“We should coexist in peace. China and the United States, as two major countries, stand to gain from cooperation and will both lose in confrontation. Our two militaries should maintain regular dialog and improve mechanisms for crisis communication and prevention.”
With such conditions in place, Xi said, “the Thucydides trap can be overcome”, refering to the phenomenon, defined by the Greek historian, of tensions that arise when an emerging power challenges the dominance of an established power.
Xi invoked the phrase in his meeting with Trump in Beijing in May, asking the US president how he planned to avoid it.
His proposals for lessening tensions – which also included the invitation of 100,000 young Americans to visit China on student exchanges – come amid a period of intense competition between the two powers over artificial intelligence and trade, with each side imposing tariffs on the other…
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/sep/24/xi-jinping-trump-china-cooperation-thucydides-trap
