• What are the strategic consequences of China's rapid economic development over the past forty years?

• What led to the change in the post-war balance of power?

• How likely is a war between China and the US today?

To address these critical questions, many analysts invoke the timeless wisdom of Thucydides. Unfortunately, the recent misinterpretation popularly known as "the Thucydides Trap" has led analysts and politicians to seemingly logical but erroneous comparisons between the Peloponnesian War and contemporary Sino-American relations.

This work seeks to deconstruct the reasoning behind the "Thucydides Trap," which is erroneously based on the logic of inevitable escalation. At the same time, by following the complex reasoning of a Thucydidean approach, it presents 7 critical strategic analogies for Sino-American relations.

Athanasios Platis is a Professor of Strategy at the University of Piraeus. He has served as Dean of the School of Economics, Business, and International Studies, Chair of the Department of International and European Studies, and Director of the Master's Program in International and European Studies. He holds a degree in Public Law and Political Science (with honors) from the Law School of the University of Athens and a Ph.D. in International Relations and Strategic Studies from the Department of Government at Cornell University. He has been a Ford Foundation Fellow at the Center for Science and International Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, a Research Fellow at the Peace Studies Program, Cornell University, a Research Fellow at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs, and a MacArthur Fellow in International Peace and Security at MIT and Harvard University. He has authored a large number of books and articles.

His written work falls primarily into six thematic categories:

• Strategy: History and Theory
• International Relations Theory
• Geopolitics and Geo-economics
• International Security
• American Grand Strategy
• Greek Foreign and Defense Policy

Vasileios Trigkas is a visiting assistant professor of international politics at the Schwarzman College of Tsinghua University in Beijing. He has served as a research fellow at the New Silk Road strategy center and at the European Studies center of Tsinghua University, a visiting researcher at Columbia University in New York City, and a young leader & non-resident fellow at the Pacific Forum CSIS. He has also worked at the EU diplomatic mission in the US and at the Carnegie – Tsinghua Center for Global Policy in Beijing.

A graduate of the Athens University of Economics and Business (AUEB), he holds a master's degree in Chinese foreign policy and a Ph.D. in international relations from Tsinghua University as a scholarship recipient of the Onassis Foundation. He has published in renowned academic journals (Journal of Contemporary China, Chinese Journal of International Politics, Political Science Quarterly, Global Policy) as well as in collective volumes (Bristol University Press, Springer, Palgrave) on the following themes:

• Chinese Grand Strategy
• Sino-American Relations
• International Relations Theory
• Geopolitics and Geo-economics