China News Agency, Beijing, March 2. Question: Why is the "Thucydides Trap" a false proposition?

  Author Qian Chengdan Peking University Boya Chair Professor

  Recently, the United States has repeatedly used the excuse that a Chinese civilian unmanned airship strayed into US airspace and was shot down, and hyped up the so-called "balloon incident" in the international public opinion field, which has caused turmoil in the already easing relations between the two countries.

In recent years, Sino-US relations have attracted global attention. The relationship between the two countries has experienced ups and downs. What kind of mentality does the US's capricious attitude towards China reflect?

For this answer, perhaps we can start with the "Thucydides Trap" theory concocted by the United States and get a glimpse of it.

  In fact, the "Thucydides Trap" theory is a cover-up of the United States. It uses a new term that seems extremely profound and contains mysteries to frighten people, but no one has explored the truth.

In order not to fall into the "trap", it is necessary to return to history itself and reveal the truth of the "Thucydides Trap".

The Truth About "Thucydides' Trap"

  From 431 to 404 BC, there was a war in ancient Greece. The warring parties were two city-states, Sparta and Athens, and the city-state alliances led by each. This war was later known as the Peloponnesian War.

  In the view of historians, the root cause of the outbreak of the war was "Athensic imperialism", that is, Athens tried to control the whole of Greece, and did not hesitate to use force for this purpose.

Thucydides, the author of "History of the Peloponnesian War", mentioned in the book that Athens was becoming stronger and stronger. Although the Spartans knew this, they remained calm and did not intervene to stop it.

With Athenian power at its peak, the Athenians began to invade Sparta's allies.

The Spartans felt intolerable and decided to go to war.

This is an objective statement of events, accepted by historians.

It is commendable that Thucydides, as an Athenian and served as the highest official general in Athens, explained the war so objectively, which is commendable.

Battle of Tanagra, 457 BC, a battle between Athens and Sparta during the First Peloponnesian War.

From Hutchinson's History of the Nation, published 1915.

Photo courtesy of Visual China

  This is what Thucydides meant, but it was distorted and used by the American Graham Allison.

He served as the Assistant Secretary of Defense of the United States and is also a professor at Harvard University. He is a typical American "think tank" person and advises the US government.

In order to define the relationship between China and the United States in the 21st century, he cited history and invented the "Thucydides Trap", saying that there have been countless cases in history where newly rising powers challenged existing powers, and most of them ended in war.

He particularly emphasized the typical nature of the First World War, saying that the root cause of this war was that the newly rising power Germany challenged the then great power Britain, which triggered the war.

Just as Athens challenged Sparta, Sparta launched a war that eventually led to the destruction of Greece.

  From this point of view, the multiple overtones of the "trap" theory are clear: if China and the United States are embedded, that is, if China challenges the United States, there will be a war between the two countries, so the United States must be prepared to deal with China.

However, there are other sounds besides this string, let us look at the history again.

  The second tone of the overtones lies in the exchange of the positions of Athens and Sparta.

It is not clear who is the new rising power and who is the existing power between Sparta and Athens, because there was no modern statistics at that time, and it was impossible to measure who was stronger than who.

People only know that there were hundreds of city-states in the ancient Greek world, and Athens and Sparta were the two largest among them.

According to Thucydides, perhaps Athens was inherently stronger than Sparta, so it was more aggressive and more willing to implement imperialist policies; Sparta was more cautious and focused more on internal affairs.

However, it may not be accurate to define Sparta as an existing country and Athens as a newly rising country.

  The "trap" theory, however, attributed the responsibility for the war to Sparta, which deviated from reality: it could not accept the rise of Athens, so it launched a war.

But what is confusing is that when this theory was applied to World War I, the object of the accusation was Germany as a rising power: Germany’s militarism and expansionary ambitions threatened Britain, and Britain, as an “existing country”, was Forced into war, it was originally reluctant to fight Germany.

Returning to history itself to look at World War I, the essence is that two military groups fought each other. It is unfair to attribute the responsibility of World War I to Germany, and both groups should bear the responsibility.

  Behind this seemingly reasonable logic, there seem to be more overtones: in the Western thinking mode, Sparta has always been a symbol of power, autocracy, militarism, and arrogance, while Athens represents democracy, freedom, rationality, wisdom, etc. It is a concentrated expression of Western values.

So in the Peloponnesian War, Athens must be right and Sparta must be evil.

But during World War I, Britain represented democracy, freedom, rationality, and wisdom. Therefore, Britain should be on the side of justice, while Germany must be evil.

But logical confusion began to appear: According to Allison, in the Peloponnesian War, Athens, which represented justice, was the challenger, and Sparta, which represented evil, was the challenged; Germany is the challenger, Britain, which represents justice, is the challenged-so who is launching the war?

Is waging war a challenge or being challenged, is war waged by justice or war by evil?

Where does such a mess of logic come from?

Today's Peloponnese, Greece.

Photo by Bai Ying

  In fact, this is an ideology at work. Ellison's real logic is: as long as the party he defines as "democracy", no matter whether it has launched a war or not, it is just.

Shifting to the reality of Sino-US relations, isn't it clear what he is talking about?

