The contrast between Trump and Xi at this summit was genuinely embarrassing. Xi spoke about global turbulence, the Thucydides Trap, the future of humanity, and the structural questions that define the international order. He framed China as a stabilizing power and posed the question of whether the U.S. and China could rise to meet global challenges together. By invoking the Thucydides Trap — the structural tension that emerges when a rising power (in his analogy, China) threatens to displace a declining one (in his analogy, the U.S.) — Xi was essentially announcing to the world that China sees itself as the ascendant power. What’s remarkable is that China has pursued that status without dropping bombs on sovereign nations, spending a trillion dollars a year on its military, or starting endless wars. Essentially, China’s strategy has been: “Never interrupt your opponent while he is in the middle of making a mistake.”
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