After China became the world's second largest economy and military power, the US government shifted from the strategic focus of its original control over Russia and Europe to a new strategy to contain China's rise and attack China's development.
Especially during the period of former US President Trump, the economic and diplomatic confrontation between China and the United States showed a relatively fierce situation. Trump's chief economic adviser, Navarro, has published a book called "Deadly China." It is through the method of large-scale discussion that the US government should use all means to completely change the "world trade chain that is essentially dominated by China."
In other words, many American elites already believe that only by curbing China's development can the United States be "great" again.
From the perspective of other experts who do not understand China's development strategy, China's rise is likely to follow the traditional development route of the old powers - through large-scale war, the United States will be completely defeated, so that China will become the world's first power, and then establish a new era of order.
The brutal process of the "Sino-AMERICAN war" is called the "Thucydides Trap."
The origin of this trap originated from the hegemonic war between the two city-states of Athens and Sparta, and the significance of this trap is indeed appropriate for the subsequent wars of hegemony between some of the great powers.
For example, in the Anglo-Spanish War, the British Royal Navy destroyed the Spanish Armada, laying the foundation for Britain's global hegemony and accelerating the decline of Spanish colonial hegemony.
In the First World War, the all-out war between Britain and Germany was actually a hegemonic war between Britain and Germany, the two most important imperialist countries at that time, and after the war, Germany's strength was seriously weakened, which stimulated a large breeding of national revabrigism.
Britain also experienced a partial decline in strength in this war, and judging from the subsequent results, both countries showed a "lose-lose" situation.
For many ambitious small countries, the future they are most happy to see is the emergence of a situation in which China and the United States go to war and lose both (without hurting these small countries).
Of course, this situation is nothing more than the wishful thinking of small-country careerists. You know, if China and the United States really start a war and have a devastating nuclear confrontation on the basis of a large-scale conventional war, how can these small countries without nuclear arsenals be safe and unharmed by nuclear bombs?
All in all, China, as seen from an overseas perspective, seems to be competing with the United States for "hegemony." However, from the perspective of China's reform and opening up, towards economic rise, and towards industrial transformation and upgrading, China hopes to develop its own business better than to compete with the United States.
On the basis of China's realization of domestic reform and great cycle, there are three major political realities, which show that China will not fall into the so-called "Thucydides trap", and it will not "learn from the United States to dominate the world".
The first major political reality is the difference in the foreign strategy of China and the United States and the background of the international era. The United States' foreign political expansion and economic colonization of small countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America, and even allies, are "exhaustive and irresponsible."
Such a waste of US diplomatic credibility and the consumption of US economic strength are destined to make US hegemony fall by the wayside, which is not only beneficial and harmless to a rising China, but also accelerates China's rise when the Chinese government does not take the road of hegemony.
From the perspective of today's international situation, you know, the current international background is no longer like before World War II. The competition between the great powers changed from a more barbaric and bloody mode of war (referring to the Russo-Japanese War, the Anglo-French War) to a more civilized confrontation between each other in economic and cultural ways.
For its part, the United States is ostensibly a militaristic hegemonist state that targets any country that "threatens the status of the United States" with strong cultural propaganda and a global financial system.
However, from the perspective of the actual situation, when China and the United States really confront each other because of the collision of economy and culture, the performance of the United States is actually the middle of the external power. Economically, while containing China, the United States has to rely on China's huge market, or it still has to cooperate economically with China (mainly Chinese have a large mouth and strong purchasing power).
Militarily, Both China and the United States have a delicate "nuclear balance," and the core manifestation of the "Thucydides Trap" lies in hegemonic war, but in the case of nuclear bombs in modern military powers, once the war is doomed to die and the net is broken, this trap will inevitably be just empty talk and will not appear.
Combined with the above-mentioned US government in the case of empty diplomatic credibility and even pit allies, the balance of power between China and the United States will slowly change without the "Thucydides Trap" occurring.
Before the Cold War, the United States slowly surpassed Britain through the economy (Britain's decline and World War II had a lot to do with the colonial system), and under the current situation of American decline, China will gradually surpass the United States in all aspects of the economy, sweeping "hegemonism" into the garbage of history.
