On April 6, 2021, CCG hosted a dialogue between CCG President Huiyao Wang, Graham Allison, Douglas Dillon Professor of Government at Harvard University, and Chen Li, Director of the Center for International Security and Strategy at the School of International Studies, Renmin University of China.

Graham Allison is a world-renowned political scientist and an influential voice in US thinking on strategy and national security. He has special interests in nuclear weapons, Russia, China, and decision-making. Allison has taught at Harvard University for five decades, where he was the founding dean of the Harvard Kennedy School and former director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. He has also served in a number of senior roles in the US government, including Special Advisor to the Secretary of Defense under President Reagan and Assistant Secretary of Defense under President Clinton.

Allison is the author of many best-selling books, including Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (1971), Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe (2004), Lee Kuan Yew: The Grand Master’s Insights on China, the United States and the World (2013). His 2017 book Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap? is one of the most cited works on China–US relations in recent times and has established an influential framework for thinking about great power relations, as explored in this dialogue.

For this conversation, we were also lucky to be joined by Chen Li from the School of International Studies at Renmin University. Li’s extensive research on modern military and strategic history, international history, and China–US relations made him ideally placed to bring a Chinese historical perspective to this discussion.

This talk took place toward the end of President Biden’s first 100 days in office. After the tumultuous tenure of President Trump, many observers were looking for a change of course in foreign policy under Biden, including a return to multilateralism and recalibration of Washington’s stance toward China. In our discussion, we looked ahead to prospects for China–US relations under the new president. We also revisited the idea of Thucydides’s Trap—a deadly pattern of structural stress that results when a rising power challenges a ruling one—as well as other historical examples such as the Cold War, the Concert of Europe, and the Chanyuan Treaty of 1005, to draw out lessons that might help to prevent conflict in our current age.

Huiyao Wang: The question posed by the title of your book Destined for War? Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap? has become a famous one. Greek historian Thucydides wrote that the rise of Athens and the fear that this instilled in Sparta made war inevitable. Can America and China escape this trap? It’s been four years since you published the book, so maybe you can share some of your new thinking on this topic. You have compared China and the US to inseparable conjoined twins in which if one gives way to its impulses in dealing with the other and strangles it, it will succeed in killing its twin, but it will commit suicide.

Graham Allison: Thank you very much. I’ve long argued that the Chinese should be much more forthcoming in helping all of us appreciate more of what Xi Jinping now calls “Chinese wisdom.” Actually, I applauded the fact that he’s been more forward-leaning about the idea that maybe China has learned something that the rest of us could learn from. I’m eager to hear what others have to say on the topic but I have a pretty good idea of what I think. Let me make three points just to start with.

First point, for those who may not remember Thucydides’s Trap and the Thucydides rivalry. The point which I make in my book, and which I would urge you to think about if you haven’t had a chance to look at it, is that the defining feature of the relationship between the US and China today, for as far ahead as I can see, will be a ruthless rivalry. So, a competition in which a rising China—which is seeking to “make China great again” and will continue as it has for a generation, rising, and becoming stronger—and as it does, it will be encroaching on positions and prerogatives that Americans, as the ruling power, have come to believe are naturally their own as number one, at the top of every pecking order.

If we put this against the canvas of history, the best way to clarify what’s actually happening in this relationship is that China is rising. As long as China doesn’t crash or crack up, it will continue rising. So currently, it has about one-quarter of the per capita GDP of the US, but of course, it also has four times as many people. On the current trajectory, why shouldn’t the Chinese be as productive as the South Koreans? Of course, they will be. If they [do become this productive], China will have more than half of the per capita GDP of the US and a GDP twice the size of the US. So, as China rises in every arena, Americans, who have become accustomed to believing we are number one in every competition, will find themselves being overtaken.

At the beginning of the century, America was the major trading partner of everybody. By 2021, China is the major trading partner of almost everybody. A generation ago, America was the manufacturing workshop of the world. Today, China is the manufacturer of the world. So, in terms of structural realities, a rising China is impacting a ruling US. In my book, I compare this to a seesaw of power in which China inevitably gets stronger, wealthier, and more powerful. That’s the nature of the Thucydides’ rivalry. That rise shifts the tectonics of power, the seesaw of power between the rising power and the ruling power. That’s point one. I know many Chinese colleagues have not wanted to accept this proposition, saying that China is not really rising, but that it’s already risen or that China is different. I would say the best way to think about it is that this is another instance of a pattern that we’ve seen since Thucydides wrote about Athens and Sparta. In my book, I find 16 instances of [such a situation] just in the last 500 years, so this has been occurring for a long time.

