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China has Leverage over Iran because it is the Main Buyer of Iranian Energy Exports
Trump and the Chinese Finger Trap
Most investors are far too busy making sense of memory-chip bottlenecks and AI data-center spending to spend time brushing up on Ancient Greek history. But Chinese premier Xi referenced a conflict between Athens and Sparta that took place 2,400 years ago when he met with President Trump in Beijing on Thursday.
Xi asked Trump whether China and the U.S. could "overcome the *** Thucydides Trap." The phrase refers to an academic concept that describes the threat of war that arises when an emerging power challenges an established one. Thucydides was an Athenian historian and general who wrote his History of the Peloponnesian War in the late 5th century B.C. Xi has been using the term for more than a decade, usually to urge the U.S. and China to avoid a similar conflict.
If China uses leverage to press for normalization of the strategic waterway, it will let Trump off the hook at a critical time in the US election cycle. Trump’s big tech donors want the Republican Party to win the November midterm elections so that he can push aside restrictions on AI, data centers, and the hydrocarbons needed to power them. A win now from the Tech sector would set them on a trajectory to long-term power. But the war in Iran is as unpopular today as was, the Iraq War in 2006, and the Vietnam War in the early 1970s, when public opposition was strongest.
The Trump administration said on Tuesday that senior US and Chinese officials had agreed that no country should be able to charge tolls on traffic through the region.China did not dispute that characterization.
As Trump discusses the war with Xi this week, he is widely expected to encourage China to convince Tehran to make a deal with Washington to end the conflict.
The U.S. demands include ending Iran’s nuclear program and lifting its choke hold on the Strait.
Iran has responded with demands of its own, including compensation for war damage, an end to the US blockade, and an end to the war on all fronts, including Lebanon, where US ally Israel is fighting Iran-backed Hezbollah militants.
When Trump meets China’s President Xi, the most urgent item on their agenda will be ending the Iran war and letting ships pass through the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump needs Xi’s help. Whether he gets it, is an open question
*** The Thucydides Trap, describes the dangerous, often violent, structural tension that occurs when a rapidly rising power threatens to displace an established ruling power. It highlights that the fear a dominant power feels about its declining status, combined with the rising power's ambition, frequently leads to unavoidable conflict rather than peaceful coexistence.
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Spotify Podcast/Iran, Taiwan and Trade. Trump’s High Stakes Return to Beijing https://open.spotify.com/episode/3vBsnTsOn5VxwN4nqRQKWu?si=U6SOwRPcRDWjnWa6BK1
https://www.barrons.com/livecoverage/trump-china-us-news/card/what-xi-means-by-the-thucydides-trap--AC3p8o8nbQbiQ1MaTpRC
]https://www.arabnews.jp/en/middle-east/article_170003/
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