In recent years, China has become increasingly powerful, stepping onto the center of the world stage. At the same time, its rise has provoked some negative responses from the international community.

For example, in the United States, some foreign policy experts are predicting that China-US relations will fall into the Thucydides trap, a theory that a rising power will inevitably disrupt the established order. Essentially, the argument is that China’s goal is to weaken US influence in Asia, so the United States must unite with its allies to contain it. This understanding is obviously wrong. It is actually an anachronistic relic of Cold War thinking.

The ancient Athenian historian Thucydides observed that an emerging Athens threatened Sparta, which led to war between the two as they jockeyed for hegemony. This is the so-called Thucydides trap. The logic here is that an emerging country will naturally convert economic power into military might to protect itself or seek hegemony. These actions will inevitably threaten the existing hegemon and its allies, prompting an attempt to suppress the emerging country, which unavoidably leads to conflict or even war.

The revival of the Thucydides trap as a concept is an expression of the Cold War mentality: Any investment in military capacity is seen as a threat rather than a practical measure for national defense. Developed countries view emerging countries with suspicion, seeing them as a challenge to their own existence. From this perspective, it is hard to correctly grasp the main tendencies of China-US relations.

Chinese President Xi Jinping said “Cooperation is the only right choice to bring about benefit,” in a speech on China-US relations in Seattle in September 2015. Because they are the two major countries in the world, there is potential for both cooperation and conflict between them. This is understandable. Our task is to face the conflicts and try to resolve them while expanding and deepening cooperation. We also should try to transform conflicts into cooperation.

On the economic front, the United States became China’s second-largest trade partner in 2015, with  trade volume reaching $550 billion. In terms of people-to-people exchanges, more than 100,000 US students come to China to study annually, while 300,000 Chinese students study in the United States, accounting for one-third of overseas students in that country. In the international arena, there are instances of successful cooperation between the two sides in the United Nations, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and other international organizations. Therefore, to resolve conflicts and strengthen mutual trust through cooperation and dialogue, the two countries can realize mutual benefits, even though they differ in ideologies, economic fundamentals and development levels. 

True, there are conflicts between the two countries. How to handle these conflicts and transform them into cooperation is important. Xi pointed out in the speech “There is no such thing as the so-called Thucydides trap in the world. But should major countries time and again make the mistakes of strategic miscalculation, they might create such traps for themselves.” To avoid these mistakes, the two countries have built multilevel and multidimensional mechanisms for cooperation and exchange, ranging from politics, military affairs, economy and trade, science and technology, environment to other fields. As long as there are no such mistakes, major conflicts can be avoided.

Xi has said many times that “If China and the United States cooperate well, they can become a bedrock of global stability and a booster of world peace.” Amid the changing international situation, China and the United States have the duty to safeguard the fairness and equity of the international order and jointly cope with international challenges. Only by giving up the Cold War mentality and distinguishing the mainstream development of China-US relations from nonessentials can we open up a path to cooperation and development.

The article was translated from the People’s Daily. Li Nan is an associate research fellow from the Institute of American Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.