What is the Thucydides Trap that came up at the Trump - Xi meeting

President Xi used the “Thucydides trap” to send the message that China does not seek to displace the US, but warns that if Washington reacts with fear, then conflict will be unavoidable.

What is the “Thucydides trap”?

The Apella, the assembly of Spartan citizens, decided to declare war on Athens, contrary to the suggestion of King Archidamus. And in fact, Apella imposed on the dissenting king the command of a war that he did not want.

Apella's decision was due to the belief that Athens was constantly growing stronger and very soon Sparta would be a city surrounded by a vast Athenian territory and would no longer be able to react. Because for the Ancient Greeks the balance between the city-states was very important.

The continuous increase in Athenian power led to a complete reversal of this balance. Finally, Sparta decided to start this peculiar preventive war.

Athens and Sparta engaged in a furious struggle of mutual annihilation until the end, resulting in their mutual weakening, after a brief hegemony of Sparta and a transitional hegemony of Thebes, and finally the sweeping arrival of Philip of Macedon. This was the end of the ancient Greek world.

American analysts believe that within a decade China will have accumulated so much geopolitical power that the United States will no longer be able to prevent global Chinese dominance.

Therefore, according to this analysis, the United States must attempt in the immediate future to weaken or even dismantle China.

Otherwise, in the next century the United States will be a weak and isolated country in a Chinese-dominated world. Or, even worse, a state with reduced sovereignty in the Chinese sphere of influence.