  The "Thucydides Trap" theory has become popular in recent years because it defines the future Sino-US relationship as a relationship between "challenging" and "challenged", and blames China for the "provocation".

China's good development is the result of the Chinese people's own efforts; some American politicians eat sour grapes because of ideology and narrow-mindedness.

However, under the influence of American propaganda and public opinion, the mass media do not seek to understand the truth of history, blindly follow the false proposition of the trend, and involuntarily fall into a fabricated "Thucydides Trap".

Such an effect is exactly what the trap creators hope to see, and the world should have a clear understanding of it.

There is no "trap", how can we talk about "jumping out"

  In the actual human history, when contradictions and conflicts develop to a fierce degree, the strongest countries often fight against each other and even go to war.

How to deal with the relationship between major powers has become a major national issue.

Taking the United Kingdom as an example, observing its handling methods in the past century, it can be found that its rise from a remote island country to the number one power in the world has benefited from its diplomatic strategy and has nothing to do with the "Thucydides Trap".

  Britain's strategy can be summarized into three principles: first, British interests are paramount; second, there are no permanent friends and enemies; and third, it is to attack the strongest country.

The relationship between the three is that when dealing with other countries, the UK's interests are always used as the criterion for judging, regardless of ideology and moral obligations; friends and enemies are chosen based on the interests of the UK; the most powerful country is the enemy, Those who stand on the opposite side of the enemy are all friends. The United Kingdom must draw all "friends" to form an alliance to destroy the enemy.

  For hundreds of years, Britain has relied on this method to remain invincible in a changing world.

Since the 16th century, Britain has successively defeated European powers such as Spain, the Netherlands, and France, and finally became the number one in the world.

Since then, Britain's foreign policy has focused on the most prominent of all European countries, which is to "beat the second child", and deal with whoever is the second child.

In the middle of the 19th century, Britain targeted Russia, and France was its ally; at the end of the 19th century, Germany became the target of banning, and Britain formed an alliance with France and Russia to jointly deal with Germany. This is how the First World War broke out.

In 1916, during the First World War, a fierce battle between the British and German navies - the Battle of Jutland Peninsula.

Photo courtesy of Visual China

  It can be seen that the UK does not have the so-called "Thucydides Trap" when dealing with major power relations, but only diplomatic strategies.

As the successor of the British Anglo-Saxon tradition, the United States has inherited the British diplomatic strategy under the influence of the same way of thinking and cultural characteristics.

  This strategy adopted by the United States is not tailor-made for China. The history after World War II illustrates this point: the Soviet Union, Japan, and the European Union have been regarded as opponents or potential opponents by the United States successively, and they have been dealt with in different ways.

The United States has gained a lot of benefits from this policy in history, so it is impossible to voluntarily give up.

With the continuous rise of China's comprehensive national strength, it has become the world's second largest economy after the United States, and now the "second" position seems to be China.

In this regard, we must be soberly aware that the tension in Sino-US relations in recent years is not because of China's wrong doings, but because of its international status.

Relatives of a soldier killed in Afghanistan hug and weep at Arlington National Cemetery where he is buried.

Photo by China News Agency reporter Wu Qingcai

  The "Thucydides Trap" is a theory fabricated for the interests of the United States, using ideology as a cover-up, and shifting the responsibility for the war to the "second child."

This theory uses Thucydides and his works to fool some people who don't know the truth.

People think that jumping out of this trap is the right way.

However, a trap that does not exist at all, how can we talk about "jumping out"?

Therefore, what China needs to pay attention to is not the "Thucydides Trap", but how to solve the dilemma of being the "second child".

Facing the capricious attitude of the United States, China can only maintain strategic focus, unite all forces in the world that can be united, and do its own thing well.

  While responding to external challenges, China must also take the initiative to attack.

Proceeding from the experience and lessons of human history and the common value orientation, China can set an agenda on the international stage, use historical lessons to explain the danger of large-scale wars caused by alliances, oppose "economic sanctions", dissolve "military alliances", and do not Allowing domestic laws to be used in international issues, etc., I believe that these issues will be recognized by most countries in the world.

The model of a big country harming the interests of other countries for its own benefit is outdated, and the world should follow a new norm of behavior.

(Text arrangement by Zhang Xiaojing) (End)

About the Author:

  Qian Chengdan, Doctor of History, Honorary Doctor of Letters of Coventry University, Corresponding Fellow of the Royal Historical Society; current Peking University Boya Chair Professor, doctoral supervisor, member of the expert review team of the National Social Science Fund, expert of the National Textbook Committee Committee member, member of the Social Science Committee of the Ministry of Education, academic member of the Chinese Academy of History, member and convener of the 4th-6th Academic Degrees Committee of the State Council History Disciplinary Appraisal Group.

Major works include: "Between Tradition and Change", "Industrial Revolution and the British Working Class", "The Piece of the West", etc.; editor-in-chief of "General History of Britain" (6 volumes), "History of the British Empire" (8 volumes), "World "Modernization Process" (10 volumes), etc.; once served as the academic director of CCTV's 12-episode TV documentary "The Rise of Great Powers".