The Brooklyn Rail

“Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.”
—Immanuel Kant

“’Tis education forms the common mind; Just as the twig is bent, the tree’s inclined.”
—Alexander Pope

“Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.”
—Commonly attributed to Confucius

The ancient Greek historian Thucydides explained that what led to the Peloponnesian War was the fear that the preeminent power Sparta had of the growing power of Athens. In our own time, we are mindful of what Graham Allison has referred to as the “Thucydides trap,” evoking what appears to be an identical occurrence applied to the recently intensifying geopolitical tension between the US and China. From this perspective, we ask ourselves whether the decline of the US as a dominant ruling power and the rise of China as a competing power will consequently lead to another hot war—which would absolutely lead to our planet Earth quickly being perished.

When we acknowledge that never before in human history have there been two political powers of similar size, scale, and economic and military capabilities confronting each other as the US and China now are, we realize the special relevance of George L. Kennan’s most enduring concept—his policy of containment, which held that the US should always realize that the greatest danger we face would be “that we allow ourselves to become like those with whom we are coping.” This aptly meant that as a counter friction against Soviet communism, we must not become like them, adopt any of their methods, or compromise our constitution and our freedom.

In thinking of President Trump’s recent two-day state summit in Beijing on May 14 and 15, I can’t help but think of how amazingly fragile and true are the words that separate things, as the great Persian poet Omar Khayyám once declared: “A Hair perhaps divides the False and True— / And upon what, prithee, may life depend?” What we have been witnessing in the recent, profound conflict of polar interests between the US as a free, open society versus China as a closed, secretive society has made us rethink how to deploy the best possible strategy and the most effective mediation as a potential solution to avoid all possible unintended and perverse consequences. This is to say: we must focus on the logic of geopolitics rather than be distracted by endless spectacles of noise.

We recall how China was once the junior partner to Russia (former Soviet Union) for most of the Cold War, until its critical turning point in 1981, when the China Communist Party (CCP) abandoned Maoist orthodoxy in favor of Deng Xiaoping’s application of the “Reform and Opening-Up” policy. This implied that China had already begun to experiment with and explore the West’s market-oriented concepts. From the dismantlement of past ideological emphasis on agricultural communes to mandating the “one-child” policy, among other household responsibilities, China has patiently mobilized, albeit slowly, its Special Economic Zones while simultaneously rebuilding the People’s Liberation Army to its maximum capability. Again, whether led by Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao or Xi Jinping, the CCP’s ritual of passing on the baton of leadership is no small feat, as it has been consistently and judiciously disciplined. On the contrary, ever since the Clinton Doctrine “From Containment to Enlargement” was set in motion in 1993, US governance regarding China has been far less introspective. Now that China has become the senior partner of Russia, and its rising power is now inevitable, we should remind ourselves of the following: the US, like ancient Athens, is a dominant maritime power; China, like Sparta, is a land-based power. While the US has been complacently reigning as the sole superpower since the collapse of the Soviet Union, China has been steadily amassing its great strength both economically and politically. The question is: how reliable is Russia to China as a partner-in-crime—as Syracuse was to Sparta?

How will we undertake the issue of our security at this especially tense moment in time so that it is mutually beneficial to both the US and China, without falling into the Thucydides trap? As we have observed, the Trump administration made two fatal miscalculations: first, by sending forth constant insults to our European allies (initiated by Vice President JD Vance’s infamous speech at the Munich Security Conference last year); second, by naïvely thinking that the success of removing Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela could be similarly applied to Iran after the assassination of its Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The results are clearly evident in the way our allies are no longer willing to support our aggression against Iran, not to mention how President Trump uncharacteristically tried to subdue himself to acknowledge Xi’s more emotionally, formally controlled demeanor; it is as if he finally saw how Xi has been transformed from a domesticated cat into a fearsome tiger. So it is wise for us to learn how to collaborate with China instead of trying to stop its rise, for China can no longer be stopped. Equally importantly: as we, the human species, live on this increasingly fragile and interdependent planet Earth, our foremost priority as human beings should be focusing on how to mutually collaborate on climate change and other impending crises, rather than engaging in this geopolitical chess game of one-upmanship.

Here is our message to any US President from here onward, to anyone who seeks election by our people to become a leader of this amazing country: he, she, or they must be able to stand up to China while getting along with China. Whatever diplomatic approaches have worked or failed in the past—from paradiplomacy, shuttle diplomacy, and transformational diplomacy to ping-pong and bamboo diplomacy, and so on—we urgently need to create a new diplomatic approach that involves both human and cultural capital; one without the other will never succeed.

Onward, upward with love, courage, and cosmic optimism as ever,

Phong H. Bui

P.S. This issue is dedicated to the profound contributions Georg Baselitz (1938–2026), Valie Export (1940–2026), and Mary Lovelace O’Neal (1942–2026) made to our culture of hard-won freedom. Through their remarkable lives and works, the respective alchemies they fearlessly explored elevated their chosen mediums and materials to great heights. We’re grateful to our film editor Laura Jane Valenza and our poetry editor Erica Hunt for their brilliant labor of love, which fed abundant nutrients to our living organism. We enthusiastically welcome Payton McCarty-Simas and Weiting Liu as our film co-editors, and Alice Quinn and Oana Nicola as poetry co-editors. Meanwhile, we are thrilled to welcome our new friend Carol Polakoff, the independent film producer/writer/director extraordinaire, to the Rail’s Patrons Council. Lastly, we thank Christine Kuan, who has stepped down from the Rail’s Board of Directors after having brilliantly served for the last two years to put forth greater focus and energy on leading the phenomenal Creative Capital.