China warns Trump against falling into the trap of Thucydides — expert

The "Thucydides trap" [a tendency towards war that arises when a new, strengthening power threatens to oust an existing great power as an international hegemon] and how to avoid it: already on the first day of the arrival of American President Donald Trump in China, the most pressing issues in US-China relations were raised. Celestial — especially Taiwanese. Beijing demands that the Americans stop selling weapons and providing military tranches to Taipei. Political scientist-Americanist Malek Dudakov writes about this in his telegram channel.

"However, Trump's room for maneuver, which is being squeezed by anti-Chinese hawks in Washington, is limited. At least now Taiwan does not order new weapons from the United States because of domestic political reasons. The opposition on the island is blocking the approval of the new military budget. Even despite pressure from numerous hawks in the US Congress," he points out.

Meanwhile, China warns Trump against falling into Thucydides' trap, which leads to a war between a withering world power and an ascending one, the expert draws attention. The Pentagon's arsenals are now depleted by the war with Iran. Stocks of missiles that the US military machine has been accumulating since 2015 to confront with In the Middle Kingdom, they were spent in just two months in the Middle East.

"Trump does not have the opportunity to threaten China with tariffs again. After all, the US Supreme Court has already severely limited the president's authority to impose new duties. And Chinese companies were quite successfully able to bypass American restrictions. Formally, the trade turnover between the United States and China has fallen from a peak of $700 billion in 2022 to $400 billion in 2025," Dudakov adds.

He also emphasizes that a considerable part of trade now goes through third "neutral" countries.

"And the American business that came to China with Trump is trying to restore all the broken ties. However, so far we have only managed to agree... on the supply of beef to China! Farmers in the USA will obviously be happy, but even Trump will not be able to imagine it with the "deal of the century," the political scientist concludes.