At their Beijing summit on May 14, 2026, Chinese President Xi Jinping asked US President Donald Trump whether China and the United States could avoid the “Thucydides Trap,” in which rivalry between a rising power and an established one ends in war. During the talks, Xi also warned that mishandling Taiwan could bring the two countries into conflict. The exchange captured the strategic anxiety of the present moment. China’s rise is measured in factories, patents, artificial intelligence models, naval vessels, infrastructure projects and trade flows.
