That Thucydides Trap again

Does China have to inevitably face confrontation from the US and seek domination over India?

It is almost de-rigueur in contemporary professional commentary on relations between major powers to refer to Thucydides’ history of the Peloponnesian war. This “war” took place in the 5th century BC between the Greek city-states of Athens and Sparta, and Thucydides lived in Athens around 500 BC. Athens was the established military power and was challenged by a rising Sparta. Eventually, Sparta prevailed over Athens with the help of the Persians. It is conceivable that Athens did not anticipate Sparta’s ambitions and growing strength in time.

An inference from the Peloponnesian war for current great power rivalry is the antagonistic US posture towards China, aimed at preventing the latter from rising further. Perhaps, China’s aggressive military moves along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) are meant to signal that it is capable of holding India back. Although India could score self-goals, it may be able to quadruple its per capita income in hard currency terms in the next 20 years. It appears from China’s behaviour that it is uncomfortable with this potential of a plural and democratic India achieving greater economic weight. Possibly, there is a sense among the Chinese elite and occasionally in ruling circles in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) that a model of centralised government control would be better justified if democratic India’s progress up the economic ladder is slow and fitful.

In the 5th century BC, the population of Athens was 350,000-500,000 and that of Sparta around 50,000. In that era, there were significant military powers within the Indian sub-continent and China, each with overall populations of about 25 million. In recent centuries, most parts of Asia were overwhelmed or colonised by the West using their scientific and military prowess. The first half of the 20th century witnessed the inability of European nations to get along with each other’s rise and the Cold War was due to the US establishment’s paranoia about the rise of the Soviet Union and spread of communism. Nowadays, discussions about the stand-off between the US and China often cite the so-called Thucydides Trap, which is the inevitability of conflict between an established power and an ambitious rival. Asians need to shed mindsets that are suffused with reading about hostilities between European city-states in the distant past or by the two World Wars and the Cold War of the 20th century.

In the 21st century, China has caught up with the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) member countries militarily and, to an extent, in per capita income terms as well. As for India, it is more self-assured than it was just two decades ago. According to The Economist dated April 15, 2023, “the 25 largest non-aligned economies, or the transactional-25, are defined as those which have not imposed sanctions on Russia, or have said they wish to be neutral in the Sino-American contest. Together they account for 45 per cent of the world’s population and their share of global gross domestic product (GDP) has risen from 11 per cent when the Berlin Wall fell to 18 per cent today.” Low per capita income countries need to draw lessons from periods of prosperity in their past rather than be convinced by parallels drawn from the writings of Thucydides to take sides against Russia. Similarly, China too may be persuaded not to perceive India as a future economic and even military rival.

Western commentators are correct in pointing out that Vladimir Putin has held Russia back through his short-sighted economic policies of over-dependence on the export of fossil fuels and minerals. However, it should have been possible for Western multinational companies to set up production facilities in Russia, in the decades prior to the military conflict in Ukraine. The more populated parts of Russia are physically closer to Europe than China and lower transportation costs could have outweighed Russia’s higher labour costs. All things considered, the Western media’s reports on President Putin’s dictatorial control over Russia appear to be factually correct. However, when the West faults Russia over its military incursion into Ukraine, it does not reflect enough upon the consequences of interventionist decisions of past US presidents such as George W Bush and UK Prime Minister Anthony Blair. US military interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Yemen have led to the deaths of over half a million nationals of these countries. The numbers of those killed or wounded are available on the Brown University website:https://watson.brown. edu/ costsofwar/ figures/2021/WarDeathToll.

China’s considerable current global clout is evident from how it quietly brokered a rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia and the French President Emmanuel Macron’s conciliatory remarks on Taiwan during his 5-8 April 2023 visit to China. For its part, India has made the West uneasy by not joining forces against Russia. At the same time, India needs the West to dilute China’s moves to retard its rise. The West may favour India selectively, but only to balance out communist China in Asia.

Last month, “All Quiet on the Western Front” won the Oscar for the best international feature film. The images in this film of the bloody death of young men in muddy trenches during the first World War were a gruesome reminder of the horrors of armed conflict. It may be a cry in the wilderness to ask the West to stop trying to break up Russia. Possibly, the US-led West has an interest in a potential breakup of Russia to gain easier access to that country’s vast natural resources. Similarly, China snarling and sniping on the border with India is part of a pattern to get India to “kow-tow”, as is done by several Asian nations. This antiquated thinking in influential circles around the world about the inevitability of conflict between established and rising powers should be debunked. 

j.bhagwati@gmail.com. The writer is a former Indian ambassador, head of market risk in the World Bank, and currently a distinguished fellow at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress