The tensions between China and the US have reached new levels. Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan could turn out to be the equivalent of the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, the trigger of World War I. But a war between the two countries over Taiwan would be unwinnable, leaving both sides deeply wounded. What is needed is the rebuilding of trust between the two superpowers, writes Robert A. Manning.

Are the US and China stumbling into the Thucydides trap, so named for the ancient Greek historian’s account of the Peloponnesian war between the then leading power, Sparta, which feared a rising power, Athens?