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At the just-concluded summit between Xi and Trump, Xi listed a series of questions that he contended would define Sino-US relations. One of them:
“Whether China and the United States can transcend the so-called Thucydides Trap and create a new normalization of relations between major powers."
The Thucydides trap was proposed by Harvard professor Graham Allison in 2017. He said that the relationship between a hegemon and a rising power often falls into war. He used the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta as chronicled by Thucydides as the archetype, and he warned that US-China relations would easily fall into that pattern over trade wars, territorial claims in the South China Sea, human rights, and Taiwan. He detailed 16 historical case studies, in which 12 of the 16 rising power-hegemon relations fell into war.
Scholars have challenged Allison's theory. Some have said that war more often results when a rising power stagnates, not when it continues rising and challenging the hegemon. In fact, this seems to better describe the US-China relationship. China is stagnating economically with slowing economic growth, massive commercial debt, ghost cities, and a declining population. The fear is not that China will continue growing and challenging the US, but will lash out as its dreams of great power status fade away.
The second trap is the middle-income trap. This trap was posited by the World Bank in 2007 to explain why most developing nations stagnate in the middle-income per capita GDP range of $1000-$12,000. They argued that very few nations escape this trap because their newly-wealthy elites rig the political system to reap the rewards of the developing economy for themselves. They keep wages low and prevent the development of a middle class that can afford mass consumption. The middle-income economy stagnates and never advances to the high-income level.
If we update the income range to 2026, it would be $1500-$17,000. China's per capita GDP is $13,000 (if we believe the official statistics), and it has remained stuck in this band for years. China's rampant corruption, the conspicuous consumption of its elites, and its politically-driven debt crisis seem to be trapping it in middle-income.
Has China peaked in economic and geopolitical power? Will it lash out as it stagnates? Or will the US feel compelled to attack China preemptively? Is China stuck in the middle-income trap?
My guess is that the People's Liberation Army generals will not be willing to engage in a risky war over Taiwan. They sense that their power cannot rival the US and that they will stymie Xi's desire to seize Taiwan. And the US will not preemptively strike China. I don't think that the US and China will fall into the Thucydides trap. But perhaps I am too optimistic.
I think China has already fallen into the middle-income trap. Its elites are extracting rents from the economy and enjoying the treats far too much to give up their monopolies and corruption. China is already stagnating and will never escape the middle-income band. When the history of 21st-century China is written, it will be about China's failure to break out, not its rise to world domination.
Discussion (28)
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Thought-provoking post! Thanks, Steve.
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China is caught in a demographic trap. Its one-child policy is strangling it. It turns out dropping it doesn't undo the damage. Young Chinese are still not having kids.
Turns out Paul Erlich was the West's most important strategic weapon deployed against China.
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Given that I teach Thucydides, and I argue that his History of the Peloponnesian War is a foundational text for the study of strategy and policy, its no surprise that I recommend this post strongly for promotion to the Main Feed.
I need to go back and review Allison’s “Thucydides Trap”. I’m no Harvard professor, but I remain skeptical of his premises (as I remember them). But before arguing further, I need to brush up on the content.
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I'm not sure what the Chinese are afraid of. Trump has never expressed an interest in defending Taiwan against China. He is even holding-up a weapons sale to them, the way he has held up weapons and international aid to countries that he does not like, like Ukraine. If China really wants to attack, their opportunity would be now, while Trump is still in office.
War blogger Paul Warburg has a theory based on Chinese philosophy, that the whole Taiwan threat is just a smokescreen to cover for China's real ambition—taking territory from Russia. As a matter of fact, China did indeed annex a strategic Russian Island during the Ukraine war, by simply declaring it theirs on official maps.
China, despite being currently an ally of Russia against the West, has had a long uneasy relationship with Russia. In the 1800's Russia intimidated China into giving-up a huge part of Manchuria that the Chinese have regretted to this day. They did not trust each other during the Soviet days and fought border wars against each other in the 1960's.
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Bwahaha.
Do you seriously believe China, after watching the performance of their weapon's systems in Venezuela and Iran are not afraid of attacking Taiwan? Taiwan has a near-peer military to the US. Its military is sizable and well-trained. It has been watching what is going on in Ukraine and incorporating drone technology into its defense plans.
All China has to do to capture Taiwan is cross a 100-mile strait beset by rough weather and put a force three to four times the size of the Normandy invasion (which was only 20 miles wide) and defeat a force of some 300,000+ men (200,000 army, 55,000 each Navy and Air Force) fighting on their home soil. And the Taiwanese would likely be backed by Japan, even if the US stayed out of it. (And the size of the PRC army matters a whole lot less than the number of men they can bring across that 100-mile strait in the face of ferocious opposition. After destroying the Taiwanese air force and navy, the PLAN might lack the ships to bring reinforcements.
Trump does not have to express an interest in defending Taiwan. All he has to do is state what he did state - you never know what might happen. The Chinese are unlikely to prevail even if the US stays out of it. With the US as a wild card, the PRC has to think twice.
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