Point two is equally important. The objective conditions of the twenty-first century have condemned the US and China to co-exist since the only other option is to co-destruct. There are two arenas here. First, nuclear weapons. In the Cold War, we learned very painfully when the Soviet Union acquired a robust nuclear arsenal that was capable of a second strike, that we lived in a “MAD” world of Mutually Assured Destruction. That means that if one [power] attacked the other, at the end of the story, both would be destroyed. So, this is like a mutual suicide pact. I have compared it to inseparable conjoined twins in which, if one gives way to its impulses in dealing with the other and strangles it, it will succeed in killing its twin, but it will also commit suicide. So that’s the nuclear arena, and it’s true in the US–China relationship today. Even though the US has a much larger nuclear arsenal, it’s still the case that if there was a full-scale nuclear war, at the end of the war, America would be destroyed. So that’s mutually assured destruction. In the twenty-first century, we also have the climate issue. China, the number one greenhouse gas emitter, and the US, which is the number two emitter, inhabit the same contained biosphere. Either nation can, by themselves, create an environment in which neither can live. So, we have a kind of a “climate MAD” analog to the nuclear situation.

In addition, [the US and China] are both so entangled in the process of globalization and the global economy that neither can “decouple” itself from the other without impoverishing itself. So, on the one hand, [the US and China] are going to be fierce rivals. On the other hand, we’re condemned by nature and by technology to cooperate in order to survive. So, what if these two contradictory ideas hold at the same time? That’s why in searching for ways to escape Thucydides’s Trap, I found [the following] bit of Chinese wisdom very interesting.

As best I can understand it, in the Song Dynasty, back a thousand years ago, in 1005, the Song, having found themselves unable to defeat the Liao, a northern Mongol tribe, negotiated the Chanyuan Treaty, in which as some historians have called it, they agreed to become “rivalry partners.” They defined areas in which they would continue to be rivals, but they had other areas in which they were thickly cooperating. In fact, it was a very peculiar arrangement, because even though the Liao agreed that the Song was the major dynasty, the tribute actually flowed from the Song to the Liao; the Song was paying the Liao. The deal was that the Liao had to take whatever tribute was paid and use it to buy things from the Song. [This created] an early version of the multiplier effect in economics. I know some Chinese don’t like this treaty because, for whatever reason, the Song dynasty is not appreciated sufficiently. That’s my poor man’s view of Chinese history, so apologies for that. But in any case, from my perspective, since I’m interested in avoiding war, it is the Chanyuan Treaty that preserved peace between the Song and the Liao for 120 years. I would say in the annals of history, a treaty that takes two parties who are in fierce rivalry and manages [to deliver] 100 years of peace between them has done a pretty good thing.

Huiyao Wang: Thank you for this great illustration of your points. I really like your twin metaphor. We are now in a deeply entwined world where countries such as China and the US are inseparable like conjoined twins. We have to work together to fight climate change, the pandemic, and address all our other shared challenges. If [China and the US] really separate, we will both die in the end.

In Destined for War? you describe 16 cases in which a rising power has confronted a ruling power in the last 500 years. Of these cases, four of them ended peacefully. Professor Li is a military strategy researcher and as Graham has mentioned, in the context of the Song-Liao relationship in Chinese history, the Chanyuan Treaty actually secured peace for almost 100–200 years, during which time there were 380 representative exchanges. So, there is a precedent for rival powers being able to maintain peace. Professor Li, perhaps you can share some of your ideas on how we can avoid Thucydides’s Trap, based on your research.

Chen Li: Thank you Huiyao and thank you, Graham. I have a few comments on Graham’s remarks. Firstly, I think with regard to both the concept of the rising and ruling powers, in particular, for the experience of both the rise of the US in the nineteenth century or early twentieth century and the rise of China in the last 70 years, the most important factor is the home front. That is, we need to concentrate on our economic development at home and on solving our own social problems. I think this is one of the most important lessons.

My second point is that with regard to the challenges and risks of great power competition, I totally agree with Graham. During the Cold War, nuclear weapons were extremely dangerous. In the twenty-first century, we also have other new technological challenges, such as cyber issues, which play a huge role in our daily life. If great power competition escalates, I think we will face serious challenges in the cyber domain, so we need to manage this competition very carefully.

