Harvard Professor on Thucydides’s Trap and China-US Relations

On December 11, Harvard Prof. Graham Allison was invited by the NTU College of Social Sciences to deliver a speech on Thucydides’s Trap and China-US Relations on NTU campus. The speech attracted a massive turnout, filling the auditorium to its capacity.

Prof. Graham Allison is a world-renowned scholar of international relations. His research and analysis of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Cold War have been deeply influential. In his recent publication, Designed for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides's Trap? (2017), Prof. Allison noted that China is the most powerful rival the United States has ever faced in history, as well as the most pressing problem for the world in terms of international relations and politics in the 21st century.

Analyzing the conflicts between great powers in the past 500 years, Prof. Allison found that almost all rising powers in history were engaged in military conflicts with the existing ruling powers, a pattern which he named “Thucydides’s Trap.” Today, a Thusydides’s Trap is looming for China and the United States.

According to World Bank statistics, nearly 90% of Chinese population were below poverty line and lived on US$2 a day in 1978, the year China started its reform and opening-up. However, after experiencing the world’s most rapid economic growth in human history, China’s economic scale has reached US$17.6 trillion by 2014, which surpassed the US$17.4 trillion of the United States, according to the International Monetary Fund.

This astronomical figure reflects a staggering productive capacity and human resources. For example, China consumed more cement during 2011-2013 than the United States did in the 20th century. From 1996 to 2016, China built 2.6 million miles of highway and 70 thousand miles of freeway, which is 1.5 times the length built by the United States. In terms of talent development, China produces as many as 1.3 million graduates in the fields of science, engineering, and mathematics (not counting in the Chinese students studying in the United States), which is four times the number produced by the United States.

After El Salvador broke ties with Taiwan in August 2018, the United States immediately recalled its three ambassadors (in Panama, Dominica, and Salvador) in Middle and South America. The reason behind this action was clear: China has infiltrated into the backyard of the United States, a sphere of influence which America has painstakingly cultivated since President James Monroe.

Besides citing historical facts to expound potential military conflicts between the United States and China, Prof. Allison also illustrated potential ways of war outbreak. He wrote the book before President Donald Trump took office, and the trade sanction President Trump imposed on China seems to corroborate the reliability of the book.

During the speech, also titled “Designed for War,” Prof. Allison explained why a Thucydides’s Trap can lead to horrifying consequences, why China and the United States are gradually stepping into this trap, what are the forms in which a war may break out, what measures the leaders of both countries can take to prevent the almost inevitable military conflicts, and how Taiwan can find its place between the two powers. The speech was thought-provoking and penetrating, giving the attendees an in-depth picture of the greatest challenge in 21st-century international relations.