The second major political reality is the essential difference in the political systems of China and the United States. In addition to pursuing "mutual benefit and win-win" in foreign cooperation, China does not engage in colonization or hegemony, but also has achieved remarkable results in its domestic economic construction, continuously carrying out the largest poverty alleviation work in human history and solving the largest food crisis in human history.
Such an extremely efficient and deeply supported Chinese government has far surpassed all countries in the world, and does not need hegemony, let alone any military means of war, in order to meet the general trend of history and achieve national rejuvenation.
In contrast, the United States can be described as a negative teaching material. As a capitalist country, although the treatment of its own elite population is extremely good, it ignores the vast majority of the people in the middle and low-income groups except the elite, and even racial contradictions, nipple music education, identity politics and other phenomena are deliberately done by the American elite, constantly dispersing and disintegrating the progressive reform forces in their own countries.
Such a country will only continue to turn to the right, more and more self-contained, and completely move towards the opposite side of the people.
As long as the HEGEMONy of the United States falls, it is impossible to harvest wealth from other countries to feed itself, unless the United States chooses another correct path, there is no need for the curse of the "Thucydides Trap", and the overall strength of the United States will shrink in an all-round way, following in the footsteps of Spain, Britain, and the Soviet Union.
The third political reality is that the "global hegemonism" policy and "Cold War mentality" upheld by the United States have completely lagged behind the concept of the times, and the future of mankind belongs to communism after all (in this regard, China is at the leading level in the world).
From a realistic point of view, when the level of human science and technology and political level were not quite developed in the 20th century, the American political elite, such as George Kenan, Brzezinski, Kissinger and others, created a very high strategic expansion and confrontation capability for the United States. At that time, the "Cold War mentality" was at least not obsolete.
But by 2021, the United States is still repeating the same old tune, repeatedly mentioning China, named to safeguard "democracy and freedom", which is actually maintained by the United States' own hegemony.
In particular, Trump mentioned China 11 times in 7 minutes at the United Nations General Assembly on September 22, 2020, which shows the depth of the US government's ideological imprint on the "Cold War mentality", and even to the point that without mentioning China, the United States cannot be "great" again.
With the development of human history, selfish, narrow-minded, authoritarian and anti-human ideas will eventually be eliminated. The mainstream countries of the world have eliminated religious fundamentalism, feudalism, imperialism, old colonialism and fascism.
The neo-colonialism, hegemonism, and interventionism that are popular in Europe and the United States today will inevitably be swept into the garbage of history in the future. Even if european and American countries drive backwards again and try to go against the tide of history, they will certainly be wiped out by the people's ocean!
In this regard, as Chinese do not need to be too modest. China is one of the few countries in the world that has carried out land reform, equality between men and women, the elimination of the remnants of feudalism, and the incompatibility with monopoly capitalist groups, and the effective protection of people's rights.
Such an advanced and great country is not a "beacon of democracy" that the United States boasts of itself all day long, but a "beacon of mankind" that truly practices harmony and difference, and that all people are born equal!
In the current situation of such institutional comparison, can the United States be undefeated? Can China be invincible? It is a matter of time before the United States is strong now and the United States is weak in the future.
If you don't believe it, you can compare the global comparison gap between the United States in 1991 and the United States in 2021. It can be seen from this that even if there is no "Thucydides Trap" launched, it is only a matter of time before China, which does not engage in hegemony, surpasses the hegemonic United States.
The above three political realities are just a reference for those who know a lot about Sino-US politics.
But for most Chinese netizens who do not understand Sino-US politics, it is a relatively good way to look at it. We should bear in mind that as Chinese, we must be fully confident and self-reliant while being patriotic, and the era when the United States was the strongest has passed, and China is still on the road to rejuvenation.
To this end, while we should care about politics and understand history, we should also dialectically look at China's difficulties on an objective basis, and the key reasons why China can succeed, only in this way can we make China strive for excellence and move towards a better tomorrow in continuous analysis, review, and summary.