Hoover Institution fellow Michael Auslin told the RCP podcast on Thursday that Chinese leader Xi Jinping invoking the “Thucydides Trap” during meetings with President Trump is “not good history” and a sign of weakness. Auslin argued that China uses the vague fear of war to deter America from taking action on any issue, and Xi repeating it signals that China’s ideology is “stale.” “It’s actually funny – it’s very retro,” he said. “Xi has nothing new to say.” President Xi told the ceremony welcoming Trump to China: “The world has come to a new crossroads. Can China and the United States overcome the Thucydides Trap and create a new paradigm of major-country relations? Can we meet global challenges together and provide more stability for the world?” “He uses it because it’s a tool to freeze the Americans in place by raising the fear that we’re going to stumble into war. They do that over everything,” Auslin said. “They’ve done it for a very long time over economics.” “That’s why they say we can’t impose sanctions for anything, be it Uyghurs or illegal dumping, support for Taiwan.” “Almost every historian I know and respect has thrown the Thucydides Trap idea out the window,” Auslin said. “It’s not good history. It’s slick, and it doesn’t really say anything. It also misreads the period.” “It’s so 2010s. There’s got to be something new that he could have come up with, and he didn’t, which means to me, ideologically, he’s running on fumes.” “China has enormous troubles,” Auslin said. “They seem to be always five years away from overtaking us in chip technology. Five years ago, it was five years away. Ten years ago, it was five years away.” “It’s Groundhog Day,” he said. “It’s always, don’t make it worse. You have too much to lose.” “I think that what Trump does really worries them. And by the way, whatever you think about the war in Iran – anything about it – if I were the Chinese, I’d be really worried by it,” Auslin said. “I’m talking about the projection of power … Their military cannot do what our military can if we decide we need to do it.” Auslin also discussed his new book, National Treasure: How the Declaration of Independence Made America. Read an excerpt featured on RCP’s “America 250” series.
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