The bell tolls in Beijing: Xi’s warning and the shadow of Thucydides |
“It was the rise of Athens and the fear that this instilled in Sparta that made war inevitable.” Two thousand five hundred years on, the trap is being set again — and this time the stakes are nuclear.
When Xi Jinping stood on Chinese soil and asked Donald Trump whether America and China could “transcend the Thucydides Trap,” he was not extending an olive branch. He was issuing a veiled warning, the kind that comes not in thunder, but in the low, measured tremor of a man who believes the fault line has already shifted beneath his rival’s feet.
“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” — Sun Tzu, The Art of War.
“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” — Sun Tzu, The Art of War.
In 2014, Xi invoked the Thucydides Trap, but this time, context is everything. This time, he delivered the message on home ground, before cameras, after what observers interpret as a period of deliberate strategic positioning. To paraphrase British historian Arnold Toynbee:
“civilisations do not die from assault. They succumb when they lose the will to respond to challenge.”
“civilisations do not die from assault. They succumb when they lose the will to respond to challenge.”
Xi’s gambit was to whisper, with exquisite courtesy, that the will may already be faltering in Washington.
Imagine Sparta, 431 BCE. The campfires burn low. Two generals crouch over a map of the Aegean. Outside, the roar of a navy being built can almost be heard across the water.
Archidamus, King of Sparta
“What are we to do with this ambitious Athenian? Their ships multiply. Their young men study philosophy and strategy. Do we wait and watch how things transpire — or do we strike now, before it is too late?
“What are we to do with this ambitious Athenian? Their ships multiply. Their young men study philosophy and strategy. Do we wait and watch how things transpire — or do we strike now, before it is too late?
Sthenelaidas, Spartan Ephor
“Athens grows toward us. She builds alliances where we slept. She made Corinth afraid. The Corinthians weep to us for action. If........