Although these considerations indicate that China’s rise should be relatively peaceful,
defensive realists allow for the possibility that domestic political considerations might
cause Beijing to act in strategically foolish ways. After all, they recognize that Imperial
Germany, Imperial Japan, and Nazi Germany made ill-advised runs at hegemony. But
they maintain that the behaviour of those great powers was motivated by domestic
political pathologies, not sound strategic logic. While that may be true, it leaves open the
possibility that China might follow a similar path, in which case its rise will not be
peaceful.