My comment: The path is well trodden. The reasons I bring this essay to your attention are as follows.
(a) "Never before in history has a great power risen so fast, and in so many different spheres, as the China we see today. In three short decades, the backwards farming nation of both presidents' childhoods has become the world's largest manufacturer and largest trader."
(i) In my view, "backwards" is an adjective, not an adverb. As an adjective, it is always "backward" (without "s" at the end) -- in both British English and American English. Only as an adverb MAY (but does not have to) "backward" end with an "s." See
backwards (adv): "mainly UK (US usually backward)" http://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/backwards
(ii) I say the above after reviewing Oxforddictionaries.com also.
(b)
(i) The essay in the first sentence quotes President Obama as saying, "The United States welcomes the rise of a China that is peaceful, stable, prosperous and a responsible player in global affairs."
Remarks by President Obama and President Xi of the People's Republic of China at Arrival Ceremony. White House, Sept 25, 2015 (9:22 am, at South Lawn of White House) https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-p ... ublic-china-arrival
(paragraph 4 of Obama’s remarks)
(ii) The essay then quotes president Xi Jinping as saying, "There is no such thing as the so-called Thucydides trap in the world. But should major countries time and again make the mistakes of strategic miscalculation, they might create such traps for themselves."
(A) I just learn that in PRC there is no website for the office of the president (as in Taiwan) or for the presidential building (as WhiteHouse.gov). The website of PRC’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) does not have the transcript. Instead it is found in
习近平在华盛顿州当地政府和美国友好团体联合欢迎宴会上的演讲（全文） Full text: Xi Jinping's speech on China-US relations in Seattle. China.org.cn, Sept 24, 2015. http://www.china.org.cn/chinese/2015-09/24/content_36672625.htm
(B) The event is what MOFA describes as “Xi Jinping Attends and Addresses Welcome Banquet Co-hosted by Washington State Government and Friendly Groups of the US (2015-09-23).”
(C) The quotation (“世界上本无’修昔底德陷阱，’ 但大国之间一再发生战略误判，就可能自己给自己造成 ‘修昔底德陷阱’ ”) appears two thirds down the text, in the paragraph that starts with “第一” or “First.”
作者: choi 时间: 9-26-2015 12:41
(c) Thucydides Trap
(i) pronunciation: Thucydides www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/thucydides
(ii) Thucydides was distinguished for his History of the Peloponnesian War. He ended the writing at 411 BC.
(iii) Peloponnesian War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peloponnesian_War
(431–404 BC; between Athens (and its applies) and Sparta (and its allies)
(iv) Peloponnese https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peloponnese
is a peninsula. Its corresponding adjective is "Peloponnesian."
(v)
(A) Graham T Allison https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_T._Allison
(1940- ; is professor at the John F Kennedy School of Government at Harvard; "He coined the phrase Thucydides Trap where a rising power causes fear in an established power which escalates toward war. Thucydides wrote: "What made war inevitable was the growth of Athenian power and the fear which this caused in Sparta."")
(B) This is the first time the term appeared:
David E Sanger, Superpower and Upstart: Sometimes It Ends Well. New York Times, Jan 23, 2011 (in the Sunday section Week in Review)
("Both Mr Hu [Jintao, who was visiting Washington DC] and President Obama seemed desperate to avoid what Graham Allison of Harvard University has labeled 'the Thucydides Trap' — that deadly combination of calculation and emotion that, over the years, can turn healthy rivalry into antagonism or worse")