China's Road Under 'Thucydides Trap' -Asia-Pacific regional strategy

As the two most important powers in the world, the relationship between China and the United States has always been in the spotlight. China overtook Japan to become the world's second-largest economy in 2010, raising concerns in the US about its dominance. With the increase of China's comprehensive national strength and the improvement of its international status, the international community has begun to look to the East and ask a series of questions: What kind of development path will China choose? How will an increasingly powerful China respond to the existing international order? What impact does China's development have on world peace? For the United States, from the Asia-Pacific rebalancing strategy of the Obama administration to the Indo-Pacific strategy of the Trump administration, the hope is to maintain the current order. China is committed to the construction of One Belt And One Road, and among which the Chinese dominated RECP excludes the United States. All of these factors make the conflicts between China and the United States in the Asia-Pacific region increasingly heated. As the relationship between China and the United States has changed from a relationship between an ordinary power and a superpower to that between a rising power and an established power, the issue of order has increasingly become an important field of competition between the two countries. On one hand, the absolute power gap between China and the United States is significant on a global scale, but with China's development, the gap is narrowing and threatens the United States. On the other hand, Asia-Pacific has become the main venue of power competition between China and the United States, and the trend to bipolarity is obvious. With these observations in mind, this paper will discuss the Asia-Pacific order, its role in sino-US relations, and ultimately the 'Thucydides Trap'. American scholar Graham Allison developed the concept of 'Thucydides Trap', to show that when a rising power challenges the incumbent hegemon, war between the two countries it is the so-called 'iron law' of history, only a few conflicts do not end in war. Whether China and the United States will fall into the 'Thucydides Trap' has become a hot academic issue. However,China and the United States also have a real possibility of transcending the 'Thucydides Trap'. The historical background of the two countries has changed significantly, and there are many favorable factors mitigating the risk of war. Indeed, economic globalization makes the interests of China and the United States deeply intertwined, nuclear deterrence and the balance of power of medium powers also increases the cost of war between the two powers. In the field of order in Asia-Pacific, it not only retains the traditional practice of power struggle among big powers, but also gives birth to the possibility of cooperation and co-governance among big powers. As the focus of competition and cooperation in the current stage of Sino-American relations, Asia-Pacific is not only likely to become a testing ground for the contention between the two nations, but also a meeting point for the expansion of consensus and cooperation. Whether China and the United States should balance or strengthen interaction in the field of Asia-Pacific order will surely have a profound impact on the stability and prosperity of Asia-Pacific and the whole world. Finally, based on the previous studies, this paper analyzes China's own situation and pr