Dhaka, May 15 -- As Xi Jinping and Donald Trump began their much-talked about summit in Beijing on Thursday, the Chinese president announced, in his opening remarks: "The world has come to another crossroads."

He then posed the question: "Can China and the United States transcend the so-called 'Thucydides's trap', and forge a new paradigm for major-power relations?"

Thucydides was an ancient Athenian historian and military commander, who wrote a history of the Peloponnesian War in ancient Greece, a decades long conflict that erupted between Athens and Sparta in 431BC.

Trump says looking forward to hosting Xi in Washington, D.C.

In foreign policy commentary, the 'Thucydides's trap' (or simply Thucydides trap) refers to the idea that wh...