My third point is about the relationship between the Liao and the Song, as mentioned by Graham. I have two points here. The first is that we probably need to adopt a long-term perspective because the Song-Liao experience was a long peace after a long war. Both sides learned plenty of lessons from the long war which lasted over 30 years. One challenge in the twenty-first century is that we can’t have a long period of peace after a long war, because war is too destructive in the current age.

My fourth point is that the reason why the Song and the Liao were able to achieve a long peace is that they realized that you can’t rely on force to solve all of your problems. You always have other concerns such as external challenges and also you need to focus on your home front, as just mentioned.

Graham Allison: Can I ask Chen Li one question, please? Looking at the Song and their relationship with the Liao, is this a special case in Chinese history or are there some analogs that you would regard as similar from which we might also learn something?

Chen Li: In ancient China, the major dynasties—not only the Song, but also the Han and other dynasties—tried to improve their policies to maintain peace with all other entities. We can probably find other periods of peace. I think that this is a very interesting area for our research. That’s something we can learn from you because you pay more attention to the lessons from ancient history for contemporary history or current affairs. We need more cooperation between historians who work on ancient Chinese history and experts who work on current affairs.

Graham Allison: In the US and England, where you studied, there are many people who study Chinese dynasties. It’s fascinating because it’s such a long history. It’s so complex and for a poor person like me, who doesn’t speak Mandarin and comes late to the party, it’s staggering. As for the US, I have trouble thinking of 300 years of history. So, for 3000 years or more with so many twists and turns, it’s a very rich body of experience that ought to be processed for lessons and I think Chinese historians, obviously, have an advantage in that. But there are many people in the West interested, so I hope you and your colleagues dig in further. It was only by accident that I was introduced to this case, as somebody once told me about the Song and Liao as an example. But I bet there are more examples I just haven’t found yet.

Huiyao Wang: In Chinese history, there are probably many cases where conflict was avoided and peace was secured. For example, in the Ming Dynasty, Zheng He led seven expeditions to go as far as Africa and Southeast Asia, 100 years before Columbus reached America. During these trips, Zheng He’s expedition gave many gifts to other countries and locals and never colonized any other nations. Historically, China has been relatively peace-loving. As of now, the PRC still hasn’t sent a soldier to occupy any foreign territory.

Graham, your recent article in Foreign Affairs called for the Biden administration to adopt an “unsentimental China policy.” Do you view the essence of the US–China rivalry as based on structural change or something more complicated—a combination of fear, values, psychology, ideological differences, or even a clash of civilizations? And what can we do about this?

Graham Allison: I think the good news about Biden is that he is somebody who is well-grounded and has thought about international affairs for all of his adult life. I’ve known him now for more than four decades. He has been in the Senate, he’s been the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, and he has been the vice president. He and Xi Jinping have probably spent more time together than any other leaders, other than Putin, or before that, Lee Kuan Yew. They understand each other. So, when they had this phone call [in September 2021], they were not starting from scratch. They’re building on a relationship that’s already developed.

I think President Biden appreciates the fact, as I’ve written, that the challenge is the “Fitzgerald Challenge.” In his 1936 essay, “The Crack-Up,” Scott Fitzgerald writes that the test of a first-class mind is the ability to hold two contradictory ideas in your head at the same time and still function. Idea one is that this is going to be a fierce competition, because both the US and China are determined, to whatever extent they can, to be the biggest economy, the smartest economy, have the best AI, the best military, and be the biggest trading partner, and so on. When the Olympics occur, each nation will be seeking to win as much gold as they can. That’s what the Olympics are. That’s on the one hand.

On the other hand, at the same time, and somewhat in contradiction with the first idea, is the fact that unless the US and China can find ways to coordinate and cooperate in dealing with climate, we will create a biosphere that nobody can live in. Unless the US and China can find a way to cooperate to make sure third-party actions, like events over Taiwan or North Korea, don’t spiral out of control, or we could end up in a real full-scale war. We could end up destroying both societies. Most people can’t imagine what that means today, but during the Cold War, we used to look at target charts and calculate the destructive effects. It could literally be the case that if we had a full-scale nuclear war between China and the US, both China and the US would be wiped off the map, they’d simply be gone as countries. But that’s inconceivable. No human being can make sense of that, but that’s the physical capability of the weapons that exist. So, we are compelled to cooperate, to avoid sequences of events that could lead to that result, and to avoid letting unconstrained greenhouse gas emissions create a globe that we can’t live or breathe in.

