I like Mearsheimer, but his positions on China come from a fucked lens that will not put him in a goodlight, among all the shit he's been completely correct on.
Mearsheimer says China could not rise peacefully.
But the comments got to the real question:
China already rose peacefully.
It did not bomb its way into the world’s second-largest economy.
It did not build 800 overseas military bases.
It did not sanction half the planet.
It did not invade, assassinate, regime-change, and call it “order.”
China rose through factories, ports, railways, power grids, shipyards, engineers, workers, and decades of national discipline.
The real question is not whether China can rise peacefully.
It already did.
The question is whether America can decline peacefully.
And that is where the real danger begins.