New American Perspectives on the “China Threat” Issue. Peter Navarro and the “Thucydides’s Trap”

Since the “China threat” theory was elaborated in the second half of the nineties by some American scholars - according to which China’s economic and military rise poses a threat to global security – the debate on China’s leading role in the international context has remained topical and ongoing. International analysts continue to question whether or not China will become the new superpower capable of supplanting the US. Graham Allison’s recent volume, Destined for War. Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap? (Scribe, 2017), takes up the concept he already expounded in an article published in the «Financial Times» in 2012 and brings these issues again to the attention of international public opinion. So, the aim of this paper is to take a look at the new American perspectives on the “China threat” issue in recent years given that the appointment of some members of the “China threat” school, such as that of Perter Navarro, within the Trump administration, implies a possible change of attitude in the White House’s policies towards relations with China, as the tariffs the President has imposed since March 2018 currently seem to confirm.