,” recurs often. A major nation’s rise has disrupted the position of a dominant state 16 times over the past 500 years. In 12 of those 16 cases, the outcome was war. In the four cases that avoided violent conflict, that was possible only because of huge, painful adjustments in attitudes and actions on the part of challenger and challenged. Think of Britain and the United States under Theodore Roosevelt, or the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
We are certain to see a succession of confrontations between China and the United States in the years ahead. What is in doubt is whether the leaders of these two great powers can manage these confrontations without escalating them to war. For now, that’s up to Trump and Xi.
If Hollywood made a movie pitting the United States against China on the road to war, central casting would be hard-pressed to find two better leads. As personalities, Trump and Xi could not be more different. Despite the formalities of a scripted summit, their contrasting styles will be on full display. But in many ways, they are mirror images of each other.
Both have pledged to restore the greatness of their nations with an agenda of radical change. Everyone knows Trump’s trademark one-liner. But when Xi rose to power in 2012, he announced his “China Dream,” calling for “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.”
Both men take pride in what they consider their unique leadership capabilities. Trump built his presidential aspirations on what he portrayed as unrivaled business acumen, memorably claiming that he alone could fix the nation’s problems. Xi has so firmly concentrated power in his own hands that he is now often referred to as the “Chairman of Everything.” Indeed, the exceptionalism ingrained in each man’s political agenda speaks to a broader similarity between the United States and China: Both have extreme superiority complexes. Each sees itself as without peers.
And, perhaps most important, both Trump and Xi view the nation the other leads as the principal obstacle to achieving their core ambition.
