Thucydides Trap author Graham Allison says China and US must work together and not end up on path that leads to war
- Harvard scholar Graham Allison says China’s rising influence sets it at odds with the US’ notion of itself as a superpower and both need to take a step back
The scholar who warned that China and the US could be heading for war said the two powers needed to redefine their relationship with a “new strategic concept”.
Graham Allison, who said Beijing and Washington could fall into what he called the Thucydides Trap – where a rising power threatens to eclipse a rival and conflict may result – told the South China Morning Post that the two were “in a dangerous period”.
“We need a new strategic concept for the relationship between US and China, because the old idea from an American perspective is that the strategic partnership has collapsed,” said Allison, who was recently in Beijing to attend a forum that fostered exchanges between Chinese and Western academics and policymakers.
“Unless we can find a new strategic concept that is good enough for each, we will continue rifting in this Thucydides dynamic which will be a very dangerous period,” said Allison, a professor at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. “And I think it is a dangerous period now … and it’s likely to get more dangerous if we don’t become more imaginative.”
Relations between the two powers have been under increasing strain on trade, political and military fronts. While they agreed to a 90-day trade war truce this month, the risk of conflicts remains.