So, how to do these two things at the same time? And how to explain this in the complicated politics of both countries? Because Americans look at China and say, “My God! How could China be rivaling us on all these fronts? We remember when China was small, poor, and backward as a developing country.” And Chinese, when they watch what happened in Anchorage [the US–China meeting in March 2021] or other events, and when I read of people who watch Chinese social media, some people say, “Enough of this, we don’t need to have an American lecturing us anymore. We have become bigger and stronger, we need to be more assertive.” So, on managing the internal affairs of two great powers, I think Xi Jinping and Biden may be able to hold two contradictory ideas and function, but how can they manage their governments and their societies under these conditions? That’s the problem I have been working on. But I don’t have too many good ideas.

Huiyao Wang: I like your idea of the Olympic Games spirit. If we can conduct a peaceful competition where we all strive for gold medals, maybe we can achieve a win–win situation. Maybe we should measure countries by key performance indicators (KPIs) related to domestic performance. It’s like Deng Xiaoping’s idea that “it doesn’t matter if the cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice.” Rather than picking out each other’s problems, we should concentrate on solving our own problems. So, I think this idea of the Olympic Games spirit is really suitable in the context of Sino–US relations.

Next, I’d like to discuss the 12 clues for peace you mention in Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap? The first is that higher authorities can help resolve rivalry without war, such as international organizations. Second, states can be embedded in larger economic, political, and security institutions that constrain historically “normal” behaviors. This point is also very relevant for the contemporary world, where all countries are part of larger economic, political, and security institutions which constrain behavior.

The third clue is that wily statesmen make a virtue of necessity and distinguish needs and wants. The fourth clue is that timing is crucial. This is very true; this is a critical time as the whole world comes out of the pandemic. Fifth, cultural commonalities can help prevent conflict. We already have globalization and a relatively globalized culture. Could a deepening of this help to prevent conflict? Your sixth clue is that there’s nothing new under the sun—except nuclear weapons. Mutually assured destruction is a strong deterrent against conflict. Clue eight is that a hot war between nuclear superpowers is thus no longer a justifiable option. This is also true. China and the US both have nuclear weapons, so if conflict were to be triggered and get out of control, the whole world could be destroyed.

Clue number nine is that leaders of nuclear superpowers must nonetheless be prepared to risk a war that cannot be won. This is followed by clue ten, which states that “thickening economic entanglement” between China and the US is the way to go, as economic interdependence raises the cost of war, and thus lowers the likelihood it will occur. Clue 11 is that alliances can be a fatal attraction and clue 12 is that domestic performance is decisive. This is also correct—we should all focus on domestic performance, which is to measure a nation by how it is able to support its people. For example, China has lifted 800 million people out of poverty, which is perhaps the most significant human rights development in China in recent times. So, all 12 clues laid out in your book still largely hold true. I don’t know if you or Professor Li have anything to add on this?

Chen Li: I would say a few things. As Graham mentioned in his earlier comments, he is convinced that the leaders of China and the US are determined to manage their competition, but he’s not so sure whether society and public opinion on both sides will do so as well. Well, a positive lesson from the Cold War is that we have two periods. The first period was the mobilization of both sides. At that time, people probably believed that force and pressure would work. But I think later on, both sides realized that pressure and force had limitations. So, the mobilization period of great power competition passed and the world entered into détente, a period of stabilization.

The key point here is that if we can manage crisis very carefully and we review the lessons of competition—not only leaders but also ordinary citizens—then the public will realize that in the long term, we need to talk with each other and also cooperate with each other, not only to maintain peace but also to solve problems.

Graham also mentioned the important factor of other parties. Even during long-term great power competition, we need to work with both sides and with other parties to try to establish some security order to accommodate the crucial interests of everyone. I think this is why in the 1970s and in the 1980s, the Cold War in Europe was relatively quiet compared to the 1940s and 50s, when we witnessed plenty of crises.

