Escaping Thucydides’s Trap

The book raises the question of how relations between the US and China will unfold is one of the most consequential of the 21st century. In the past decade, perhaps no thinker has had a greater influence on how this question is understood in both the US and China than eminent Harvard scholar Graham Allison, who developed the idea of the Thucydides Trap to warn of the risk of war erupting between a rising power and a ruling power in the power transition process. This book presents a comprehensive collection of Allison’s views and writings on US-China relations from 2017 to 2022, covering a range of topics including the balance of power between the two sides, where the relationship is headed, and lessons from history on how conflict can be avoided. The book is presented in an accessible Q&A format and draws on interviews, articles, and reports, as well as dialogues between Professor Allison andDr. Huiyao Wang from the Center for China and Globalization (CCG), a non-governmental think tank based in Beijing. The book also includes an introduction and afterword by Dr. Huiyao Wang, CCG president and editor of this volume. Huiyao Wang Ph.D. is the Founder and President of CCG, a former Counselor of China State Council and Dean of the Institute of Development Studies at China’s Southwestern University of Finance and Economics.