Name: 【TED】Graham Allison: Is war between China and the US inevitable? (Is war between China and the US inevitable? | Graham Allison)
Uploaded: 2018-11-20T21:29:09.000Z
Duration: 18 min 44 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

So, let me thank you for the opportunity to talk about

the biggest international story of your professional lifetime,

which is also the most important international challenge

the world will face for as far as the eye can see.

The story, of course, is the rise of China.

Never before have so many people risen so far so fast,

The challenge is the impact of China's rise --

the discombobulation this will cause the Unites States

of which the US has been the principal architect and guardian.

The past 100 years have been what historians now call an "American Century."

Americans have become accustomed to their place

that could be as big and strong as the US -- or bigger --

strikes many Americans as an assault on who they are.

For perspective on what we're now seeing in this rivalry,

it's useful to locate it on the larger map of history.

in which a rising power threatened to displace a ruling power.

So just in November, we'll all pause to mark the 100th anniversary

of the final day of a war that became so encompassing,

that it required historians to create an entirely new category: world war.

I know that this is a sophisticated audience,

I'm going to focus, therefore, on the impact of China's rise,

But having taught at Harvard over many years,

I've learned that from time to time, it's useful to take a short pause,

just to make sure we're all on the same page.

I give students a pop quiz -- ungraded, of course.

forty years ago, 1978, China sets out on its march to the market.

At that point, what percentage of China's one billion citizens

were struggling to survive on less than two dollars a day?

Nine out of every 10 on less than two dollars a day.

And China's president has promised that within the next three years,

those last tens of millions will have been raised up

So it's a miracle, actually, in our lifetime.

But brute facts are even harder to ignore.

A nation that didn't even appear on any of the international league tables

to rival -- and in some areas, surpass -- the United States.

Thus, the challenge that will shape our world:

accelerating towards an apparently immovable ruling US,

on course for what could be the grandest collision in history.

To help us get our minds around this challenge,

I'm going to introduce you to a great thinker,

and I'm going to pose a most consequential question.

and some people have trouble pronouncing it.

So, let's do it, one, two, three, together:

He was the father and founder of history.

It's titled "The History of the Peloponnesian War,"

So if nothing else today, you can tweet your friends,

And I can even pronounce his name: Thucydides."

So, about this war that destroyed classical Greece,

"It was the rise of Athens and the fear that this instilled in Sparta

"Thucydides's Trap" is a term I coined several years ago,

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【TED】Graham Allison: Is war between China and the US inevitable? (Is war between China and the US inevitable? | Graham Allison)

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