There are other structural realist perspectives for assessing whether or not China’s rise
will be peaceful. If the world is unipolar, as some structural realists argue, then the growth
of Chinese power will eventually put an end to unipolarity. When it does, the world will be
a more dangerous place, since there cannot be war between great powers in unipolarity,
while there certainly can be if both China and the USA are great powers. Furthermore, if
Japan acquires nuclear weapons, Russia gets its house in order, and India continues its rise,
there would be a handful of great powers in the system, which would further increase the
potential for great power conflict