Chairman Zheng Bijian met with Prof. Graham Allison of Harvard University, author of Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap？ at CIIDS on December 20th, 2017. The two sides exchanged views on strategies for future Sino-US relations.

Chairman Zheng observed that Sino-US relations are now at a critical historical juncture that calls for correct assessments by both countries of each other's strategic intention. China unswervingly adheres to the peaceful rise, a road of development by which China independently builds socialism with Chinese characteristics in the process of integrating with and not separating from the economic globalisation. Over the past forty years, the China-US relations have made historical progress despite ups and downs. As Mr. Deng Xiaoping pointed out, "in the final analysis, the China-US relations must get better". The argument that China and the US are "destined for war" does not hold water. I believe that the ultimate way out is to expand the convergence of interests in various areas and build communities of interests between our two countries so as to consolidate the foundation and improve our relations continuously.

Prof. Graham Allison said that he agrees with President Xi's idea of a new form of major-country relations between China and the US. However, this new form of relations does not happen naturally. Instead, it happens as a result of energetic and imaginative actions by both countries. The objective of his Thucydides Trap theory is in fact to stimulate both China and the US to such actions, thus avoiding the danger of falling into the Trap. In this sense, his Thucydides Trap theory and Chairman Zheng's Peaceful Rise doctrine do not contradict but complement each other.

Harvard professor Dr. Fred Hu and former Deputy Director of the General Administration of Press and Publication and member of CIIDS Academic Committee Mr. Wu Shulin attended the meeting.