Could the US-China trade row become a global cold war? | Nouriel Roubini

If Donald Trump and Xi Jinping slide into ongoing animosity, the world will pay the price

A few years ago, as part of a western delegation to China, I met Xi Jinping in Beijing's Great Hall of the People. When addressing us, Xi argued that China's rise would be peaceful, and that other countries - namely, the US - need not worry about the "Thucydides trap", so named for the Greek historian who chronicled how Sparta's fear of a rising Athens made war between the two inevitable. In his 2017 book Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides's Trap?, Harvard University's Graham Allison examines 16 earlier rivalries between an emerging and an established power, and finds that 12 of them led to war. No doubt, Xi wanted us to focus on the remaining four.

Despite the mutual awareness of the Thucydides trap - and the recognition that history is not deterministic - China and the US seem to be falling into it anyway. Though a hot war between the world's two major powers still seems far-fetched, a cold war is becoming more likely.

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