Working together to avoid an ancient trap

As I prepared for Sino-US media roundtable events being held in Atlanta and New York this week, the tongue-twisting name of classical Greek historian Thucydides repeatedly struck me.

Early last year, The World Post news website, launched under The Huffington Post, quoted President Xi Jinping as saying, "We all need to work together to avoid the Thucydides trap - destructive tensions between an emerging power and established powers, or between established powers themselves."

The essential danger of the trap is that a new power must challenge an old one, triggering a terrifying clash just like that experienced by Athens and Sparta, in Thucydides' words. The consequences must also be catastrophic, with both countries doomed to decline like the two ancient victims.