Historian Wang Gungwu on US credibility and why Xi thinks ‘only the party can save China’

The 95-year-old sinologist gives his take on the superpower rivalry, the US advantage and Taiwan, and explains why the past is so important

Professor Wang Gungwu is regarded internationally as an authority on Chinese history. The 95-year-old is best known for his explorations of Chinese history in the long view, and for his writings on the Chinese diaspora. He has been a professor at the National University of Singapore since 2007 and emeritus professor at the Australian National University since 1988. He was vice-chancellor of the University of Hong Kong from 1986 to 1995.

This interview first appeared in

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The

US-China rivalry

is now quite prominent on the world stage. Do you think these two countries are facing the Thucydides Trap? How do you see their rivalry unfolding?

At one level, it is really similar to the United States and Soviet Union Cold War because both have nuclear weapons.

The question of having to fight one another and the possibility of using nuclear weapons makes it unlikely that they will fight each other. Fighting through proxies would be the same as during the Cold War.

I think military strategists would think that the way to deal with the situation when there’s US and China rivalry is to have another Cold War, and for the US to use the same methods that they used to destroy the Soviet Union.

They would destroy the China threat in the sense of undermining its power. If they can do that without fighting, that would be ideal because fighting is dangerous.