Graham Allison: I agree very much. The Cold War started with the idea that these are two systems inherently so incompatible, that one will have to destroy the other, and that would normally lead to war. But initially, because the US and the Soviet Union were both exhausted from World War II, and eventually, because both sides acquired nuclear arsenals, [both sides] concluded that war was not an option. So, how about having a “war” but don’t use bombs and bullets with uniformed combatants. And in that so-called Cold War, early on, there emerged a set of constraints, some of which were implicit, some of which were explicit. And then, eventually, we discovered that we would have to coordinate and constrain, but also communicate very quickly and even cooperate in order to prevent things from getting out of control. I think the lessons from that set of experiences, even though the current rivalry between US and China is very different, nonetheless can be very instructive.

For example, I was doing something on this with people in Washington last week. I was explaining that even in the deadliest era or days of the Cold War, we were keen to have thick conversations and communication between our leaders. Reagan was often criticized by his conservative Republican colleagues for wanting to spend so much time talking to his Soviet counterparts. He said it’s very important to talk to them because a nuclear war cannot be won, and therefore must never be fought. He was keen to negotiate with his Soviet counterpart, even to reach arms control agreements in which the US would forego doing something Americans wanted to do, as the price for getting the Soviet Union to forego the thing that we did not want them to do.

In every one of those cases, there was a problem of trust, so you would only agree on things that you could independently verify. But this process over time stabilized to a degree and made it possible to avoid lots of potential crises that could have gone out of control—which some almost did, in the case of the Berlin Crisis or the Cuban Missile Crisis. But I think there is no reason why, in the rivalry between the US and China, we shouldn’t pick up, dust off and adapt all of the lessons that we learned from that earlier period about the necessity for communication at many levels, for thick communication, for crisis management procedures, even for crisis prevention procedures. I think that would be actually a big addition that Henry and Chen Li and lots of others, might add to the list for avoiding being sucked into the vortex of the Thucydides dynamic that could ultimately drag us into a war.

Huiyao Wang: Thank you both for adding some new thinking. These are some good ideas for crisis management. You mentioned that during the Cold War, the US and the Soviet Union engaged in fierce competition but still maintained high-level dialogue. There was even the famous “kitchen debate” between Khrushchev and Nixon.

I have a recommendation to add to your list of things that can be done to ensure peace, and it involves the EU. The EU is a huge economic bloc but it is not really subject to the dynamic of Thucydides’s Trap with the US, so they occupy a third-party position. This makes the EU well-placed to act as a kind of mediating power between China and the US. There could be some kind of trilateral dialogue between China, the EU, and the US, with Europe acting as a middleman helping to prevent conflict between the US and China.

The other idea draws on an article published in Foreign Affairs on March 23, 2021 by Richard Haass, head of the Council on Foreign Relations, saying that the global system of multilateralism is at a crossroads and the world is moving past the two-century phase of Western domination. Haass writes that Western domination will diminish not only in the material sense but also ideologically. Haass refers to the Concert of Europe, a general consensus among the Great Powers of nineteenth-century Europe to maintain the European balance of power and the integrity of territorial boundaries. Haass writes that the world needs a great power coordination mechanism and proposes a six-member group made up of the US, China, the EU, Japan, India, and Russia—an international coordination mechanism that goes beyond ideology and values.

I also saw Henry Kissinger speak at a recent Chatham House event and also at the China Development Forum about how the final issue between China and the US and other Western countries is whether they can reach an understanding with China. If not, it’s almost like we are at the eve of the First World War, and if things get out of control it could be dangerous.

I’d like to hear your thoughts on these views of Richard Haass and Henry Kissinger. How can we find commonalities to work together and accept China? I find that although China is doing well on many fronts, it’s still not accepted by some Western countries. China is doing well on infrastructure, on poverty alleviation, and contributes over one-third to global GDP growth. But these things are not appreciated by the public in many Western countries. How can we reconcile this gap?

Graham Allison: I agree. You have obviously been thinking about it. So, this is good and I like your list. The US could learn a lot from China in infrastructure development. In the period the US was building one high-speed rail line going from Los Angeles to Sacramento, and actually got $85 billion into it before the project was given up, China built 12,000 miles of high-speed rail.

The EU and the idea of a three-party coordination mechanism is very interesting and I have to think more about that. On the “new concert” that Richard was arguing about, I think, basically, a lot of people have taken this analog to what happened at the Congress of Vienna and the Concert of Europe. But I think the differences between circumstances today and then are so much more substantial than the similarities that it’s not a very helpful analogy.

