From the beginning to the end of 2020, the U.S.-China relationship continued to deteriorate and bottom out, and the “Thucydides Trap” once again became a hot topic. Graham Allison, the inventor of the “Thucydides Trap” and a professor at Harvard University, attended the conference. The two discussed by video whether a Thucydides Trap exists between the U.S. and China.
At this point, it feels funny to review the Beijing government’s rhetoric about the “Thucydides trap,” the rhetoric of a government that swears it will never seek hegemony! Verbally, the CCP says it does not believe in the “Thucydides trap” and calls it a Western perception trap or “Allison trap,” but in action it does the opposite. Over the past few years, there has been a growing disconnect between the CCP’s words and actions on this issue.
Back in 2015, Xi Jinping publicly stated that he did not believe in the “Thucydides trap. He said there is no “Thucydides trap” in the world, but repeated strategic miscalculations among major powers could create a “Thucydides trap” for themselves. He repeatedly stressed in 2014 and 2015 that “the assertion that powerful countries must seek hegemony does not apply to China” and that “the lion of China has woken up, but it is a peaceful, relatable and civilized lion. Seeking Truth further interprets Xi’s words by saying that China’s “waking lion” can avoid the “Thucydides trap” because the “waking lion” has the power to avoid the The “waking lion” has the peaceful bloodline, relatable mind and civilizational heritage to avoid the “Thucydides trap”. Cui Tiankai said that even if China becomes the world’s largest economy in the future, it will not seek to dominate the world.
The Chinese Communist Party claims that it is “peaceful”, “relatable” and “civilized” and “will not seek global domination”. Ridiculous! I am afraid that no country in the world believes such a characterization except itself. In fact, the CCP’s actions show that it is neither “peaceful” nor “relatable” nor “civilized”. The classic example of this is the Beijing government’s response to the new coronavirus that will originate in Wuhan, China in 2019 and become a global epidemic in 2020. The Xi Jinping government had already made a big mistake by covering up the epidemic and missing the boat, but then it rewrote the epidemic narrative, blamed the United States and Italy, supplemented it with wolf diplomacy and mask diplomacy, reversed black and white, peddled the Chinese model, inculcated Chinese Communist ideology, and sought global domination by doing so, among other things. This series of actions has provoked global outrage, and even dozens of African countries that have always supported the CCP have turned against it.
Another classic case is the Hong Kong issue. The Beijing government has directly torn away the pretense of being “peaceful,” “relatable,” and “civilized” and replaced it with hegemony, abomination, and barbarism, recklessly tearing down the Chinese Communist Party’s past commitment to a civilized world. The Chinese Communist Party’s past promises to the civilized world. In just a few months, while the Western world was busy dealing with the epidemic in their own countries, the Chinese Communist Party took advantage of the fact that they had no time to worry about anything else, firstly, they introduced the Hong Kong version of the National Security Law, which completely destroyed “one country, two systems” in Hong Kong. Hong Kong’s prosperity and freedom have been turned into a one-party dictatorship in China’s landlocked cities.
The main point of the “Thucydides trap” is that the rising power challenges the existing power, and the second one wants to be the boss. But Beijing categorically denies that China wants to replace the United States as world leader, and some Western politicians have defended the CCP, saying that they are not trying to take over as world leader. It seems they know too little about the CCP, and too little about Xi Jinping. Xi Jinping has never broken his mind and ambition to be a world leader. Four years ago, the CPC plenum touted Xi’s centrality by saying that China was moving into the center of the world stage, a time when eloquent political leaders were needed and could be created. His think-tank bluntly stated that Xi’s centrality will not only benefit China, but will also affect the world.
The Communist Party also denies exporting the Chinese model and the Chinese system. They say that China does not want to export its model, but rather that its unique economic growth model, and its accompanying political system and institutions, have been so successful that they have become attractive to the world. In addition, they deny Western universal values, arguing that the often-talked-about universal values come only from a particular civilization, without taking into account the values of other civilizations, and therefore cannot be called universal.
In short, the Beijing government denies that China wants to be the world leader, that it exports the Chinese model and the Chinese system, and that it seeks to dominate the globe, but its actions unmask itself.
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