Regarding Henry [Kissinger], he believes that if we’re not able to develop some implicit and explicit constraints on competition, particularly in the areas where cooperation is necessary for survival, then the outcome will be catastrophic. I agree with that. I think the place to start is that the Thucydides's rivalry, most often, leads to catastrophic destruction. That’s insane—it would be insane for China and insane for the US. So, the imperative for all of us is to find a way to escape the Thucydides Trap. And that’s why we’re looking everywhere we can, from rivalry partnerships in the Song dynasty, or lessons from the Cold War, to lessons from the period, as Chen Li said, when the US rose to rival Britain. Wherever we can find lessons, I think we should be actively pursuing them and collecting them.

I think, fortunately, we have Xi Jinping who gets this completely, who says the reason why we need a new form of great power relations is that we know what happens in the old form, the Thucydides dynamic. Biden understands this very well. What are we worried about? He’s worried that an unconstrained rivalry ends up with a catastrophic outcome. So, I think we have an open door for ideas. So that’s why I applaud you for trying to stir the pot.

Chen Li: To avoid Thucydides’s Trap, we must pay more attention to the consequences of the trap. This was an advantage for people who lived through the early Cold War because that generation of people were familiar with the experiences of the Second World War. And older generations were even familiar with the First World War. So, they knew what the consequences of the trap are. Later on, these people also developed their ideas about the consequences of nuclear war.

One challenge for young people today is that we have lived in peace for so long. People are excited about the progress of our countries but probably pay less attention to the consequences of great power competition and conflict. In terms of perceptions, we need to put more emphasis on the consequences of Thucydides’s Trap in order to avoid it.

With regard to economic development, Graham was very generous, saying that the US needs to learn more from China. But the US also has plenty of things in its history for us to learn from as well. For example, in the early twentieth century and during the Second World War, US production was very impressive. I think there are a few lessons here. One is to concentrate on professionalism in business. The second is to improve working relations between society, government, and the business community. China learned a lot from the US business community and the efficiency of the US government in the latter part of the twentieth century. We should become more open-minded about learning lessons from others.

Huiyao Wang: Thank you, we certainly have things to learn from each other. Your advice and the concepts you have developed are valuable to all of us. We need to continue talking about how to avoid the Thucydides Trap as we navigate this “rivalry partnership” of competition but also cooperation.

Graham Allison: I think the point that Chen Li made is extremely important. Most people today have no idea what war means. Go back to World War II, during which 50 million people were killed, which is just unimaginable. What would a nuclear war mean today? A nuclear war could literally mean that Beijing is gone, disappeared. Boston, gone, disappeared. It’s hard to imagine, but the physical consequence of a full-scale war between the US and China could kill every last Chinese and every last American. Anybody who survived would later say, these people were out of their minds. How did they ever let this happen? How come they didn’t appreciate what a danger this was? And if they had thought about it, and then they said, well, but something happened in Taiwan, and China did this, or the US did that, and one thing led to the other and at the end, there was a war. They would ask, but did that make any sense?

It makes no sense, in the same way how people look at Europe at the end of 1918, when World War I was over; Europe, which had been the centerpiece of civilization for 500 years, had destroyed itself. Europe never became a major player in the world again in the way that it had been for the previous 500 years. Why? Because some Archduke was assassinated by a terrorist, and then “one thing led to the other” and within five weeks, all the nations of Europe were consumed by a war that made no sense. So, the painful fact that Chen Li reminds us of [is that] today nobody has really internalized how horrible a real full-scale war could be and how insane it would be.

Fortunately, there’s nobody in the Pentagon who believes that war with China is a good idea, not one single person. I believe there isn’t a single person in the PLA who believes that war with the US would be a good idea. That’s good. But our societies need to understand this.

Even the fact the two parties understand that war is not possible doesn’t mean war can’t happen. Because some spiral of reactions [can] pull you somewhere we don’t want to go. So that creates a compelling reason for Americans and Chinese at all levels to be talking about dangers that could get out of control and ask, what can we do about this cooperatively with respect to North Korea? What can we do about differences over Taiwan? What can we do about patrols in the South China Sea or the East China Sea? So, I think across the whole spectrum, if we took seriously Chen Li’s point about how damaging war would be, we would be much more motivated to do a lot more on that front than we are today.

Huiyao Wang: Thank you. You’ve really given us a good reminder today. We should really try to avoid any kind of war, especially one on a scale that could lead to the destruction of everything. I’m glad we’ve had a productive discussion exploring ways to escape the Thucydides Trap—the question of this century which we are all pondering.